Nevada reps: Continue investigating whistleblower complaint

WASHINGTON — Nevada’s members of Congress insisted that lawmakers continue to investigate the charges leveled this week by a whistleblower against President Donald Trump, even as the nation’s top intelligence official was grilled by their colleagues at a hearing Thursday.

Nevada’s Democratic House members have come out in favor of an impeachment inquiry after the disclosure that President Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate the son of former Vice President Joe Biden.

Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., the dean of the delegation, said the administration should “allow the whistleblower to testify before Congress as the law requires.”

A Titus spokesman said the complaint provides a roadmap for an impeachment inquiry and describes the tools the White House used to persuade another country to interfere in U.S. elections.

Rep. Mark Amodei, the lone Republican in the Nevada delegation, told KKOH radio in Reno that he does not support an impeachment inquiry until Congress fully investigates the president’s actions involving Ukraine.

Reps. Steven Horsford and Susie Lee, both Democrats in competitive congressional seats, announced their support for an impeachment inquiry this week.

While earlier polls show voters opposed to impeachment, Horsford told the Las Vegas Review-Journal this week that the recent disclosure about the telephone call between Trump and Zelenskiy was above and beyond the special counsel investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

And despite current public opinion, “I’m not making my decision on some poll result,” Horsford said.

Spy chief grilled

The comments came as House Intelligence Committee members grilled acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire about his handling of the whistleblower complaint.

The nine-page complaint, released Thursday, alleged Trump sought to pressure Zelenskiy to investigate Hunter Biden, son of the former vice president, who is the front-runner for the Democratic nomination to challenge Trump in 2020. The complaint also alleged the White House sought to conceal Trump’s actions.

Democrats on the committee asked about why the complaint — originally filed with the inspector general for the U.S. intelligence community — wasn’t immediately shared with the committee, as required by law.

“This case is unique and unprecedented,” Maguire told the committee during the crowded hearing on Capitol Hill.

The complaint was released to House and Senate committees Wednesday evening by the White House, following the disclosure of a rough transcript of the call the White House made public as a defense of its actions.

Trump has insisted there was no wrongdoing and called it another “witch hunt” by Democrats in Congress. The president said the transcript underscores his innocence.

But House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said the release of the transcript and complaint did anything but clear Trump of wrongdoing.

“Yesterday, we were presented with the most graphic evidence yet that the president of the United States betrayed his oath of office,” Schiff said. He compared the president’s telephone call with Zelenskiy to a “mafia shakedown.”

Nunes blames Democrats, media

The ranking Republican on the panel, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., did not defend Trump’s behavior but attacked Democratic motives and chastised leaks to the media about the telephone call that resulted in the hearing.

The Trump administration had halted military aid to Ukraine, and during the call Trump asked Zelenskiy for “a favor” to conduct an investigation into the American cybersecurity company CrowdStrike and Hunter Biden, who held a corporate board seat for a Ukrainian gas company.

The White House said the intelligence whistleblower’s complaint “shows nothing improper.”

Press secretary Stephanie Grisham argued the complaint “is nothing more than a collection of third-hand accounts of events and cobbled-together press clippings.”

Grisham added that Trump released the transcript of his call with Zelenskiy “because he has nothing to hide.”

“The White House will continue to push back on the hysteria and false narratives being peddled by Democrats and many in the mainstream media,” Grisham said.

Secret transcript

The complaint says White House officials tried to suppress the exact transcript of the call that was produced — as is customary — by the White House Situation Room.

The officials told the whistleblower they were “directed” by White House lawyers to remove the electronic transcript from the computer system in which such transcripts are typically stored for coordination, finalization and distribution to Cabinet-level officials.

“This set of actions underscored to me that White House officials understood the gravity of what had transpired in the call,” the report said.

Maguire told the committee he did not submit the complaint to Congress within a required time frame and instead asked the White House counsel to determine whether executive privilege would be asserted.

He repeatedly told the panel he did not have the authority to waive executive privilege in order to deliver the document to Congress.

“This complaint should have been delivered to this committee weeks ago, but it wasn’t,” Schiff said tersely.

Maguire said he did not know the identity of the whistleblower. Trump has claimed the person is a partisan.

Process leads to delays

Once the complaint was filed, the inspector general for intelligence services, Michael Atkinson, found the assertions were “credible” and “urgent.”

But Maguire said that complaint wasn’t about a member of the U.S. intelligence community, its finances or its operations, but instead concerned the president. He said his department went to the White House counsel, and then the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, to determine what course to follow.

Maguire insisted the complaint dealt with a conversation between two leaders and not election security. That assertion drew rebukes from Democrats on the panel, who asserted the president sought to coerce Ukraine to get involved in the 2020 election.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has launched an impeachment inquiry into Trump over allegations of abuse of office in the case, as well as violations of law in withholding the complaint from Congress.

“This complaint is a roadmap for our investigation, and provides significant information for the committee to follow up on with other witnesses and documents,” Pelosi said. “And it is corroborated by the call record released yesterday.”

The complaint names the president’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who traveled to Spain after the call to meet with one of Zelenskiy’s advisers.

Maguire also testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee behind closed doors on Thursday.

Contact Gary Martin at gmartin@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7390. Follow @garymartindc on Twitter. The Associated Press contributed to this story.