practice virginia, democrat. >> good morning. >> good morning, representative. >> good morning. >> look years ago back when our forefathers were running the country, there was a little bit different thing about -- just like right now the transcripts, who has the transcripts? in person? who physically has the transcripts? >> i mean that's a good question. i don't know whether the transcripts are kept in the white house, whether they're kept in national intelligence archives. i don't know the details of who has them. i do know the president can make sure they are released to congress. >> that's all the time with congressman rowe khanna. >> thank you, i enjoyed it. >> and here on cspan3 we expected to be hearing soon from democratic presidential candidate joe biden, giving a statement on the whistleblower complaint against president trump. the complaint stems from a phone conversation the president had earlier this year with the

leader of ukraine that included talk about the former vice president and his son. we'll have live coverage from wilmington, delaware when the former vice president speaks. until then, a look at more of food's washington journal. we womack to our desk david cal pinto, of the national whistleblower council. explain first complaint with the national whistleblower center is, what you do. >> sure. the national whistleblower center is a non-profit organization in washington, d.c. committed to assisting whistleblowers in exposing misconduct and corruption in the government and private sector. it accomplishes it that three ways through legal advocacy, public advocacy to try to improve laws to reward and protect whistleblowers, and finally through public education such as what we do right now. >> this whistleblower complaint

that became public at least the existence of the complaint not the complaint itself are you involved in that at all? >> no. >> what this whistleblower complaint has shed light on is that there is a difference between whistleblowers in the intelligence committee community and the laws and rules they operate under and whistleblowers in the rest of the federal government. can you just explain why that is and what rules they have to apied by? >> sure, the most basic difference and see employees in the intelligence community deal with classified information. and that needs to be protected. there are secrets, et cetera. but that doesn't mean nan employees who work in the intelligence community don't see fraud or misconduct or violations of laws. so there needs to be a system in place for all federal employees, whether you work in the regular civil service or work in the intelligence community to report

misconduct when it occurs. >> so in the intelligence community, obviously we are still trying to find out the information and what's in in complaint? but how is the process supposed to work. >> well, there is two different phases to a whistleblower case. the first is the disclosure phase which is where we're at right now, with this intelligence community whistleblower who filed a complaint. and there is two whiches to make complaints. you could go internal and you could just exercise your regular rights within the intelligence community to report up the chain of command that you observed violations of law, rules, and regulations, abuse of authority, gross waste, gross mismanagement, et cetera. there is a special provision in the law, given the significance of the intelligence community and the intelligence agencies to

report -- to request that a whistleblower concern be reported to the intelligence committees of congress. and that provision requires filing a complaint with the inspector general, which would then be reviewed under a very strict time line, 14 days for the attorney general -- i mean for the inspector general to take a look at the complaint and determine whether or not that complaint is, a, credible, and meets the standard in the statute as an urgent whistleblower concern that should be reported to congress. that's what the whistleblower did in this case. and it cleared the first hurdle. the inspector general, michael atkinson found it was credible be and an urgent concern. what's an urgent concern? an urgent concern isn't just an ordinary violation of law or an ordinary abuse of authority.

it is a flagrant violation of law and a flagrant abuse of authority. so that's why congress mandated that complaints from whistleblowers in the intelligence community that fall into that special category must, as soon as possible, be presented to congress, at least to the intelligence committees that are cleared and able to handle classified information. >> explain why this has stalled then. and why congress still doesn't have access to that complaint. >> a second phase is after the inspector general verifies it as an urgent matter to be communicated to congress it must go to the director of national intelligence who has seven days in which to transmit it to congress. and the statute is very specific and what is required. the director of national

intelligence must transmit either the complaint alone or can utilize that seven days to decide in addition to the complaint the agency is going to provide congress with a statement of position on the whistleblower's complaint. but the statute affords no discretion in the director of national intelligence dsh. >> we are going to leave this now to take you live to wilmington impair twar for remarks by presidential candidate and former vice president joe biden. >> when i announced i was running for president, i said i believed that the core values of the nation are -- our very democracy was at risk. and events in recent days have made that even clearer, not only to me but i think to everyone. we have a president who believes there is no limit to his power, we have a president who believes he can do anything and get away with it. we have a president who believes he is above the law, pursuing