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Acting Intelligence Chief Testifies About Whistleblower Complaint; Whistleblower Raised Alarm Of Trump Using Power To "Solicit Interference" In Election; Whistleblower Said "Deeply Disturbed" White House Officials Intervened To "Lock Down" Records Of Ukraine Call; Whistleblower: Donald Trump Tried To Get Ukraine To Interfere In Election, And White House Tried To Cover It Up; Whistleblower: White House Officials Said They Were "Directed" By White House Lawyers To Move Call Transcript From Usual Storage System To Highly Classified One. Aired 12-12.30p ET

Aired September 26, 2019 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[12:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ADAM SCHIFF, (D) CHAIRMAN, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: --an employee or detailee doesn't require that the subject the person complained of be an employee of the Intelligence Community. But you have adopted an interpretation by Justice Department that essentially says that the President is above the Director therefore, the President is not subject to the jurisdiction of the Director therefore it doesn't meet the definition of urgent concerned.

Therefore, the inspector general is done. The Inspector General can't investigate anymore. That's the inspector general's reading of the Department opinion that he is no longer allowed to investigate this. Is that your reading as well?

JOSEPH MAGUIRE, ACTING DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Chairman, not necessarily the President, but the allegation has to relate to the funding and administration and operation and intelligence activity with their responsibility and the authority of the Director of National Intelligence.

SCHIFF: Okay, I'm trying to get to whether the President is somehow beyond the reach of the law?

MAGUIRE: No, sir. No person in this country is beyond the reach of the law.

SCHIFF: Well, that's the way it should be, but I'm trying to figure out whether that's the way it is as a practical fact. The Inspector General believes that based upon the opinion that you requested of the Department of Justice, he is no longer allowed to look into this because it doesn't meet the definition of an urgent concern because it involves the President.

Is that your understanding of the Department opinion as well, that the Inspector General no longer has jurisdiction to look into this? MAGUIRE: It is my understanding that both the Inspector General and I and my team are waiting for - we were waiting for the resolution of Executive Privilege to be determined. It is now no longer Executive Privilege. I'm not sure exactly what the statute has as far as what Michael can do? But we also are looking for a way - if I did not send it forward, as you know under urgent concern within seven days, then the statue would allow the whistleblower to you and still be protected.

SCHIFF: Director, my point is this. The Department of Justice has said because this doesn't meet the statutory definition, because this involves the President, the Inspector General has no jurisdiction to investigate.

Now, if this Inspector General has no jurisdiction to investigate because the President is above the agency, no Inspector General has jurisdiction to investigate. That's the - that is the effect of that opinion which do you disagree?

MAGUIRE: I believe that the opinion was based on the reading of the statute and whether or not the situation here is compliant and comes underneath the statute. The Office of Legal Counsel opinion was that based on the criteria you're required to have in order to support this legal statute, it does not. It also said that because of that, it is not a matter of the intelligence community. But once again, however, you may go forward, and I have.

SCHIFF: That's the key issue, Director. Because it involves the President, it does not involve the Intelligence Community. That is the sum and substance. And the effect of that is the Inspector General has told us that he no longer has jurisdiction to investigate.

And by the logic of that opinion, nor does any other Inspector General. Now, as you point out, this was referred to the Justice Department, it was referred to the FBI and Justice Department. That department under Bill Barr and with breathtaking speed decided there is nothing to see here.

It decided that we don't believe that this constitutes a violation of the campaign finance laws, and therefore, we're not authorizing an investigation. The FBI is not authorized to investigate any of this, any of this. So the IG's can't do it, according to the Department of Justice.

The FBI can't do it because it doesn't meet their threshold that makes it worthy of investigation. So at this point, only this Committee and this Congress is in a position to investigate. And I want to ask you, going to the whistleblower complaint, whether you believe these allegations are worthy investigation.

The whistleblower says I have received information from multiple U.S. government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election. You would agree that should be investigated, would you not? MAGUIRE: Chairman, the horse has left the barn. You have all of the information. You have the whistleblower complaint, you have the letter from the ICIG, you have the office of legal counsel opinion, and you have the transcript of the phone call. I'm confident that there is going be an investigation.

SCHIFF: You agree there should be an investigation?

MAGUIRE: I believe it is a matter to be determined by the Chair and this Committee.

SCHIFF: I'm asking you as a career military officer, someone who I greatly respect and I admire your service to the country.

[12:05:00]

SCHIFF: Do you believe that there is a credible allegation by the whistleblower corroborated by apparently multiple U.S. government officials that the President of the United States is using his power to solicit foreign interference in the 2020 election, do you believe that should be investigated?

MAGUIRE: I don't believe confidence corroborated by other folks. The whistleblower said that he spoke or she spoke to about a dozen other people. This is secondhand information. I'm not criticizing the whistleblower.

SCHIFF: Yes, but the Inspector General took those two weeks, as you well told us, to corroborate that information. We don't know which, if any, of these officials the Inspector General spoke to, and found it credible. And you've told us that you have no reason to believe otherwise. Am I right?

MAGUIRE: I had no reason to doubt a career Inspector General Lawyer in his determination on whether or not it was credible. That is something for Michael to determine.

SCHIFF: And let me ask you this. The whistleblower also says, over the past four months, more than half a dozen U.S. officials informed me of various facts related to this effort to seek foreign interference. You would agree that we should speak to those half a dozen U.S. officials, would you not?

MAGUIRE: I think that you have all the material that the Committee needs, and I think it's up to the Committee how they think they need to proceed?

SCHIFF: Well, I'm asking your opinion as the head of our intelligence agencies. Do you think that we should talk to those other people and find out whether the whistleblower was right?

MAGUIRE: My responsibility was to get you the whistleblower letter the complaint and other information released. I have done my responsibility. That is on the shoulders of the legislative branch and this committee-- SCHIFF: Well, let me ask you this Director, the whistleblower also says, I am also concerned that these actions pose risk to U.S. National Security and undermine the U.S. government's effort to detune counter foreign interference in U.S. elections. You would agree if there is a credible allegation along those lines, we should investigate it?

MAGUIRE: I agree that if there was election interference, the complaint is not about election interference. It was about a classified, confidential, diplomatic conversation--

SCHIFF: Involving election interference sought by the President. That doesn't take it out of the realm of seeking foreign assistance it makes it all the more pernicious. Wouldn't you agree?

MAGUIRE: As I said, I don't disagree with the IGIC's assessment that it was a credible matter.

SCHIFF: The whistleblower further says, namely he, the President, sought to pressure Ukrainian leader to take action to help the President's 2020 reelection bid. You would agree that that should be investigated?

MAGUIRE: Not necessarily, sir. It was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

SCHIFF: No, it wasn't.

MAGUIRE: It went to--

SCHIFF: The Department of Justice concluded that this wouldn't violate the election laws. Now, no one can understand how they could reach that conclusion after the two years we've been through, but nonetheless, they didn't authorize the FBI to investigate it. You would agree someone should investigate this, wouldn't you?

MAGUIRE: If I didn't, I would not have referred it to the Justice Department and to the FBI.

SCHIFF: Then I'm glad that we're in agreement. The whistleblower says, they told me that there was already a discussion ongoing with the White House lawyers about how to treat the call because of the likelihood and the officials telling they had witnessed the President abuse his office for personal gain. You would agree that should be investigated, wouldn't you?

MAGUIRE: All I know is that's the allegation.

SCHIFF: Right and it's credible, and therefore, should be investigated, right?

MAGUIRE: Again, it is hearsay secondhand information. It should come to this Committee for further investigation.

SCHIFF: Thank you.

MAGUIRE: And I mean you have it. You have the documents.

SCHIFF: I just wanted to confirm that we're in agreement that you think the Committee should investigate it. The whistleblower also says Donald Trump expresses conviction that the new Ukrainian government will be able to quickly improve Ukraine's image and complete the investigation or corruption cases that have held back cooperation between Ukraine and the United States.

This is the whistleblower citing the Ukrainian readout. You would agree that if the Ukrainian readout, when they're talking about corruption cases, is talking about investigating Biden and his son, and that has held back - the failure to do that has held back cooperation between the two countries. That should be investigated, right? That's for national security measure?

MAGUIRE: I did not agree that it should be investigated. What I said was I complied with my requirement to send you the documents. It is up to the Chair, the Ranking Member and these Committee Members to decide what to do with that information. I am in no position to tell the Chair or the Committee to do an investigation or not do an investigation.

[12:10:00]

SCHIFF: Okay. I find it remarkable that the Director of National Intelligence doesn't think credible allegations of someone seeking foreign assistance in a U.S. election should be investigated. Let me ask you this.

The whistleblower further says, in the days following the phone call, I learned from multiple U.S. officials that Senior White House Officials had intervened to lockdown down all the records the phone call. Do you have any reason to believe that the whistleblower's allegation there is incorrect?

MAGUIRE: I have no idea whether it is correct or incorrect, sir.

SCHIFF: Someone should find out, though, right?

MAGUIRE: Excuse me?

SCHIFF: Someone should find out if it is correct, shouldn't they?

MAGUIRE: I do not know if that is an incorrect allegation. I just do not know. That is the business of the Executive Branch of the White House and the Office of the White House.

SCHIFF: Corruption is not the business, or it shouldn't be, of the White House or anyone in it.

MAGUIRE: The White House decides to do with their privileged communication and information I believe is the business of the White House.

SCHIFF: Do you believe that's true even if that communication involves crime or fraud? I'm sure you're aware that there is an exception to any claim of privilege. The privilege can't be used to conceal crime or fraud?

MAGUIRE: This is before any crime or fraud or instances of wrong doing that should be referred to the Justice Department for investigation as I did.

SCHIFF: The whistleblower further alleges that White House officials told the whistleblower they were directed by White House lawyers to remove the electronic transcript, that is, of the call from the computer system in which such transcripts are typically stored.

And instead it was loaded into a separate electronic system that is otherwise used to store and handle classified information of an especially sensitive nature. One White House official described this act as an abuse of the electronic system.

I do not know whether similar measures were taken to restrict access to other records of the call, such as contemporaneous handwritten notes taken by those who listened in. We should find out, shouldn't we?

MAGUIRE: Chairman Schiff, when I received the letter from Michael Atkinson on the 26th of August, he concurrently sent a letter to the Office of White House Counsel asking the White House Counsel to control and keep any information that pertained to that phone call on the 25th.

It was a lengthy letter. Michael would be able to address it better but I do believe the ICIG - I know that the ICIG has sent a letter to the White House Counsel requesting that they keep all of that information.

SCHIFF: But you would agree that if there is a credible allegation from this credible whistleblower that White House officials were moving these records into a system that was not designed for that purpose in an effort to cover up essentially potential misconduct. That ought to be looked into. You would agree with that, wouldn't you?

MAGUIRE: To the best of my knowledge, when this allegation came forward, this whistleblower complaint, on the 12th of August, I have no idea what the timeline was as far as whether or not the White House, the National Security Council or anybody involved in that conversation, what they did with the transcripts, where they put them? I just have absolutely no knowledge nor the timeline of that, Chairman. It is not something that would be under my authority or responsibility.

SCHIFF: The whistleblower makes a series of allegations involving Mr. Giuliani, cites are reporting "The New York Times" about his planned trip to Ukraine to press the Ukrainian government to pursue investigations that would help the President in his 2020 reelection bid.

You would agree that if the President was instructing his personal lawyer to seek again foreign help in a U.S. presidential election that that would be improper? I believe Mueller described such efforts to seek public assistance as unethical, unpatriotic and possibly criminal? Would you agree with Director Mueller that to seek foreign assistance in that way would be unethical, unpatriotic and very possibly a violation of law?

MAGUIRE: I believe that Mr. Giuliani is the President's personal lawyer. And whatever conversation the President has with his personal lawyer I would imagine would be client-attorney privilege. I'm in no position to criticize the President of the United States on how he wants to conduct that? And I have no knowing of what Mr. Giuliani does or does not do.

SCHIFF: Let me ask you about the last couple allegations of the whistleblower. I learned from U.S. officials that on or around the 14th May, the President instructed the Vice President Pence cancel his plan to travel to Ukraine to attend President Zelensky's inauguration on 20 May.

[12:15:00]

SCHIFF: Secretary of Energy Rick Perry lead the delegation instead. According to these officials it was also made clear to them that the President did not want to meet Mr. Zelensky until he saw how Zelensky, "Shows to act" in office.

I don't know who this guidance was communicated or whom. I also do not know whether this action with a broader understating described in an unclassified letter that a meeting or phone call with the President and President Zelensky would depend on whether Zelensky showed the willingness to play ball.

Do you know whether Mr. Pence, Vice President Pence's trip was pulled because of an effort to find out first whether Ukraine was willing to play ball?

MAGUIRE: Chairman Schiff, no, I do not. I don't have knowledge of any of that until this information came to me from the ICIG. I have no absolutely no situational awareness or no knowledge of any of those facts.

SCHIFF: Would you agree that if the Vice President's trip was canceled in order to put further pressure on Ukraine to manufacture dirt on Mr. Biden that that would be unethical, unpatriotic and potentially a crime?

MAGUIRE: I do not know why the Vice President of the United States did not do that. I do know what the allegation was within the whistleblower complaint, and I don't know whether that allegation is accurate or not, Mr. Chairman.

SCHIFF: Finally, the whistleblower says, on July 18 an office of management and budget official informed departments and agencies that the President earlier that month had issued instructions to suspend all U.S. security assistance to Ukraine. Neither, OMB or the NFC's staff knew why this instruction had been issued?

Senator McConnell said the other day that he spoke with the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State, and he didn't know why the instruction had been given. Doesn't that strike you as suspicious, Director, that no one on the national security staff, no one in the senior leadership, apparently, of the party here in Congress that approved the aid understood why the President was suspending aid? Doesn't that strike you as just a little suspicious?

MAGUIRE: Chairman Schiff, I'm just unaware, to be honest with you, how those decisions are made. Once again, I have no situation awareness of what happened with the holding of funding.

SCHIFF: As a military man, if this military aid was held from an ally that was fighting off Putin's Russia, and it was done so to be used as leverage to get dirt in a U.S. political campaign, don't you think that should be investigated?

MAGUIRE: I have no reason to believe - I do not understand. I have no situation awareness if that was withheld or why it was withheld, Mr. Chairman.

SCHIFF: Well, I can tell you we are going to find out. Director, I want to thank you for your attendance today. I want to thank you again for your service. As my colleague underscored, Mr. Welch, and I completely shared his sentiment.

No one has any question about your devotion to the country. No one has any question about your acting in good faith. I want to make that very clear. I think you're a good and honorable man. Like my colleagues, I don't agree with the decisions you've made.

I agree with the Inspector General's view of the law, and I'm deeply concerned about the message this has sent to other whistleblowers about whether this system really works. If the subject of a complaint can stop that complaint from getting to Congress, then the most serious complaints may never get here.

And I want to thank the whistleblower for their courage. They didn't have to step forward. Indeed, we know from the whistleblower complaint there were several others that have knowledge of many of the same events. And I would just say to those several others that have knowledge of those events I hope that they, too, would show the same kind of courage and patriotism that this whistleblower has shown.

We are dependent on people of good faith to step forward when they see evidence of wrongdoing. The system won't work otherwise and I have to say to our friends in Ukraine who may be watching just how distressing it is that as their country fights to liberate itself from Russian oppression, as it fights to root out corruption in their own country that what they would be treated to by the President of the United States would be the highest form of corruption in this country.

[12:20:00]

SCHIFF: That the President of the United States would be, instead of a champion of democracy and human rights and the rule of law would be, instead reinforcing a message with the new Ukrainian President who was elected to root out corruption. Instead the message of that president would be you can use your Justice Department. Just call Bill Barr. You can use our Justice Department to manufacture dirt on an opponent that that's what democracy is. You can use foreign assistance, military assistance, vital assistance as a lever to get another country to do something unethical.

The idea that a fellow democracy, struggling democracy, would hear those messages from the President of the United States, I just want to say to the people of Ukraine, we support you in your fight with Russia. We support you in your struggle for democracy, we support you in your efforts to root out corruption, and what you are witnessing and what you are seeing in the actions of this President is not democracy.

It is the very negation of democracy. This is democracy. What you saw in this Committee is democracy, as ugly as it can be, as personal as it can be, as infuriating as it can be. This is democracy. This is democracy. I thank you, Director. We are adjourned.

MAGUIRE: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

(EN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KING, CNN HOST, CNN NEWSROOM: Welcome to our special coverage. I'm John King in Washington. You have been watching a remarkable hearing with the Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire testifying for about three hours up on Capitol Hill.

That testimony coming hours after a publication of a whistleblower complaint that raises allegations the President of the United States used his office to pursue foreign dirt for the 2020 election. We have a great group here to discuss it. A lot of process in that hearing a lot of politics in that hearing.

Mr. Maguire clearly very uncomfortable when asked to make any judgments, should this be investigated, do you think the President crossed the line? He didn't want to talk about that. What he wanted to say is I received this complaint.

I did the best I could in a situation he acknowledged Jeffrey Toobin was unprecedented a whistleblower complaint not about somebody in the Intelligence Community, but about the President of the United States. What did we learn?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Well, the issue that the Democrats in particular were focusing on is why, when the law says when there is a credible and urgent Inspector General's report? When the law says it shall be turned over to the Congress, why wasn't it turned over right away?

And the disturbing thing that the Democrats found was that the two places that he went for advice, Mr. Maguire went for advice were the White House Counsel and the Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel when Donald Trump, Head of the White House, and Mr. Barr the Attorney General are implicated in this story. So the question was did he get really good and fair advice? Now, there was sort of an air of reality about it because the complaint and the transcript, the partial transcript, have never been turned over. So the fight didn't really have that much juice to it, but that was really what the issue was about.

KING: But to that point, the process argument was why don't you just give it immediately to the Committee? And by going to the White House and the Justice Department, were you helping the people that the Democrats believed had every incentive to cover it up? Were you given a heads up? Were you helping them?

The question is what happened with this. It was a remarkable hearing today, but this whistleblower complaint and it's hard in this environment and if you're watching at home, suspend your politics and read it, alleges not only did the President seek foreign dirt in the 2020 election and abuses power, used leverage, used essentially extortion against the Ukrainian government.

But in some ways, more dangerously, it suggests that people in the White House created a second computer system because they understood how outrageous this was and they were hiding this, covering it up, burying it. The question is, does Washington have a process after watching the politics and mistrust play out in that room to deal with the substance of this?

SHAWN TURNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I think throughout this testimony, Joe Maguire repeatedly said that he did not believe that this fellow under his authority as a Director of National Intelligence. But the point you make, John, absolutely does fall squarely under his purview.

What you have here is a case where officials at the White House are taking information that is neither sensitive nor of a classified nature, does not involve national security issues, and they're moving that information from a system that archives transcripts of these calls, and they're putting it in a compartmented, highly classified, sensitive system that's only used for dealing with information that are of a particularly sensitive nature.

[12:25:00]

TURNER: That system is being misused by those officials. And what the DNI has to understand is that because it's a particularly sensitive nature. And what the DNI has to understand is that because it's an Intelligence Community Classified System, it falls under his purview, and what he should have did when he saw this is he should have said, what do I need to do about that?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: By the way, those calls, it was not just the call with Ukraine, because on the first page of the appendix, the whistleblower says, according to White House officials, plural, I spoke to this, this was not the first time in the administration that a presidential transcript was placed in this coded level system. That means other calls with world leaders were set aside, covered up. Who were those other world leaders? That was not a question by the way not asked today. Do they include, say, Vladimir Putin, a leader that this President has already taken extraordinary steps to hide the content of his conversations, you'll remember, the confiscated translator notes Hamburg in July of 2017. That to me was a signal that what this whistleblower revealed goes beyond what we even learned.

KING: And let's be clear, this is an allegation. It is a wow. It is a potential to if true, to take down a President and raises questions of inequality, improper behavior by senior people in the White House who would have the authority to create separate system to cover up and hide things that belong.

So let's just go through this. This is an allegation, it is not true. The question is can Washington have a process that you trust to go through it and to air it out? That is the challenge today. I just want to go through some of the claims in this whistleblower complaint.

The Trump used his power to solicit interference in the 2020 campaign. That more than half dozen of the officials in the U.S. government can corroborate that. Those White House officials were deeply disturbed by the July 25th call with the Ukrainian president. It says the President's Personal Attorney essentially has been acting as a private envoy here that officials in the government were concerned about his contacts with Ukraine.

That he met with Ukrainian official's well prior, months prior to the July 25th call. Two State Department officials spoke to Giuliani trying to "Contain the damage". And then again, White House tried to lockdown down the records of the July 25th call, directed to move transcripts to a separate storage system.

Not the first time, as Jim noted, this has happened. Concern this is an abuse of the system. Also of concern is whether they pulled the Vice Presidential trip to send a message to Ukraine, and that essentially the president was saying, you don't get anything from us, including a visit from the Vice President, until you show willingness to play ball.

The allegations are damning. It is very professionally written. The Director of National Intelligence was very clear that he supported the credibility of the whistleblower and the credibility of the Inspector General even though he did not want to weigh in on what he believes is the substance of this. What next?

CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: There is a lot of information in the complaint that now is the basis for the Intelligence Committees both in the House and the Senate to conduct a really serious investigation. They should not be stymied by allegations of classified information. This complaint is unclassified.

There was a very short and abbreviated classified addendum, much of which has already been declassified by the President and released publicly, so classification shouldn't be an issue. The text and summary of the phone call itself on July 25th has been declassified and released by the President. So that is not any longer under any colorable claim of privilege.

There is a lot of information in the complaint and in the phone call for the Committee now to do the investigation. And so much of what we just heard in the hearing had to do with the process of whether or not the complaint could come to the Committee, and we're beyond that already.

KING: We're beyond that. We have this document now which, again, I don't care whether you're a Democrat or Republican or Independent, maybe you don't care about politics at all. Today may be it was the reason to make you not care about politics at all.

But in the sense that yes, the Democrats run the Intelligence Committee on the House side and Adam Schiff ended by saying, we're going to find out. The question is for the country at large, especially if you look at the calendar, heading into a reelection year for the President, reelection year for Congress.

Is there any prayer that Republicans would read this document and go to Democrats and say, why don't we put impeachment in a box for a couple months and let's just deal with this, not deciding what the last chapter is, and let's just investigate this because this is damning if true?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, this is what Nancy Pelosi wants to do. She wants to just go right ahead on Ukraine and forget everything else and Stormy Daniels and the rest of it. The question that I have on any kind of investigation going forward and how quickly it could be - and I'm not a lawyer, so I'm going to ask the lawyers here.

When the whistleblower said that White House officials told me they were directed by White House lawyers to establish effectively a file 13 here, kind of separate it out, do White House lawyers work for the American public or the President? Is there attorney-client privilege they can claim?

CORDERO: They are working for the Office of the President.

BORGER: Well, it doesn't say the White House Counsel's Office specifically, so I don't know what the answer is.

TOOBIN: Well, we had a very unusual event in the past two days, which is the voluntary release of the Inspector General's report and the voluntary release of the partial transcript of the conversation with the President--

[12:30:00]