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The White House is preparing to publish a redacted version of the whistle-blowing complaint that has resulted in a dismissal investigation into the House of Representatives. Politico announced that the administration was currently considering sending the complaint to Congress, in accordance with the law, as early as Wednesday.
Previously, the White House had resisted calls for the publication of the complaint. The decision to send the document to Congress was intended to make the government more and more scrupulous about President Donald Trump's fears of forcing a foreign leader to investigate his potential presidential rival in 2020., former vice president Joe Biden.
Already Wednesday, the White House had released a version of his memory of the telephone conversation between the Ukrainian President and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, allegedly the subject of the whistleblower's complaint. Fox News also announced Tuesday night that the White House was preparing a document that said the whistleblower had a "political bias" in favor of a rival candidate.
But it should be noted that the publication of this document is in progress. The report should have already been sent to members of Congress, since the inspector-general of the intelligence sector called it an "emergency document", which, as was explained Vox's Andrew Prokop, is "a legal standard that normally requires congressional oversight committees". notified. Its publication was stopped by Joseph Maguire, Acting Director of National Intelligence Services, a decision that some legal experts have declared illegal.
Maguire denied having done anything illegal and said in a statement: "I want to clarify that I have always assumed my responsibility to respect the law at every stage of the process." He also congratulated the whistleblower by writing: "The men and women of the intelligence community have the solemn responsibility to do what is right, which includes reporting wrongdoing."
Initially, the White House had backed the decision not to send the complaint to Congress, but according to the New York Times, officials have changed their minds. They are now convinced that co-operation with Congress could help to negate the official impeachment process of the House. It is said that President Trump is also in favor of releasing the complaint, because he does not think it contains anything incriminating and because he, too, thinks that it will actually counteract the # 39; impeachment investigation.
The administration can also allow the whistleblower to speak to congressional committees. A whistleblower's lawyer sent a letter to Maguire on Tuesday, informing him that the official was hoping to testify in Congress. Government lawyers responded with a letter telling the whistle-blower that the executive branch was trying to find ways to make this testimony possible, while protecting the whistleblowing process and the privilege of the executive branch.
What we know about the whistleblower complaint so far
It is still unclear exactly what the whistleblower complaint contains. A September letter Adam Schiff, chairman of the intelligence committee of the House of Representatives of Intelligence, wrote:[it] relates to one of the most important and important of [director of national intelligence’s] responsibilities to the American people. "
Later reports from The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and others revealed that the complaint included concerns over a phone call by President Trump with Ukraine, during which he allegedly asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky "about eight times" to associate with Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani – who does not hold any official government posts – opened an investigation into the role played by Joe Biden in the dismissal of a former Ukrainian prosecutor.
Giuliani asserted, even though there was no evidence to this effect, that Biden had lobbied for the prosecutor to be sacked to protect his son, Hunter Biden, from an investigation into a Ukrainian company. Hunter sat on the board. It is unclear whether an investigation was ongoing on this company at the time of the dismissal of the prosecutor, but it is clear that the prosecutor was fired for not being sufficiently aggressive in his anti-corruption investigations.
Trump said that one of the topics discussed during this appeal with Zelensky was a delay in the transfer of nearly $ 400 million of US funds to the Ukrainian army, intended to reinforce the ongoing conflict in that country against Russian actors. Congress approved the money early in the year, but it was not disbursed until September, leaving many people on Capitol Hill and in Ukraine wondering what was causing the delay. Trump gave various reasons for the delay, including that he was concerned about corruption and that he wanted the US to give less to Ukraine and NATO allies. give more.
All this made the Democrats fear that Trump had tried to force the Ukrainian president to investigate a potential political rival, threatening to withhold funds if no investigation was opened. This has led some lawmakers to fear that the president has used the power of his office to try to influence a foreign country in the 2020 election and has finally resulted in an official impeachment investigation.
The pressure to know exactly what is in the complaint has been going on for some time. The complaint was filed more than a month ago. Inspector General Michael Atkinson of the intelligence community spoke to the Intelligence Committee about the complaint of the complaint. Letter of 9 September after Maguire decided that he did not need to be released. Since then, the Schiff representative has endeavored to forward the complaint to his committee but, failing that, he has informed the public of its existence in the hope of putting pressure on the White House.
And efforts to obtain the complaint have intensified in recent days; On Tuesday, the Senate voted on a bipartisan basis for the White House to share the document with the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.
At present, the Congress should have access to at least part of this document in the coming days. It's a reminder of the White House's Tuesday appeal that could shed light on the details of the call and what Trump said about Biden.
But the document recalling the conversation the published White House is not a "textual" transcript. The removal of the complaint could blur the most interesting points for the committees.
Now that Congress has opened an official imputation inquiry into the issue, what has actually happened will certainly be the subject of many investigations in the coming months.
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