Whistleblower alleges White House coverup

A Trump appointee has found himself mired in the center of the controversy surrounding the whistleblower complaint about Trump and Ukraine. Here's what you need to know about Michael Atkinson, the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community.

Who is Atkinson?

Appointed as IC IG by Trump in 2018, Atkinson's long-standing reputation as a straight-shooter with professional integrity has bolstered the legitimacy of the whistleblower complaint despite the President's attempts to paint it as a partisan attack, multiple sources have told CNN.

Why is the IC IG an important player here?

At the end of August, two weeks after Atkinson received the whistleblower's complaint about Trump's July phone call, he notified his superior, the acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire. Atkinson believed it to be a credible complaint and found it worthy to be handled by the intelligence community and referred to Congress under the law.

But instead of routing to Congress, the whistleblower's allegation wound its way across the Justice Department.

How Atkinson dealt with the Department of Justice

Atkinson, who had first heard from the whistleblower, also referred the matter to the Justice Department.

That notification — along with communications from Maguire to Justice's Office of Legal Counsel — kicked off the DOJ's probe of whether there was a possible violation of a campaign finance criminal statute.

Justice's Criminal Division took the lead. Prosecutors obtained the summary transcript of the call from the White House, and prosecutors confirmed with knowledgeable people at the White House that the five-page document was the best evidence available, according to the officials. They did not interview any to gather more facts.

On the day after Labor Day, the Office of Legal Counsel had its answer for Maguire. The whistleblower's complaint shouldn't be considered of "urgent concern" and require disclosure to Congress, Steven Engel, the assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel wrote.

Maguire is defending Atkinson today

During his testimony before the House Intel Committee, the acting spy chief said he believes everything that Atkinson did was lawful and said he intends to ensure that Atkinson can continue "to be able to do his job unfettered."

Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire just said intelligence officials' most important job is protecting US elections.

Maguire added that "we know there are foreign powers trying to get us to question the validity" of our elections.

"So first and foremost, I think protecting the sanctity of our elections, whether it be national, city, state and local is perhaps the most important job we have with the intelligence community," he said.

Speaking to CNN from his room at the Trump International Hotel, Rudy Giuliani said he has "no knowledge of any of that crap" in the newly released complaint from an American intelligence community whistleblower. 

Asked this morning about details from the complaint that multiple US officials were “deeply concerned” about Giuliani’s activities speaking with Ukrainian officials and nationals, Giuliani called the charge “total nonsense.” 

Giuliani refuted claims included in the complaint that two State Department officials had spoken to him to “contain the damage” he was doing to US national security interests regarding his work with Ukraine. “

Giuliani also said he had a “nice little trail” of text message conversations with the top US diplomat to Ukraine, Karl Volker, to prove his story.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi read aloud parts of the public whistleblower complaint during her weekly presser:

"This is a cover up," Pelosi said. "This is a cover up."

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said there is "no rush to judgement" when asked about how House will proceed with the impeachment inquiry into President Trump.

She noted that some in the Democratic caucus want to rush into impeachment, but she added that it’s important to “have an inquiry to further establish the facts.”

Here's how she described it at her weekly news conference:

The House Speaker is talking to reporters now. We will post those key highlights here in moments.

Republicans are keying in to the fact that the whistleblower acknowledges he or she did not have first-hand knowledge of most of the events described.  

The Intelligence Inspector General said he thought the claims were credible and that drove his push to provide Congress the details and refer the matter to the Justice Department for consideration of criminality.

But the public now has a way to test at least part of his claims: His description of the President’s phone call with the leader of Ukraine. By all appearances, his information was spot on. 

The description of the call comprises the first set of claims in the complaint and the whistleblower says he is aware of it because of “White House officials with direct knowledge of the call.”

The whistleblower then goes on to explain what transpired on the July 25 call in details that match up with the White House transcript released just yesterday. 

The whistleblowers' complaint — which was released publicly today — describes key parts of the call: The push to investigate Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, the allegations regarding Crowdstrike and the push to talk to Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr.

A US defense official told CNN that the Pentagon is “compiling all the facts” to be able to respond to Inspector General and members of Congress.

The official said it is still the case that Secretary of Defense Mark Esper’s involvement was limited to the talking points he made in the phone call to counterpart.

According to a senior administration official, the talking points for Esper’s call with his Ukrainian counterpart on September 18 are...

Some background: A group of democratic senators sent a letter yesterday to the Pentagon’s inspector general requesting the IG to investigate President Trump’s delay of military aid to Ukraine and that it was “allegedly at the direction of the White House.” 

Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire said President Trump never asked him to find out the identity of the whistleblower.

Answering a question from Democratic Rep. Jackie Speier, Maguire said:

He added that no one else in the White House or in the Justice Department asked him to do so.