Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson leaves a House Intelligence Committee closed-door hearing on a whistleblower complaint about President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, on Capitol Hill on October 4, 2019.
NICHOLAS KAMM/Getty Images
Another intelligence official with concerns and more knowledge about the situation is analyzing whether to file his own whistleblower complaint regarding President Donald Trump and his relationship with Ukraine, reports the New York Times. The complaint would also come accompanied by his testimony to Congress to share what he knows about the events detailed in the first whistleblower complaint regarding Trump’s efforts to get Ukraine to investigate a political rival.
The Times, which cites two people briefed on the issue, says this second whistleblower “has more direct information about the events” and has already been interviewed by Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson as part of his effort to corroborate the allegations detailed in the first complaint. Atkinson briefed lawmakers behind closed doors Friday about the complaint and it isn’t clear whether he told them about the second official who was considering filing a complaint.
The president has repeatedly blasted the whistleblower as an unreliable partisan. But a new complaint by someone with a more direct knowledge of the events could make it more difficult for Trump and his allies to dismiss the allegations. This is particularly the case considering one of the president’s main arguments against the first whistleblower is that they were only reporting secondhand information.
The president continued his attack on the whistleblower Saturday morning, writing on Twitter that his account of Trump’s “perfect phone call is ‘way off,’ not even close.” He proceeded to characterize the whole thing as a “fraud against the American people!”
Democrats, meanwhile, said Atkinson’s testimony on Friday confirmed why the whistleblower’s account should be trusted. “While we cannot get into the substance, we explored with the IG through documents and testimony the reasons why he found the whistleblower complaint to be both urgent and credible,” Adam Schiff, the chairman of the intelligence committee, said in a statement. “Now that we have all seen the call record, we can see that the IG’s determination was correct in both respects. That call record shows that Trump pressured a foreign leader to interfere in the 2020 election by investigating a political opponent. Those facts cannot be seriously contested.”
Readers like you make our work possible. Help us continue to provide the reporting, commentary and criticism you won’t find anywhere else.
Join Slate Plusfrom Slate Magazine https://ift.tt/2In07CM
via IFTTT
沒有留言:
張貼留言