When and in our politics a lot of these legal questions that may be best directed at somebody else but i feel like you have a perspective when does a well see office of legislative Legal CounselLegal Counsel scuse me guidance override the laws passed by congress. The office of Legal Counsel does not override laws passed by congress what it does is it passes legal opinion for those of us who are in the executive branch and the office of Legal Counsel legal opinion is binding to everyone within the executive branch. Good copy and i have 2 final questions im asking together to give you the time to answer them both. What is your assessment of how intelligence operations in general are going to be impacted by this latest episode and when i say episode im referring to the media circus the political circus the technical issues that are related to this whistle blower revelation you alluded to it in some of your previous questions but i would i would like your your assessment of how this can impact intelligence operation in the future and i do believe this your 1st time testifying to congress in your position right. And i would welcome in the end i know this is off a little off topic what do you see our greatest challenges and threats to this country as the director of National Intelligence well. Let me answer that the lot of part of that i think that that the greatest challenge that we face is not necessarily from kinetic strike or with russia or china or iran or north korea i think the greatest challenge that we do have is to make sure that we maintain the integrity of our election system we know right now we know that there are foreign powers who are trying to get us to question the validity of whether or not our law our elections are valid so 1st and foremost i think that protecting the sanctity of our election but then the United States whether it be National City state local is perhaps the most important job that we have with the Intelligence Community side of that we do face significant threats id say the number one is not necessarily kinetic but cyber this is a cyber war we talk about whether or not the great competition is taking place with russia and china and we are you know building ships and weapons to do that but in my estimation the great competition with these countries is taking place right now and is doing that in the cyber at the moment my time is i think running outside the. Other implications on intelligence operations of this current whistleblower situation but i will tell you in light of this i clearly have a lot of work as the leader of this community to do you know to it reassure like to reassure that you know the Intelligence Community that in fact you know that we i have totally committed to the Whistleblower Program and i am absolutely absolutely committed to protecting the anonymity of this individual as well as making sure that Michael Atkinson who is our i. C. I. G. Continues to be able to his do his job and fed it but i think that with that i certainly have to be proactive in my communications with my team mr chairman i yield back the time i may just not have misconstrued thank you chairman thank you director mcguire for your testimony today i want to say thank you also to the whistleblower for having the courage in the bravery to come forward on behalf of the nation thank you mr achatz and also the Inspector General for his courage and coming forward to congress you mentioned that you believe that the whistleblowers report is is credible with the whistleblowers credible that the whistleblower acted in good faith you had a chance now as we have and i believe the American People have had an opportunity to review both the whistleblower complaint and the transcript that was released of the phone call between the president of the United States in the present ukraine youve read both documents by now havent you yes congressman would you say that the whistleblowers complaint is remarkably consistent with the transcript that was released i would say that the whistleblowers can complaint is an alignment with what was released yesterday by the of the president ok i want to read you a quick section of both to underscore exactly how accurate and consistent this complaint is. On page 2 of the whistleblowers complaint. The whistleblower says according to the white house officials who had direct knowledge of the call the president pressured mr selenski to and then theres a few bullet points the 1st one says an issue or continue an investigation into the activities of former Vice President joseph biden and his son hunter biden and the 3rd bullet point meet or speak with 2 people the president named explicitly as his personal envoy on these matters mr giuliani and attorney general barr to whom the president referred multiple times in tandem in the transcript that was released on page 4 of the 1st paragraph into what looks like the 3rd sentence President Trump says the former ambassador from United States the woman was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the ukraine were bad news so i just want to let you know that the other thing theres a lot of talk about bidens son the biden stop the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution etc you have reason to doubt what the whistleblowers brought forward in back into michael at can since determination of whether or not was credible or urgent concern as the d. N. I. It is not my place to ensure that it is credible that is the i. C. I g. s job as the inspector he has determined that is credible my only trouble was that in fact it involves someone who is not in the Intelligence Community or in an organization under which i have authority and responsibility outside it at the director mcguire you agree that it involved Intelligence Matters it involved an issue of election interference it involved an investigation of u. S. Persons including a former Vice President if you had knowledge. Or the cia had knowledge that a government was going to investigate or drum up an investigation against a former Vice President would that not class about that would qualify as an intelligence matter would that qualify as an intelligence matter yes or no it well i dont mean to say thats kind of a hypothetical question sir and i dont think its hype and well if thats thats exactly whats in the transcript thats what hes asking for what the complaint the complaint but thats what the president is asking the the president of ukraine to do hes asking the president you k. Crane to investigate a former Vice President of the United States does that qualify as an intelligence matter that the cia would want to know the conversation was by the president to the president of ukraine as you know and is his i am not a mr magoo i understand but that cannot be that cannot be an ultimate shield against transparency it cant be an ultimate shield against accountability the president is not above the law one thing that you havent told us is if if if your office or the Inspector General is not able to investigate then who is able to investigate a congressman castro once again sure as i mentioned several times so far although it did not come to the committee the complaint was referred to did you dish will department for criminal investigation this was not swept under the rug i have i have one more question for you why did your office think you should appeal the i. G. Is determination about quote unquote urgent concern to the d. O. J. That has never been done before. Its never been done before this is unprecedented in that in the past that there has never been a matter that the Inspector General has investigated that did not involve a member of the Intelligence Community or an organization that the director of National Tell it one last point i would make with respect to you keep saying the president is not part of the Intelligence Community i believe he is the president you agree has the ability to declassify any single intelligence document you agree thats true the president has original Classification Authority how then how is that person outside of the Intelligence Community going to hes the president of the United States above the entire executive branch thank you thank you congressman mr cliff and chairman admiral good to see just again sir you served in the navy 36 years you commanded seal team 2 and you retired as vice admiral of the navy correct that is correct congressman and despite the fact that after that service you became acting d. N. I. 23 days after the trump zelinsky call and 4 days after the whistleblower made his or her complaint you were subpoenaed before this committee after being publicly accused of committing a crime correct yes congressman chairmanships wrote a letter on september 13th accusing you of being part of a quote unlawful cover up and then the speaker of the house took it one step further she went on national t. V. And said not once but twice that you broke the law that you committed a crime she said the acting director of National Intelligence blocked him meaning the i. C. I. G. From disclosing the whistleblower complaint this is a violation of the law. You were publicly accused of committing a crime you were also falsely accused of committing a crime as you have so accurately related you were required to follow not just an opinion of what the law is but the opinion from the Justice Department an 11 page opinion about whether or not you were required by law to report the whistleblower complaint correct thats correct congressman and that and that opinion says the question is whether such a complaint falls within the statutory definition of urgent concern that the law requires the d. N. I. To forward to the Intelligence Committee we conclude that it does not read that accurately. You had better have right. Thats an opinion not from bill barr thats an opinion from the department of justice ethics lawyers not political appointees but career officials that serve republicans and democrats the ethics lawyers at the department of justice that determined that you did follow the law so you were publicly accused you were also falsely accused and yet here today i havent heard anything close to an apology for that welcome to the house of representatives with democrats in charge let me turn to the. Matter that were here for a lot of talk about this whistleblower complaint. The question is at this point given what we have why all the focus on this whistleblower the best evidence of what President Trump said to president zelinsky is a transcript of what President Trump said to president selenski im not casting aspersions on the whistleblowers good faith or their intent. But a 2nd hand account of something someone didnt hear isnt as good as the best evidence of what was actually said and to that point despite good faith the whistleblower is in fact wrong. In numerous respects and i know everyone is not going to have time to read the whistleblowers complain but the whistleblower says that i am deeply concerned talking about the president that there was a serious or flagrant problem abuse or violation of the law whistleblower then goes on to say i was not a direct witness to the events described however i found my colleagues accounts of this to be credible and then talking about those accounts of which this whistleblower complaint is based on the whistleblower tells us the officials that i spoke with told me and i was told that and i learned from multiple u. S. Officials that and white house officials told me that and i also learned from multiple u. S. Officials that in other words all of this is secondhand information none of it is firsthand information the whistleblower then goes on to cite additional sources besides those secondhand information those sources happen to include Mainstream Media sources that the whistleblower bases its complaints on include the Washington Post the New York Times politico the Hill Bloomberg a. B. C. News and others in other words much like the steel dossier the allegations in the whistleblowers complaints are based on 3rd hand Mainstream Media sources rather than 1st hand information whistleblower also appears to allege crimes not just against the president but says with regard to this scheme to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 election that. Quote the president s personal lawyer mr Rudolph Giuliani is a central figure in this effort and attorney general barr appears to be involved as well but buried in a footnote a couple of pages later a couple pages later whistleblower admits i do not know the extent to which if at all mr giuliani is directly coordinating his efforts on the ukraine with attorney general barr attorney general does know because he issued a statement yesterday saying there was no involvement. My point in all of this is again the transcript is the best evidence of what we have and so that the American People are very clear what that transcript relates his Legal Communications the United States is allowed to solicit help from my Foreign Government in an ongoing criminal investigation which is exactly what president dropped from did in that conversation so if the democrats are intent on impeaching the president for lawful conduct then be my guest i yield back thank you congressman reckless. Mr heck. Thank you mr chairman director thank you for being here sir thank you very much for your service i want to step back a little bit and kind of put into perspective i think whats at stake here obviously yesterday the white house released the transcript of the july 25th conversation between President Trump and president zelinsky and we know know that this phone call was indeed a part of the whistleblower complaint yesterday the chair at a press conference characterized the president s conversation and that call as a shakedown of the ukrainian leader he was not suggesting that it was a shakedown for either information or money but instead it was a shakedown for help to win a president ial election which is coming up next year so now lets fast for a wind to may 7th of this year when f. B. I. Director Christopher Ray testified before the United States senate that and im quoting now any public official or member of any campaign should immediately report to the f. B. I. Any conversations with foreign actors about quote influencing or interfering with our election the director is of course the top cop in the United States of america you agree with director ray do you not sir. Congressman heck i do not disagree with the director a and is that the same thing as you agree with him sir yes ok im saying it let me go on it faster forward it was referred to the f. B. I. Let me fast forward it was it were furred to the f. B. I. By the president who actually engaged in conversation. The note was not let me fast forward to june 13th when thats 5 weeks in advance of that when the chair of the federal Elections Commission made the following statement follow me please let me make something 100 percent clear to the American Public and Anyone Running for Public Office it is either legal for any person to accept solicit or receive anything of value from a Foreign National in connection with the us election this is not a Novel Concept election intervention from Foreign Governments has been considered unacceptable since the beginnings of our nation do you agree with the f. E. C. Chair wind tribe mr director i agree that our elections are sacred and. Any and to fish from an outside source as is the now what we wanted to solicit or accept it as the legal i dont know about that im not a lawyer sure i dont need to be of a set but i cant you think it is ok for a public official to solicit or it may be ok you didnt know the law in this regard you think it may be ok for a candidate or to elected official to solicit foreign interference in our election i cannot believe youre saying that youre not really saying that right now im not saying that the congressman had at all so we should note that the f. E. C. Chair was prompted to say this because it was just literally. Literally the day before that the president of the United States sat at the resolute desk in the most iconic room in the United States the oval office and said that f. B. I. Director ray was wrong youre obviously disagreeing with that he also said that he he would consider accepting foreign help