Boing Boing Staging

Trump's 'promise' to foreign leader sparked whistleblower complaint

Xeni Jardin

Wouldn’t it be great if Trump were busy keeping his promises to America instead of making secret ones to foreign leaders?

The Washington Post reports tonight the whistleblower complaint that triggered a showdown between the intelligence community and Congress has to do with President Donald Trump’s communications with a foreign leader, and a “promise” Trump is said to have made to that leader.

The Washington Post cites two former U.S. officials familiar with the matter as its source, and they told the paper Trump’s interaction with the foreign leader included a “promise” so troubling, “it prompted an official in the U.S. intelligence community to file a formal whistleblower complaint with the inspector general for the intelligence community.”

As this story breaks, POTUS is on Air Force One flying back from California, where he held fundraisers for his 2020 re-election campaign.

Excerpt:

It was not immediately clear which foreign leader Trump was speaking with or what he pledged to deliver, but his direct involvement in the matter has not been previously disclosed. It raises new questions about the president’s handling of sensitive information and may further strain his relationship with U.S. spy agencies. One former official said the communication was a phone call.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and a lawyer representing the whistleblower declined to comment.

Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson determined that the complaint was credible and troubling enough to be considered a matter of “urgent concern,” a legal threshold that requires notification of congressional oversight committees.

Gee, wonder who that foreign leader was?

The reporting goes into some detail about Trump’s comms in the weeks prior to the complaint being filed.

Yup. Putin’s on top of the suspect list.

Read the full story at WAPO: Trump’s communications with foreign leader are part of whistleblower complaint that spurred standoff between spy chief and Congress, former officials say [By Greg Miller, Ellen Nakashima, Shane Harris]

Observations from reporters and lawmakers and others on Twitter, below.

Exit mobile version