The Trump administration is preparing to release a redacted version of the DNI whistleblower complaint to Congress to quash the growing calls for President Donald Trump’s impeachment, and to assuage lawmakers angry at the blatant disregard for oversight law.
According to the New York Times, Trump called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Tuesday to convince her that he personally wasn’t responsible for blocking the DNI whistleblower’s complaint from Congress in the first place.
He reportedly thinks that the optics of the administration blocking the information from Congress are ultimately worse for him than the content of those documents. In the same vein, they plan to release an “unclassified and unredacted” transcript of the late July call he had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday.
However, according to Reuters, the transcript of the call is unlikely to be verbatim and will not be accompanied by a recording. Instead, the ultimate document will more likely be notes on the phone call taken by officers on assignment at the National Security Council. Those note-takers are reportedly unlikely to include details that would be embarrassing for their nation’s leader, should the document leak.
The whistleblower complaint, meanwhile, was blocked from Congress by acting DNI Joseph Maguire in consultation with the Department of Justice, who deemed the complaint did not meet the threshold of “urgent concern” that the Intelligence Community Inspector General said it did. The contents of the complaint are still foggy, but center on Trump and Ukraine. It is unclear how much will be redacted from the complaint, which extends beyond the July 25 call.
