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WASHINGTON – Whistleblower Allegations that White House Officials Misused a Highly Confidential Database to Protect President Donald Trump on his Quest for Information Against a Political Opposition Alarmed Experts national security and former public servants familiar with the secret electronic system.
The whistleblower, whose complaint is at the heart of calls for a dismissal investigation against Trump, also claimed that White House officials had repeatedly used the classified system to bury "politically sensitive" detailed information in the reports of the president's interactions with world leaders. Current and former intelligence officers who spoke under the guise of anonymity said that if this statement were true, such misuse would trigger an investigation into the possible mismanagement of a classified system.
In the complaint made public on Thursday, the whistleblower wrote that White House officials had tried to prevent government officials from seeing the transcript of a phone call made in July between Trump and Trump. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by transferring him to a classified system whose number was very limited. Government officials have access to information about covert operations and extremely sensitive information, which they assign a codeword, which is reserved for this information.
The transcription of Trump's phone conversation with Zelensky – as the vast majority of his talks with foreign leaders, according to officials – has been designated secret and has not reached the highly classified level.
Detractors of the president have said that any use of the system for documents that are simply considered secretive would be an abuse of one of the most valuable tools of the intelligence community.
"The only reason to use the classification to limit the number of people who see a transcript is if the conversation is closed," said Ben Rhodes, assistant counselor for national security in the Obama administration. "We know from the transcript that the conversation has not been filed, the only reason to restrict access is to protect the president's corruption."
The whistleblower alleges that White House lawyers ordered White House officials to remove the transcript, which is usually a compilation of notes from officials who listened to the call, of a system in which these documents are usually stored and placed in the highly classified file. system.
But who exactly ordered the move and why are among the most important unanswered questions after Thursday's public testimony by Acting Director of National Intelligence, Joseph Maguire. According to former officials, the whistleblower's accusations that the transcript of Zelensky's call was "not the first time" are perhaps even more demanding when it comes to Opening of a separate investigation. White House officials had already made such a decision.
"According to White House officials who I spoke to, it was not" the first time "under this administration that a presidential transcript was inserted into this system at the code word level only for the purpose of protecting politically sensitive information, rather than national security, "reads the whistleblower's complaint.
The postponement of Zelensky's transcript on the system used for highly sensitive classified documents prompted some White House officials to worry that it would be an abuse of this system, according to the whistleblower.
The allegation of potential abuse of this highly classified system could also undermine Maguire's argument that the nature of the whistleblower's complaint was outside the jurisdiction of the intelligence sector, a former official said. This determination led the DNI to take a stand with the Congress. complaint.
Speaker of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff said Thursday evening in an interview with MSNBC that his committee had "authority" and "jurisdiction" to investigate the matter.
"Here is another irony today," Schiff said. "It is the opinions of the Ministry of Justice that the director of national intelligence services is not competent in the matter because it is not intelligence but foreign interference in our elections. a revelation to the director of national intelligence services: it does not have jurisdiction. "
"But more than that, where do they hide this information? They hide it with hidden information files in this ultra-secret computer system specifically designed for confidential information," added Schiff.
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