this is the office of director of national intelligence whistleblower. that report on the conversations, phone conversations between president trump and the ukrainian president. that resolution, apparently, has just passed in the senate. "politico" tweeting this, that the democratic leader, chuck schumer, asked to pass a nonbinding sense of the senate resolution on transmitting the whistleblower complaint to the intelligence committees. mcconnell does not block it. it passes unanimously. host: 5:00 eastern is when we'll hear from speaker pelosi. let's hear from you and continue with your phone calls at 202-748-8920 for democrats. 202-748-8921 for republicans. and all others, that's 202-748-8922. sherry in huntington, west virginia. thanks for waiting and go ahead with your comments. caller: hi. thank you for taking my call. i just want to say that i'm thrilled that someone is finally standing up and doing something about this lawless president. it is past time. we have a system of checks and balances for a reason. and they have not been in use. mostly be

the president if indeed it's or an out that he had anything to do with directing the office of national intelligence not to produce these documents and directing the attorney general's office to it so it vies the office of national intelligence canada's prime minister has a poet eyes again after another photograph and video america from wearing blackface makeup justin trudeau says he will continue with his reelection campaign even though opponents say he's not fit to govern because more from toronto. these are the images that have justin trudeau saying he's sorry there from an event in 2001 when as a high school teacher he was part of a gala within a rabia nights the other images including a grainy video have also emerged of trudeau in similar makeup reportedly in high school in the 1990 s. here's his 2nd apology in less than 24 hours. i want to begin by saying a few words directly to racialize canadians who face discrimination every single day in their lives even in a country like canada. what i did. hurt them hurt people who shouldn't have to face intolerance and discrimination because of their id

the president if indeed it's borne out that he had anything to do with directing the office of national intelligence not to produce these documents and directing the attorney general's office to it so it vies the office of national intelligence because there's a me me thing britain's prime minister bars johnson in london checked to me and been hunted down fannie and johnson were discussed developments in the gulf region . or. so who had. a personal relationship with my peers ago i do business i do just the relationship because there is a very strong relationship. with us we wrote. a book you know for sure. let's go to nadine barber joins us live from london so will they discuss. also me just before boris johnson's meeting here at 10 downing street with the emir of qatar the prime minister said that relations between the 2 countries were going from strength to strength we haven't got any detail after the meeting about what points they went through but the ukase ambassador to qatar made a statement before the visit in which he outlined the areas in which they do cooperate to a large extent he talked a

for the president if indeed it's born out that he had anything to do with directing the office of national intelligence not to produce these documents and directing the attorney general's office to it so it vies the office of national intelligence tom for a short break here not just there i want to come back something any of us police prepare for the houses of people trying to trespass on a secret military base more and saying. hello to them we're going to start this hour here across parts of north asia we are watching a tropical storm that will be turning into a typhoon very very soon but watch here on our forecast maps by the time we get to saturday that system is pushing. krause there you go islands as a tropical storm and this is tropical storm tapa breeze a very heavy rain not only for coastal areas of china but of course the real who islands as well as we go from saturday to sunday the storm strengthens makes its way to the north and slightly to the northeast still brings a very heavy rain across your island we could be seeing some storm surge here across china as well so you will start to pick u

the president if indeed it's borne out that he had anything to do with directing the office of national intelligence not to produce these documents and directing the attorney general's office to it so it vies the office of national intelligence and finally there's a very important separation of powers issue here because tonight the washington post has broken a story that the promise that the foreign leader that was made to the foreign leader had to do with ukraine so this may have had to do with the promise to give military aid to ukraine to help its independence in its fight against the kremlin and that the president has been withholding that aid which congress voted for to preserve democracy in order to dig up dirt and job. biden's son that is the president would be refusing to carry out congress's will for the purpose of digging up political dirt on a political rival and that would be any normal streets of law and of the duties of the president to safeguard the nation and they have there is a hint of truth to these allegations and what we've seen happen the developments we've seen from the time t

a resolution calling on the release of the whistleblower's report, this is the office of director of national intelligence whistleblower on phone conversations between president trump and the ukranian president. president trump has offered to release the transcript. that resolution passed in the senate. the house is taking up a similar resolution tomorrow. the ruse committee will mark that up and get it ready for debate. the house back in session in about 50 minutes. back for votes. and we are standing by to hear from kevin mccarthy and his response and reaction to democrats moving forward with the impeachment inquiry. we go to california, democrats' line. ou are on the air. caller: my name is peggy and call in and comment. i was a democrat. but when benghazi and all these other corrupted things started in, i changed. i become an independent. right now i'm proud of the president. , the stock ervative markets have reached an all-time high. consumer confidence. more than 2 million jobs. unemployment rate is 17-year low. women in interviewership was put n and ended the war on coal. promoted of hiring busines

towards impeachment is the whistleblower reports from the whistleblower at the office of director of national intelligence on phone conversations between president ki and president ze lens of ukraine. the senate earlier by unanimous consent calling for the release of the report itself to their intelligence community ksh committee, and we expect the house will do the same with their resolution set to be taken up sometime tomorrow. and we are waiting to hear from republican leader kevin mccarthy. and we have votes coming up in the house in about 20 minutes or so. one member on the democratic side who has spoken more on the house floor than any other calling for an impeachment proceeding is al green. here's a statement: i am hopeful for the articles of impeachment, i welcome anyone on board. to texas, dana on the republican line. >> thank you for taking my call. when donald trump was going through all this commotion with mueller, adam schiff came on c thmbings n and said i have proof on donald trump. where is his proof? he can his mouth, he came out and made a statement, where is the man's proof? there is no

the president if indeed it's or an out that he had anything to do with directing the office of national intelligence not to produce these documents and directing the attorney general's office to it so it vies the office of national intelligence russia and china vetoed a u.n. security council resolution demanding a truce and northwest syria a call from end to hostilities in the last rebel held province but a new deal between turkey and russia has been reached on a demilitarized zone so what are reports now from beirut. the revolution hasn't died in syria's north west these people were forced from their homes in the recent russian backed syrian government offensive that took control of the northern countryside of hama province and many towns in it lip south including country horn at least half a 1000000 syrians have been displaced since the end. thank you no. we the people of hong kong we are not asking assad to allow us to return to our town we will never accept his role our revolution will continue until the downfall of this criminal regime it's been relatively calm since the august 31 cease fire bu

the president if indeed it's borne out that he had anything to do with directing the office of national intelligence not to produce these documents and directing the attorney general's office to it so it vies the office of national intelligence iran's foreign minister has flying to new york after being granted a visa for the annual gathering of world leaders at the united nations next week demands or if diplomatic mission comes just a day after he warned of all out war if the u.s. takes military action against iran that follows the bombing of 2 major saudi oil facilities so bizarre reports from tehran. drone and missile attacks on saudi oil facilities last week iranian leaders say the only reason the u.s. and saudi arabia are blaming them is because the alternative is too embarrassing that yemen's hoopy fighters were capable of carrying out such a destructive military operation. but the saudis say the drones and missiles direction of travel recover debris the capacity of the technology used in these attacks all draw a straight line back to tehran foreign ministers of odds are it has said of the inci

unnamed whistleblower and this unnamed whistleblower apparently reported it to the office of the director of national intelligence in the united states now the the oh d.n.i. was courting 2 u.s. procedures if he thought it was significant should then have raised it with the u.s. congress however the odeon i did not do that so this unnamed whistleblower as essentially come forward and been in communication with democratic representatives at this point trump is calling it a witch aren't you saying that this is a witch hunt against him basically you know coming forward and presenting it as if he's done nothing wrong and he says that he actually plans to release the full transcript of the conversation with the ukrainian leader so trump plans to release that conversation in the coming days so we shall see what happens when that full conversation is released at the moment the allegations revolve around what was said by an unnamed whistleblower who brought that complaint to the office of the director of national intelligence who then did not raise it with the congress. goes . with a lot of updates for us from new york. s

working as a chief of staff to a member of the intelligence oversight committee during 911 and after 911 when they created the office of the director of national intelligence. the bill happen to be written by my mother and then ranking democrat on the intelligence committee and now speaker nancy pelosi so i know this very well i lived it the whole point of having a director of national intelligence the united states is because in the attacks of 9111 of the things that we learned in 2001 was that there was a bit of information that the cia might have there's a bit of information the f.b.i. might have but the 2 couldn't talk so what you needed was one director of national intelligence who could take all the information from defense from justice from state from various agencies and put it all together and present it to the president and say this is the composite picture of what's happening and so is somebody in that office of the director of national intelligence saw all those agencies saw all those pieces of evidence being put together if you will with respect to ukraine and made a whistleblower report saying the law has been broken the constitu

of 4 even before i was in the leadership i was there one when we created the office of the director of national intelligence that did not exist before 2004 i was there even earlier in the ninety's when we wrote the whistleblower laws and continue to write them to improve them to ensure the security of our intelligence and the safety of oversell blowers i know what their purpose was and we pursued it with balance and caution as we wrote the laws i can say with authority the trumpet ministrations actions undermine both our national security and our intelligence and our protections of the whistleblowers more than both this thursday the acting d.n.i. will appear before the house intelligence committee at that time he must turn over the whistleblowers for 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 $787.00 when our constitution was adopted americans gather on the steps of independence hall to wait the news of the government our founders had crafted they asked benjamin franklin what

intelligence court and oversight from congress. the most important level of oversight from congress i think. what the office of the director of national intelligence seems to, with the support of the justice department, seems to be doing is to thumb its nose at that oversight. it is not good for the intelligence community, not good for congress, and it is corrosive for our democracy. >> it is a great point ned just made. the law does not provide anyone to second guest the inspector general. no one can enter into the realm of this law and say we disagree with the inspector general's evaluation of the urgency of this. there is no provision for that. >> this is fundamentally a bombshell of defiance of oversight and of the law on top of a separate bombshell, an allegation of fundamental and urgent misconduct. in a sense the backdrop of this, i think historians are going to look back and see the trump administration as a president trying to, a president out of control and trying to institute norms and institutions throughout the government. those institutions have often tried to push back, whether it's courts, lawyers, inconsistently the m

overnight that the legal team is still waiting for some guidance from the director of national intelligence, the office of the director of national intelligence on that issue, savannah. >> stand by. i want to go to jeremy bash, our national security analyst, chief of staff at the pentagon, and you're looking at the complaint as well. one of the things that had been reported prior to the release of this unclassified version of the complaint was that there was more than just the call at issue. it was now seen that the hearing -- the notes of the situation room call, the quasi-transcript i've been calling it. we've seen what's in the call. is there more than in this complaint than that that would tend to corroborate the central allegation here, which is that the president misused his office to try to get political dirt on an opponent by asking a foreign country to intervene? >> yes. for example, one of the things, savannah, that the whistle-blower mentions is that on august 2nd, a week after that phone call between president trump and president zelensky rudy giuliani held a follow-up meeting to have direc

also the creation of the office of the director of national intelligence.he relationship between the two. it's a careful balance of protecting whistle-blowers but also protecting our national security and our intelligence. our intelligence. so in any event, one of the bills that we wrote was the intelligence community whistle-blower protection act. the law plays a vital role in our democracy. it enables our system of separation of powers to maintain a rule of law by making sure that the abuses of unlawful actions are known. at first through the inspector general of the intelligence community and then the congressional intelligence committees, house and senate, which can act upon it. the statute does not permit the dna to second-guess the inspector general's determination of any complaint he finds to be credible. at no point in the history of this law has a dni ever refused to turn over a whistle-blowers complaint that has been found by the ig as credible. refusing to do this is a violation of the law. our national security depends on the framework, this vot

on the issue of the office of the director of national intelligence.know, it's required by law to turn over details of whistle-proceeder complaints like the one that is involved now and that the chairman of the house intelligence committee adam schiff is asking for. the law is clear on this. complaints like this have to be referred to congress. again, under the constraints of this may very well involved classified information. but, of course, those members have clear instance to handle that classified information. is it okay for the trump administration to ignore the law on this? >> i don't know that they're ignoring the law on this. they're making a legal argument that this does not deal with intelligence-related issues. i'm sure there will be some push and pull here in negotiating and ultimately there will be information turned over to congress on this. it's right on the administration's right, prior administrations did the same thing, when congress makes inquiry, they protect their power, that's what the executive branch does. this isn't something t

wrote the whistleblower laws, i was there when we wrote the law establishtion the office of director of national intelligence. that's only since 2004. shall convey that information to the congress. and poor soul couldn't. >> and instead he took it to an attorney general who is mentioned as a possible part of the contract. >> and a presidential -- the president's lawyers when the president was mentioned. highly -- not highly unusual, unique, wrong. >> well, there are several steps here and i know you're trying to keep this focused. by the way, i also know that you're doing a lot of other things still trying to legislate approximately we'll be talking in a few moments about the effort to lower the cost of drugs. but what do you make of the movement of these conversations into this more secure server and are you -- i know this is focussed, but are you concerned both ore conversations that might be in there? >> well, you know that's interesting. as part of a cover-up. but i think we have to stay focused as far as the public is concerned on the fact that the president of the united states used taxpayer dollars to

confirmed "the post" reporting, but we have obtained a series of letters between the office of national intelligence and congress which confirms the inspector general deemed the whistleblower's complaint, quote, of urgent concern, one that might require notification of congress. but those letters show the director of national intelligence after consulting with the justice department disagreed that the matter was urgent and concluded his agency was under no obligation to forward the matter to congress. this has left house intelligence chairman adam schiff outraged demanding answers and suggesting a cover-up. >> it is the president of the united states who was at the center of this significant showdown between congress and u.s. intelligence community. >> reporter: in a letter obtained by abc news schiff tells joseph maguire, the acting director of national intelligence that he can only conclude, quote, that the serious misconduct at issue involves the president of the united states or senior white house or administration officials. schiff goes on to say he has grave concerns that the administration is

of you. i want to bring in now jamil who worked with the house intelligence committee and i'm also going to bring in robert ligt, the former chief to the office of national intelligence with an inside look at some of the mechanics. do you agree with some house democrats that there seems to be a cover-up afoot here? >> i don't see a cover-up. what i see is a difference by the general council to the white house saying i've heard that there's an issue going on, what happened, where's the transcript, what's the story on this call? it is not unusual to have calls with foreign leaders classified. that oftentimes is an overclassification. i think here it's clear that it was over-classified. >> it will often happens with allies like israel or brittain when you're sharing intelligence information? >> i think more generally presidential conversations with foreign leaders are classified just so that the president can speak confidentially to them and they can speak to him. but it's a relatively low level of classification unless they get into sensitive matters. >> so did it pique your interest that this was moved into the other computer system? >> i think it suggest

robert litt is the former general counsel for the office of the national intelligence. he says this asset may be impossible to replace. >> this is the crown jewels of what the c.i.a. does is try to develop highly placed human sources who give them access to information about foreign adversaries that they otherwise might not be able to get. >> reporter: former intelligence officials warned this asset is rill at risk. norah, last year, russia used a nerve agent to try to kill a former spy in the u.k. >> o'donnell: paula reid at the white house. rank you. we're going to turn now to capitol hill where house democrats today jump started peir push for new gun control measures following several mass shooting indents that took place while they were on summer break. nancy cordes reports gun control advocates are also making their soices heard. >> in the next decade, over one million americans will be shot. >> reporter: joseph sakran spoke from experience today, shot in the neck at a high school football game, he was inspired to become a trauma surgeon. >> you know, the worst part

of national intelligence. the director of national intelligence has now written back in a letter that's dated today. it starts off by saying that as far as the office of the director of national intelligence is concerned, this whistleblower complaint, quote, does not fall within the statutory definition of an urgent concern, meaning you're not going to be protected by this process. but then it gets really interesting. the dni's letter says, quote, notwithstanding the inapplicability of the statute, it actually says statue but i think he means statute. notwithstanding the inapplicability of the statute to the present situation, we understand that your client seeks guidance on how to contact and directly share information with the congressional intelligence committees in a manner consistent with appropriate security practices. because your client's complaint involves confidential and potentially privileged communications by persons outside the intelligence community, the president, we are consulting with other executive branch stakeholders before transmitting to you the guidance sought. we understand the time-sensitive nature of your request and expe

conversation with the ukrainian leader and he then brought it to the attention of the office of the director of national intelligence now that is the procedure laid out in u.s. law to bring such a complaint to the oh d.n.i. now when the odeon i heard about the complaint they deemed unworthy to bring it to the u.s. congress so now from what we understand democratic leaders have been in touch with this unnamed whistleblower and they wish to now launch a formal impeachment inquiry based on what this unnamed whistleblower has reported about the conversation now donald trump has spoken up on social media and called this a witch hunt and trump is threatening and plans fully to release the transcript of his conversation with the ukrainian leader that seems to be the source of the controversy he says he will shortly be making that full conversation a full transcript of that conversation of vailable to the public that will come within the next day so folks are waiting to see what what will be revealed when the full conversation is made public but at the moment we do understand that the u.s. house of representatives will be m

they sought the help of the office director of national intelligence, james' organization. they talked about urgency. they talked about deadlines. and if it were a regular process, inauguration would make no difference to sharing information with the hill. but obviously, they were desperate to undermine president trump. and you see these obama appointees, many of whom were clinton donors, because we've looked up their donation history. shoveling this information out in the days before the inauguration. they were literally talking about it the day before the inauguration, pushing the material out. previous documents received talk about, they get excited and say, we made the deadline. what was the deadline? the inauguration. how could you interpret this activity as anything other than a design to undermine president trump by putting information that otherwise may not be available under the law to democratic senators on the hill. >> sean: susan rice, oval office, basically, at the same time, the memo. he said, do everything by the book. tom, great work. it is clear that the wa

of the national security agency under president george w. bush from 2002 to 2006. joel brenner was also the head of u.s. counterintelligence in the office of the director of national intelligence from 2006 to 2009. thank you very much for joining us tonight, mr. brenner. we really appreciate it. you've been there. you've been an inspector general -- >> thank you. i'm glad to be here. >> just give us your reading on this situation as we know it at this hour. >> we've got a statute here that's pretty clear on its face. you have a complaint that's come in. it does appear to be urgent. and by the way, the decision as to whether this is a matter of urgent concern that should be reported to the congress is not a matter that under the statute is for the justice department, not for the president, and not for the director or acting director. it's a matter that's been left to the discretion of the i.g. himself, mr. atkinson. and mr. atkinson has treated this thing in the proper way and passed it within a seven-day period to the acting director, who's sitting on it. now, this is on its face a clear violation of the statute. so what could mr. maguire be saying as to why he isn't doing thi

conversation with the ukrainian leader and he then brought it to the attention of the office of the director of national intelligence now that is the procedure laid out in u.s. law to bring such a complaint to the oh d.n.i. now when the odeon i heard about the complaint they deemed unworthy to bring it to the u.s. congress so now from what we understand democratic leaders have been in touch with this unnamed whistleblower and they wish to now launch a formal impeachment inquiry based on what this unnamed whistleblower has reported about the conversation now donald trump has spoken up on social media and called this a witch hunt and trump is threatening and plans fully to release the transcript of his conversation with the ukrainian leader that seems to be the source of the controversy he says he will shortly be making that full conversation a full transcript of that conversation of vailable to the public that will come within the next day so folks are waiting to see what what will be revealed when the full conversation is made public but at the moment we do understand that the u.s. house of representatives will be m

i was there to -- part of writing the bill to establish the office of the director of national intelligence. that's only since 2004. we didn't have it since then. and that office has its own inspector general. this inspector general is appointed by president bush -- excuse me, president trump. important difference. his own appointee. inspector generals are greatly respected for their independence, their objectivity, and the rest. and by law, when a complaint comes from a whistleblower, the inspector general has 14 days to investigate and then the director of national intelligence has seven days to report it to the intelligence committees of the congress. that is the law. it says shall. it doesn't say may, should. it says shall. that's a very fraught with meaning word in legislation. but this administration is blocking the dni from conveying that to the intelligence committees. the dni is at the present time breaking the law at the direction of the administration. it's really unfortunate. so to the substance of the -- we don't know. >> well, we sort of do. the president has in so many words

it wasn't too long ago that i believe the office of the director of national intelligence actually createdction security czar of sorts. >> the 2016 presidential election might have played out very differently if not for the fact that a senior official from the hillary clinton campaign and the dnc itself fell victim to the cyber attacks, phishing attacks that left them exposed, including wikileaks and we reached out to presidential campaigns and at the time we began, there were more than 20, to learn what kind of efforts they were taking to prevent that kind of attack from happening again and what we learned many if not all of the campaigns had been in touch with if not the fbi, dhs, through their headquarters in washington or local field offices but there is also a robust effort under way by the dnc to sort of undertake best practices, to learn the best cyber hygiene techniques and to learn what kind of threats are out there for them to face. and of course, this is so important, because a campaign, especially when we have so many of them, they are the ultimate startup, come in and extremel

washington state, and contributor mulligan has held senior positions in the doj, and the office of director of national intelligence itself. let me start with ken our guy. this had to have reached a threshold, urgent concern. what would that embody that would cause the inspector general's office to get ahold of a complaint that reaches to the level of urgency and should be law be told to congress immediately. >> there's actually a legal definition. it's supposed to involve intelligence activities and it's extremely rare because there's a lot of complaints that go into that office. very few of them are deemed urgent concerns. and when he made that determination to the inspector general that should have triggered, and he was saying i wanted to turn this over and i was blocked by doing so by acting maquire. it was a doj ruling that said there's some privileged communications here. since it's about the president that's understandable. the president's conversations with foreign leaders are not the business of congress and particularly not the congressional intelligence committee's, and adam schiff is saying how can that

of them, including the murtha would call for the office of director of national to send the whistleblower complaint to the house and senate intelligence committees. we will have live coverage when they gavel back in here on c-span. on capitol fings hill from republican and democratic leaders. intelligence se committee chair adam schiff who late this morning briefed release of the transcript of president trump's hone conversation with the ukrainian president and the impeachment inquiry. look. a mr. schiff: good afternoon. i now had a chance to review and detail the notes of the call between the president of the united states and the president the legal as well as opinion drafted by the an rtment of justice in effort to prevent the whistleblower complaint from and i to our committee have to say i am shocked by both. reflected f the call conversation far more damning than i or many others had imagined. is shocking at another level that the house would release these notes and felt help thehow this would president's case or cause, because what those notes reflect mafia-like shakedown of a foreign leader. ukrainian t a president who was des

summary, rough transcript of the phone conversation, shawn, you used to work with the office of director of national intelligencewas eventually released and we all saw it, nothing was redacted. what was so sensitive about it? >> the short answer, wolf, there's nothing in the transcript of that call that warranted moving that transcript to a secure, to a special access program system. you know, i reached out to former colleagues in the intelligence community and asked a simple question with regards to this matter. there are folks in the white house that claim it was removed to prevent leaks. i asked a simple question. the president had leaks of calls with world leaders come out early in his administration. i asked, is it standard operating procedure now to move all of the president's calls system.rld leaders to a secure - i was told very clearly no. so the question here is why just this one. and that's what's going to have to be answered shortly. >> i suspect we'll be getting answers fairly soon. right now, there's other news we are following, democratic frontrunner joe biden and elizabeth warren are campaigning

of our intent to contact the congressional intelligence committees directly. that provoked a reply from jason klitenic, the general counsel of the office of director of national intelligence. in that letter he said, we have determined after consulting with the department of justice that your client's disclosure to the inspector general does not fall within the statutory definition of an urgent concern. that means jason klitenic has now put in writing that he personally joined in this violation of law with joseph mcguire. we have determined, he wrote. the law does not allow him to determine anything about a whistle-blower complaint. the chairman of the house intelligence committee, adam schiff, then wrote a letter to the whistle-blower's lawyer saying, in light of your notice of intent to the acting director of national intelligence, the committee requests a voluntary interview with your client on thursday, september 26, 2019 in the afternoon following the public testimony of acting director mcguire before the committee. nancy pelosi has been resisting, formalizing the impeachment process. until today. >> the president must be held accountable. no one is above

intelligence community inspector general to feel forced to go to congress claiming the whistleblower complaint is being blocked by the white house the department of justice and the office of director of national intelligence because they believe it's not an intelligence matter in a letter to the house intelligence committee is specter general writes that the complaint, not only falls within the dni has jurisdiction but relates to one of the most significant and important of the dni responsibilities to american people that whole purpose is being frustrated here because the director of national intelligence has made the unprecedented decision not to share the complaint with the lawyer for acting director of national intelligence, joseph maguire argues the complaint here involves confidential and potentially privileged matters relating to the interest of other stakeholders within the executive branch. sources tell cnn it was the white house and the department of justice that told mcguire that he doesn't have jurisdiction. today when the i g spoke to the house intelligence committee, he didn't provide any details about the whistleblower's complaint hamstrung the chairman said by someone trying to

i was there when we created the office of director of national intelligence and that did not exist before004. i was there even earlier in the '90s when he wrote the whistleblower laws and continue to write them to improve them to ensure the security of our intelligence and the safety of our whistleblower. i know what their purpose was and we proceeded with balanced and caution as we wrote the law. i can say with authority the trump administration's actions undermine those our national security and our intelligence and our whistleblowers. this thursday the acting dni will appear before the house intelligence committee. at that time he must turn over the whistleblower's full complaint to the committee. we will have to choose whether to break the law or under 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 wait the news of the government our founders had crafted. they asked benjamin bricklin what do we have, a republic or a monarchy? franklin replied a

congress and that this has created great consternation and tension between the office of the director of national intelligence and the white house. >> let's go back. both your piece today and "the wall street journal" piece that came out late today say "pressured." the the president of the united states pressured the ukrainian president zelenskiy to give us that dirt or else. what's the or else? >> as we've been discussing it's the $250 in military aide the -- that congress approved, that the president was holding back on and blocking, which is pretty unusual. and then the other was a meeting with the president. aides had been trying to arrange for trump to meet with zelensky, something zelenskiy really wanted. it's a signal to the world, i've got the u.s. behind my back. that ally that's feeling so unprotected. and trump was withholding that too. >> is that the promise we read in this piece, he will meet with him? >> i can't tell you. >> but there is a quid pro quo aspect to this? >> there is an alleged promise according to the complaint which i can talk about a little bit more. >> i'll say this in terms of

of the intelligence community about the president. it's being blocked from congress. sources telling cnn that the white house and the department of justice told the office of the director of national intelligence that the whistle blower's complaint was not theirs to release arguing it's not an intelligence matter because it involves the executive branch as in the president. cnn has learned there were multiple acts that concerned the whistle blower that amounted to enough of a blockbuster claim that the intelligence community inspector general felt forced to go himself to congress giving closed door testimony today. >> we can't get an answer because the department of justice and the director of national intelligence will not authorize the ig to tell us. the inspector general is doing his very best to be very careful that he follow the law. >> reporter: the inspector general not only falls within the dni jurisdiction but relates to one of the most significant and important dni responsibilities to the american people. when the ig spoke to the house intelligence committee he didn't provide details about the complaint. ham strung by someone trying to manipulate the system. >> that whol

i'm joined by katrina mulligan, and she's held supreme positions at the doj and office of director of national intelligenceank you for your expertise and coming here. you know how these fights go. is it a case of pompeo being used by the president and his henchman rudy giuliani now getting caught up in it because he lent them a hand? >> of course. i mean, let's just underscore how just incredibly bizarre this situation is. mr. giuliani works for the president as his personal lawyer but is somehow then flying to ukraine, meeting with the prosecutor general and being invoked by a phone call to say you should meet with giuliani, that should never happen, period. but in addition it should never happen to be pursuing the private interests of the president. and if you're the secretary of state, if you're anybody in the state department, this has to be just incredibly annoying to have to have dealt with this. >> so here's the president of the united states calling the president of ukraine. this is like a horse and rabbit stew. the president of the united states and little old ukraine that's vulnerable to the russ

the office of the director of national intelligence reports that it does not have to turn this complaintes to somebody outside the intelligence community. specifically reportedly the president. let's go to jeffery cramer now. managing director of the berkeley research group and a former assistant attorney and prosecutor. good to see you. >> hi, shep. >> shepard: whistle blows sees things, hears things. decides that it's urgent. goes to the inspector general. the inspector general deems it urgent and credible. how is it that that complaint would not have to be turned over to the congress? >> it should be. what you just listed, the first couple stops in the process. it's really written in black and white. the inspector general gets a complaint as mr. atkinson did here, he determines if it's credible and urgent, which he did. he forwards it to the director of national intelligence who has seven days to investigate on his or her own and then turn it over to congress for their investigation. what happened here that stopped the process, mr. mcguire went to the department of justice and got gui

rather than the departmentin of justice weiin with the office of director of national intelligence, thatector is depriving us of the complaint because he says it's beyond his jurisdiction. that means that this urgent ddressed. going un it also means that someone is giving these marching orders to the director. we want to find out is the white house involved that? we nee know, frankly, whether the white house is also a subject of the complaint cause the idea that someone could weigh in who's the subject ofhe complaint d essentially quash it would cause, i think, the whistleblower statute to be meaningless. there are two imperatives here, one is hoto find outin rmation necessary to protect the country, and the second is we need to protect both the istleblower and the whole process of being able to blow the whisting on impropriety. rly fourindow was nea hours with mr. atkinson. you got answers to none of the questions laid out for us? >> no, we got answers to a great many questions. he got answers to this is first time a director of national intelligence has everth ld a complaint from congr

leadership, i saw the evolution of these laws and also there for the creation of the office of director of national intelligence and the relationship between the two. and it's a careful balance of protecting whistleblowers but also protecting our national security and our intelligence, our intelligence. soon, in any event, one of the bills we wrote was the intelligence community whistleblower protection act. it plays a vital role in our democracy and enables our am of separation of powers to maintain the rule of law to make sure that the abuses of unlawful actions are known, first to the inspector general of the intelligence community and then the congressional intelligence committees, house and senate, which can act upon it. the statute does not permit the d.n.i. to second guess the inspector general's recommendation. at no point in the history of this law has a d.n.i. ever refused to turn over a whistleblower's complaint that has been found by the i.g. as credible. refusing this to do this is a violation of the law. our national security depends on this framework. this vote today is about more than just pu an

for europe in the national intelligence council which is part of the office of director of national intelligence, i experienced the policy versus intel role firsthand in short order and the bottom line is this, if you're a policy official and, again, some of you may noticed but to get everybody together here, your job is to figure out what needs to be done in regional and context and implement, when you are an intelligence official your job is to report the best analysis of the fact that is you have so that senior policymakers can make informed decisions and hopefully the best decisions on a particular issue. so in other words, your job is to report the most relevant information either in written or oral form and then to shut up which is very, very hard to do, i've learned from my own experience, you might see policymakers about to make a terrible mistake, but it's not your job in the intelligence community to say, for god sake's stop, don't do that, now, might be clear from the intelligence that option a is the best option available but everyone in the situa

of office betrayed his oath to defend our national security and betrayed his oath to defend our constitution sacrificed our national security. and our constitution for his personal political benefit the office of the director of national intelligence or the national intelligence director is currently testifying he says he fully stands behind this whistleblower if you don't believe the whistleblower is a political hack do you director i believe that the as i said before mr chairman i believe the whistle blowers are operating in good faith well then there was money in the law they couldn't be in good faith that they were acting as a political hack good day mr chairman my job is to support and lead the entire intelligence community that individual works for me therefore it is my job to make sure that i support and defend that person you don't have any reason to cuse them of disloyalty to our country or suggest that beholden to some other country i mean i'm sure absolutely not i believe that the whistleblower followed the steps every step of the way now the white house has released the full transcript of the phone call in question between president trump of the united states and the ukrainian leader and as that transcript shows trump

the whistleblower's attorneys get the appropriate security clearances from the offices of the drirector of national intelligence in order to accompany the whistle bloer. those talks according to schiff are underway. stephen miller this morning appearing on fox news sunday also attacks the whistleblower accusing him of being a partisan and undermining trump's administration. take a listen. >> i think it's unfortunate that the immediamedia continues to d this individual as a whistleblower and that this individual most certainly does not deserve, a partisan hit job doesn't make you a whistleblower just because you go therough th protection ak. >> a source familiar with the talk says the discussions are still ongoing because house democrats and attorneys for the whistleblower, so nothing set in tostone, but the testimony coul happen soon as house democrats are pressing the administration on a number of fronts for documents and testimony related to president trump's phone call with ukrainian president zelensky. that includes on friday, mike pompeo being subpoenaed by three committees. they are looking for documents