Beginning at 8 00 eastern. Well hear from adam schiff. Well stay here live. We want to know what you think as well. 2027488920 is the number for democrats. Republicans use 2027488921. For independents thats 2027488 2027488922. Well take a look outside the Rayburn Office building where we expect to hear the chair of the Intelligence Committee adam schiff to hear about the testimony of Joseph Maguire who took over as acting director of National Intelligence august 16th, just over a month ago one day after dan coates stepped down. President trump announcing that coates would step down from that position. The phone call with the craukra president happening in late july this year and the acting dni taking over on august 16th. The whistleblower complaint was filed in mid august as well on august 12th. Were live here on cspan 3. Lets go out live and wait for congressman schiff to come to the cameras. The whistleblower complaint was released this morning just as the committee came into session. So you heard members referring to it and that has been posted. We have posted that on our website at cspan. Org. Call 2027488920 for democrats, 2027488921 for republicans, 2027488922 for all others. We will hear from scott on our republican line in new hartford, new york. Caller yes. Good afternoon. Go ahead. Caller are we good . Youre good. Go ahead with your comments. Caller its actually just a question or a comment. What happens to the Republican Party . I am not a trump supporter. I voted for him. I find his behavior reprehensible. I wont vote for him again. But what happens to the Republican Party in this country if this goes completely south . Theres so Much Negative vibe, if you will, toward the Republican Party. My fear is that we end up essentially with a oneparty country, right . The dems will be in charge another 40 years, not that thats necessarily that awful given whats going on today. But i think that the country needs the balance of at least a twoparty system. If the Republican Party gets decimated by donald trump, i mean, just destroyed by his criminal, perhaps criminal behavior, what happens next to the gop . Lets go to our independent line in connecticut. Youre on the air. Go ahead. Caller hi. How are you . Doing well. Thanks. Caller im just amazed at how the democrats can just see things in a piece of paper and put words where there are not. Its just unbelievable that for the past three years they have been trying so hard to unseat this man, our president. Everything theyve thrown at him, the kitchen sink. It just never ends. I dont know what else to say. I want to remind you that like the memorandum of the phone conversation between President Trump and the ukrainian president that we posted online, weve done so as well with the whistleblower complaint. Its actually in the form of a letter the chairs of the senate and house Intelligence Committees. You can find that on our website at cspan. Org, probably a 7 or 8page letter. Also were reair the entire hearing not only this afternoon on cspan 3 but 8 00 eastern on cspan. Mesa, arizona, catherine on our republican line. Caller yes. I dont believe the president s telephone call to the ukrainian president had anything to do with the election. So he wasnt trying to get dirt on anybody or anything else. He was just trying to get to the bottom of this joe biden thing, which joe biden bragged about on tv. I heard him myself. And at that point in that conversation you think that was an appropriate role for President Trump to play in that phone conversation . Caller sure. I dont think he was doing anything wrong. I dont think he ever does anything wrong, because hes just trying to do whats best for the country. Just to let you know, our live look here down the hall outside of the hearing room where theyve just wrapped up this 3hour hearing with the acting director of National Intelligence. Were expecting to hear some comments from the chair of that committee adam schiff. It is a crowded hallway with reporters. This is an Office Building where members of the house have their offices. As we watch, well go to rosendale, massachusetts. Ronald, go ahead. Caller yes. Well, what i think is the crux of the matter is that maguire is either incompetent or hes a stooge, because the law is very clear in what he should have done. The fact that he goes to the subject of the complaint is unfathomable. How could a person in his position with leadership past experience allow that decision . That should not even be allowable. Michael democrats line davidson, michigan. Welcome. Caller hi. How are you doing . Ive been watching this. Why this man is being browbeat doesnt make any sense. Theyve got the complaint and thats what they wanted. The time that he took to get it to them shouldnt matter. They have what they want. Michael, you feel that mr. Maguire was in your words browbeat during this hearing . Caller yeah, i believe it come down to that, you know, because most of the questions they asked him were out of his jurisdiction. Its not his job to investigate. Its his job to evaluate. You know, why they have to spend so much time wasting our money on asking repetitive questions over and over again. Joseph maguire is the acting director of National Intelligence, assuming that position on august 16th, one day after dan coates, the previous director, had left that job. We will have live comments as they available here in the position outside of the hearing room on capitol hill. Lets show you the comments of speaker pelosi, who had her briefing this morning. Heres what she had to say. Ill just read from the complaint, which is now public, but which i saw yesterday when it wasnt. The complaint states that the white house tried to lock down all records of the call, especially the word for word transcript. That gave the whistleblower reason to believe that they, the white house, understood the gravity of what transpired in that call. The complaint reports, quote, a repeated abuse of an electronics record system designed to store classified, Sensitive National security information, which the white house used to hide information of a political nature. This is a coverup. All of that hearing at cspan. Org. The committee, the Intelligence Committee held a 3hour hearing with the acting director of National Intelligence. The memorandum, the complaint filed by the whistleblower was released this morning. Its available at cspan. Org. We continue to take your calls and comments as we wait to hear perhaps from the chair of the committee adam schiff. Reporters are standing by. Lets hear what the republican leader had to say, Kevin Mccarthy in his briefing this morning. You said a lot about democrats, but what you didnt do is defend the president. Is the president defensible in this case . Yes. What in this case rises to impeachment . This is a president of the United States that had a conversation with a leader in another country. Never before has a president had to put forth their conversation. The reason why he had to put forth his conversation, a whistleblower, who did not hear the conversation, does not have any primary source about anything else and now he released it not just to the members of congress but to the entire world. That just weakened americas National Security for every president in the future. And when you read the transcript, tell me one thing in there that is impeachable. But tell me this, the speaker of the house moved for impeachment against the rules without having the full body vote for it without one bit of evidence. Yes, sir. Thanks, mr. Leader. Whether or not it is impeachable and thats debatable i think its very clear that its not. Can you comment on the president asking zelensky to investigate joe biden, somebody who he might run against for president next year . Lets be very clear. The president did not ask to investigate joe biden. What he asked the president of ukraine to do is to participate in an open from the a. G. Investigation of what transpired in 2016. That is lawful. For us to look for another government to participate in an open investigation of what happened in 2016, because we want to make sure that never happens again. Right. But if i could follow up, he also asked mr. Zelensky if he could look into the former Vice President and his son. This was about events previous, but we all know that he might run against joe biden next year. What about the propriety of him doing that versus a formal government investigation by the doj . What youre reading and what to my belief youre misstating. The president said for you to work with the a. G. In an open process. 540 words later before joe biden ever comes up. What he says is what a lot of us have real concerns with. Ukraine has a challenge with corruption. You have the Vice President openly saying he withheld a billion dollars in six hours to fire a prosecutor. You have the president s son being paid from a company thats being investigated. I think everybody understands that should be looked at any time youre moving forward that ukraine is actually able to clean up their corruption. But lets be very clear. When you read the transcript, the president says when he uses the word favor that everybody has been misquoting here about what transpires afterwards to participate in an open investigation by the attorney general, which is totally lawful, of something that transpired in 2016, nothing about a further election, nothing about biden in the further election either. Majority leader Kevin Mccarthy late this morning. President trump returning today shortly from the u. N. Meetings in new york. Hell be back at the white house this afternoon. Following the goingson with this tweet. 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. Taking your calls and comments on the testimony this morning of Joseph Maguire, the acting director of National Intelligence. It will reair tonight 8 00 eastern on cspan. 2027488920 democrats, 2027488921 republicans, all others 2027488921. Donna is up next, frederick, maryland, republican line. Caller i have to go back to the very beginning of this complaint in itself. That complaint is based from what i understand on second and Third Party Information. Why, number one, did those people who actually heard this information not file a whistleblower complaint . And number two, if this was in a court of law, none of this second and Third Party Information and testimony would even be valid and permitted. I have a problem with the complaint to begin with. You know, do the complaint correctly and then you have an issue if everything falls in line. But this whole think, i dont think is right. Well, if the house and Senate Resolutions stand firm, then that whistleblower will get a chance to speak before those committees, because both of those resolutions actually became one resolution calling for that very same thing, for the whistleblower to be allowed to speak to the Intelligence Committees. In the statement that was posted today, the complaint in the form of the letter the chairs of those committees, the whistleblower said this, to quote exactly from it while i was not a direct witness to most of the events described, however, i found my colleagues accounts of these events to be credible because in all cases multiple officials recounted fact patterns that were consistent with one another. In addition, a variety of information consistent with these private accounts has been reported publicly. You can read it all for yourself. Canonsburg, pennsylvania. Karen go ahead with your comments. Caller thank you for having me being able to state an opinion here. I was surprised. I turned on cspan 3 and watched this today to learn more about this issue. What i really learned about was i was very disappointed in a lot of the conduct of our elected officials. So i just wanted to get on and say, hey, all you voters out there who havent decided yet or are affiliated with a party, i encourage them to watch cspan 3 and really look at the conduct of some of the people representing us. I didnt feel like the conduct today represented me for sure. You mean the conduct of the members of the committee . Caller yes. I think some of their conduct and the questioning, theyd ask a question and the poor man would start to answer the question and they would just cut him off, they wouldnt get the facts, you know, they would say some disparaging remarks about their colleagues in the room. Not the kind of conduct i mean, im a taxpayer. Were all taxpayers. They are getting a salary from us. They are supposed to conduct themselves in a way that represents their constituency. I dont think today a lot of them did. I encourage a lot of people to watch more of these types of hearings and more opportunities to watch their elected officials in action. I think it would be very enlightening for them before we all vote in the next election. The acting director speaking before the house Intelligence Committee today, the word was too he was going to brief a briefing for the senate Intelligence Committee also this morning, but obviously thats not in front of cameras. Go ahead. Caller in my opinion, i think really i think that this democratic whistleblower law that they put in when they put it in, i really believe this was put in for exactly going to let you go there, ron. Apology about that. Heres adam schiff. The whistleblower complaint that we received or at least we had an opportunity to review last night but only received today, we made available to the public as soon as we received the redacted version, sets out a series of the most damning allegations concerning the conduct of the president and others potentially within the administration. A scheme to use the leverage of the presidency, use the leverage of the vital military assistance to a foreign nation to provide or obtain dirt on a political opponent. Its hard to imagine a more serious set of allegations than those contained in the complaint. The complaint goes further obviously than the record of the call in that it also alleges that there were efforts made to conceal this scheme by moving communications onto servers that were designed for an entirely different purpose, that were designed in fact to contain communications of covert action and other intelligence information. It is a deep irony that the department of justice would say this is outside of the jurisdiction of the director of National Intelligence and yet someone felt that this should be put in the place that is used for the protection of the most sensitive of classified information. But what we do know at this point is this, that when the Inspector General found that this whistleblower was credible, he was right. Because what this whistleblower said about the nature of that call has been born out in great detail by the call record that has now been released. So in a very substantial part, this whistleblower has already been found to be credible. Whether the other allegations that go beyond this specific call will be born out has yet to be determined and that will be the subject of our investigation. This whistleblower has given us a road map for our investigation, but its important to underscore that what we are able to corroborate already about the whistleblower has been corroborated in detail by this record of the president s conversation with the president of ukraine. That gives added weight and urgency to the need to get to the bottom of the other allegations that are made by the whistleblower. Once again, i want to express my profound gratitude to the whistleblower for coming forward. And im grateful to the director for coming to the committee, for not requiring us to use coercion. Now, yes, he we provided a subpoena, but nonetheless he came before our committee and he came before the committee voluntarily. And while i believe that he has made the wrong decision in withholding the complaint, like my colleagues, i respect his service to the country. But we are profoundly concerned with the breakdown of this whistleblower system that has been manifest over the last month, that a whistleblower who was deemed credible, who had a complaint that was deemed urgent, that a complaint that was intended to come to congress would be withheld from congress and would do so on the basis, would be withheld on the basis of advice given by the subject or subjects of that complaint. The conflict of interest all too apparent, all too palpable. It is indeed a minor miracle that we got the kplaecomplaint l and that we got the transcript at all. At the end of the day, what is alleged in this whistleblower complaint goes to the very heart of the president s oath of office, that he faithfully execute the laws of the country, that he defend the constitution. If as this regacord of call already indicates, the president instead of faithfully executing his office, was using that office as leverage to obtain dirt, to have another country manufacture dirt on his opponent. It is hard to imagine a more fundamental abuse of that office. So we are determined to get to the bottom of this and im happy to respond to a couple question. What are your next investigative steps . What targets emerge from reading this complaint and from the hearing today . And whats the timeline on which youre hoping to work . Obviously a recess begins on friday for the next couple of weeks. Well be working through the recess. The complaint gives us a pretty good road map of allegations we need to investigate. There is a whole host of people apparently who have knowledge of these events that the Whistleblower Makes reference to. Now, we dont know how many or in