DNI Whistleblower Tip About Trump Phone Call Alarms Former Intel Officials

annabenedetti

annabenedetti

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[h=1]Nancy Pelosi’s full statement on launching Trump impeachment inquiry[/h]

Last Tuesday, we had the anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution on September 17.
Sadly on that day, the intelligence community inspector general formally notified the Congress that the administration was forbidding him from turning over a whistleblower complaint on Constitution Day. This is a violation of law. Shortly thereafter, press reports began to break of a phone call by the president of the United States calling upon a foreign power to intervene in his election.
This is a breach of his constitutional responsibilities. The facts are these: The intelligence community inspector general, who is appointed by President Trump, determined that the complaint is both of urgent concern and credible. And its disclosure relates to one of the most significant and importance of director of national intelligence responsibility to the American people.
On Thursday, the inspector general testified before the House Intelligence Committee stating that the acting director of national intelligence blocked him from disclosing the whistleblower complaint. This is a violation of law. The law is: The DNI, director of national intelligence, shall provide Congress the full whistleblower complaint.
For more than 25 years, I served on the Intelligence Committee as a member, as the ranking member, as part of the Gang of Four even before I was in the leadership. I was there when we created the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. That did not exist before 2004. I was there even earlier when we wrote the whistleblower laws and continued to write them to improve them to ensure the security of our intelligence and the safety of our whistleblowers.
I know what their purpose was, and we proceeded to balance and caution as we wrote the laws.
I can say with authority that the Trump administration’s actions undermine both the national security and our intelligence and our protections of whistleblowers. The acting DNI will appear before the House Intelligence Committee and must turn over the full complaint to the committee. He will have to choose whether to break the law or honor his responsibility to the constitution.
On the final day of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, when our Constitution was adopted, Americans gathered on the steps of Independence Hall to break the news the government our founders had crafted, “What do we have, a republic or monarchy?” [Benjamin] Franklin replied, “A Republic if you keep it.”
Our responsibility is to keep it. The wisdom of our Constitution enshrined in three co-equal branches of government serving as checks and balances on each other. The actions taken by the president have seriously violated the Constitution, when the president says “Article 2 says I can do whatever I want.”
For the past several months we have been investigating in our committees and litigating in the courts so the House can gather all the relevant facts and whether to exercise its Article 1 powers, including a constitutional power of the utmost gravity of articles of impeachment.
And this week, the president has admitted to asking the president of Ukraine to take actions which would benefit him politically. The actions of the Trump presidency revealed dishonorable facts of betrayal of his oath of office and betrayal of our national security and betrayal of the integrity of our elections.
Therefore, today I’m announcing the House of Representatives is moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry and directing our six committees to proceed with their investigation under that umbrella of impeachment inquiry.
No one is above the law.
Getting back to our founders, in the darkest days of the American Revolution, Thomas Paine wrote, “The times have found us.” The times found them to fight and establish our democracy. The times have found us today. Not to place ourselves in the same greatness as our founders but in protecting and defending our Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. In the words of Ben Franklin, “to keep our republic.”
I thank our chairmen, Chairman Nadler, Chairman Schiff, Chairman Engel, Chairman Cummings of Oversight. Chairman Cummings and I have been in touch with [each other] constantly. He is a master of so much, including inspectors general and whistleblowers. Chairman Richard Neal, Congresswoman Maxine Waters of the Financial Services Committee. And I commend all of our members, our colleagues for their thoughtful, thoughtful approach to all of this for their careful statements.
God bless them, and God bless America.
 
annabenedetti

annabenedetti

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The White House has tried to get ahead of the exploding scandal about President Donald Trump pressuring the president of Ukraine to dig up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden by releasing a batch of notes taken from the call.

But the notes in fact confirm Trump demanded an investigation of Biden, implicate Attorney General William Barr in the scheme, and even show the Ukrainian President tried to flatter him by bringing up his stays in Trump Tower.

The transcript was, in fact, so legally and politically damaging for the president that — according to Washington Post reporter Robert Costa — pro-Trump Senate Republicans were completely blindsided, and have no idea where to go from here
 
annabenedetti

annabenedetti

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Apparently the White House accidentally emailed their talking points to Democrats.

And then they asked for them back. :chuckle:

By that time there were screenshots:

EFUhvSRXYAE_BV7.jpg




EFUhxT0WwAEJ06y.jpg


And not before someone noticed a small discrepancy:

"Fact: there was no quid pro quo; in fact there is no mention of the aid package to Ukraine at all."

"Assistance to Ukraine was mentioned by President Trump only to stress how much the United States is doing..."
 
ok doser

ok doser

lifeguard at the cement pond
annabenedetti said:
The White House has tried to get ahead of the exploding scandal about President Donald Trump pressuring the president of Ukraine to dig up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden by releasing a batch of notes taken from the call.

But the notes in fact confirm Trump demanded an investigation of Biden, implicate Attorney General William Barr in the scheme, and even show the Ukrainian President tried to flatter him by bringing up his stays in Trump Tower.

The transcript was, in fact, so legally and politically damaging for the president that — according to Washington Post reporter Robert Costa — pro-Trump Senate Republicans were completely blindsided, and have no idea where to go from here
Click to expand...

got the transcript?


eta: here it is

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trumps-ukraine-call-transcript-read-the-document


so, go ahead - pull out excerpts and tell us what you think of them, anna, not what other people are claiming anonymous reports are saying
 
annabenedetti

annabenedetti

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ok doser said:
so, go ahead - pull out excerpts and tell us what you think of them, anna, not what other people are claiming anonymous reports are saying
Click to expand...


You don't care what I think. I'm just going to keep putting info up there because most of you won't go looking for yourself.
 
annabenedetti

annabenedetti

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Andrew Prokop
✔@awprokop
RTed by whistleblower's lawyer @MarkSZaidEsq https://twitter.com/gregorykorte/status/1176880541825679363 …





EFUenVsXYAAHB_A



There are actually three places where the ellipses show up, all three are when Trump is talking. I don't know what those mean, but we've been told that "A Memorandum of a Telephone Conversation is not a verbatim transcript of a discussion. The text in this document records the notes and recollections of Situation Room Duty Officers and NSC policy staff assigned to listen and memorialize the conversation."


We need to see the whistleblower report.
 
annabenedetti

annabenedetti

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There's another whistleblower claiming Trump tried to intervene in IRS audit

The tax whistleblower, meanwhile, went straight to Congress ― specifically to the House Ways and Means Committee, which had sued the Trump administration for refusing to provide copies of the president’s tax returns in response to a formal request. Democrats say they need Trump’s returns to make sure the IRS properly enforces tax laws against the president.

But Ways and Means Chair Richard Neal (D-Mass.) is far less outspoken than Schiff, and his approach to the tax case has been cautious. He decided to stay focused on the lawsuit, using the whistleblower’s material to bolster that case.

In a brief last month, the committee told the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that a “federal employee” had approached them with “evidence of possible misconduct” and “inappropriate efforts” to influence an IRS audit of the president. The document provided no further detail about the whistleblower, but in a footnote, Democrats offered to tell U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden all about it in private.

A spokesman for the committee said this week that McFadden, a Trump nominee who donated to the Trump 2016 campaign and volunteered for the Trump presidential transition, has so far not asked to hear more about the whistleblower. He denied a Democratic motion to speed up the case...​
 
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