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Furore after White House whistleblower complaint made public

Sep 28, 2019

WASHINGTON, DC – There has been a White House cover-up over President Donald Trump’s controversial telephone call with Ukrainian President, a whistleblower has claimed.

In a 9-page document published on Thursday the whistleblower describes the circumstances behind the call, which is being touted as a bid to get a foreign power, in particular a head of state, to interfere with the U.S. elections, by asking the Ukrainian president to dig up dirt on Joe Biden and his son.

The whistleblower sets out what White House officials did to keep the details of the call under the radar, and how Mr Trump’s persoanl alwyer was being involved in diplomatic measures to discredit the former vice president, who is running against Mr Trump in the 2020 election.

“In the days following the phone call, I learned from multiple U.S. officials that senior White House officials had intervened to ‘lock down’ all the records of the phone call, especially the official word-for-word transcript of the call that was produced as is customary by the White House situation room,” the whistleblower’s document says. “This set of actions underscored to me that White House officials understood the gravity of what had transpired in the call,” the complaint said.

The whisleblower’s efforts earned him an immediate rebuke from President Trump who accused whoever supplied him with the information of espionage.

“Who’s the person who gave the whistleblower the information? Because that’s close to a spy,” Trump said in an audio message. “You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little differently than we do now.”

The president also took to Twitter to voice his disdain. “The Democrats are trying to destroy the Republican Party and all that it stands for. Stick together, play their game and fight hard Republicans. Our country is at stake,” he posted.

On Wednesday after the furore over the call arose, the White House released a transcript of the telephone call.

In it, the president asked Zelenskiy to investigate Biden, and Biden’s son Hunter, a member of the board of a Ukrainian gas company.

Joseph Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence praised the whistleblower for having acted honorably. He said he recognized the complaint as immediately sensitive and important and insisted it not be withheld from Congress.

“I believe that everything in this matter here is totally unprecedented,” he said.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who met several times with the Ukrainian president said Trump’s critics were making too much of the issue.

“This has been blown way out of proportion,” he said.

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