Believe that the situation we have and why were here this morning is because this case is unique and unprecedented. So why are cases normally not handled out in the public . All the other cases that came before either this committee or the Senate Committee whether or not they met the criteria of urgent concern were forwarded because they involved members of the Intelligence Community who were in organizations underneath the dnis authority and responsibility. This didnt come that way because it involved a member, an individual, who is not a member of the Intelligence Community underneath the authority of the dni. S they is different from all others in the past i am aware of. I want to get into how this all got out in the public. This has been orchestrated effort over two weeks. We were first told about it a week and a half ago. We were told specifically that whistleblower did not want to get this information out, they did not want it to leak out. There were only a few potential groups of people that would have known about this complaint. You and your people within your office. Yes, sir. The people within the Inspector Generals office, and the whistleblower and whoever that whistleblower gave this information to. So what im trying to ascertain is, how would it run in all the Mainstream Media outlets . Even though they got a lot of it wrong, they had the basics that it involved the president of the United States talking to a foreign leader, so did anybody,
you or anybody in your office, leak this to the Washington Post or nbc news . Ranking member, i lead the Intelligence Community. We know how to keep a secret. As far as how that got into the press, i really do not know, sir. I know its all over the place and as you said its been reported by different media for the past several weeks. Where they get their information from, i dont know. So that but it was not from the Intelligence Community, from me or from my office. Thank you, director. So this is not the first time this has happened to this president , that happened with a call between the mexican president , the australian Prime Minister, so its happened twice before, the pieces of transcripts leaked out. And, of course, this time it was leaked out again and the president , thankfully was able
to put this out because of the actions of this of the situation as you said thats unprecedented. Is it normal for the president of the United States to have their conversations leak out . This is the third time. I would have to leave that to the white house to respond to that. But to me, the president of the United States conversation with any other Head Of State i would consider privileged conversation. Clearly those conversations are being captured by the Intelligence Agencies . Not necessarily, sir. I mean if the president i should say this, theyre captured and disseminated. Captured and disseminated to the Intelligence Agencies. I have to be careful in this open hearing about, you know, how i respond to that. The Intelligence Community and
the National Security agency obviously, you know, they collect things that are to protect i want to make sure. Foreign leaders, have either the president of the United States not talk to foreign leaders or we should just or just publish all the transcripts. Thats whats happening here. Ranking member somebody is leaking this, its likely coming from the agencies you oversee. Ranking member, no, thats sir im not saying that you dont you dont know. We have the transcript of the mexican president , australian Prime Minister and contents of the call with the ukraine president leak out . Ranking member the allegation in the whistleblower complaint was that there were about 12 people who listened in on the conversation. Members of the National Security council and others. And then others were briefed from State Department as well, the transcripts because if they have an area of responsibility and a region responsibility then they would be informed on the interaction so there were a number of people that from the
white house briefed on the call this would not be something that im quite sure of this, the white house probably didnt leak this out. I wouldnt say the white house, but there are individuals within the white house that may or may not. I dont know. But not be from an intelligence intercept, i will say that. Right. Im not im just saying the dissemination, the dissem nags of these calls is supposed to be sacred. It is important for the State Department and the appropriate agency im not saying its all the intelligence agency, but when a president talks to a foreign leader its confidential, those contents are confidential, there could be some facts of that conversation you do want to get to the appropriate agency, not just the ic, i want to be clear about that, but this is now the third time. Im not aware of this ever happening before, of contents of calls like this getting out. I really dont know, ranking
member. Im not aware. I dont the numbers. It seems to me, though, it is unprecedented and i would also say i think that the decision by the president yesterday to release the transcripts of his conversation with the president of the ukraine is probably unprecedented as well. Well, i appreciate you being here. Have fun, be careful what you say because theyre going to use these words against you. I tell you what, Ranking Member, either way im honored to be here and leading the intelligence. I appreciate your service to this country for a long time and im sure well be talking again soon. Hopefully not in the public. Hopefully behind closed doors like this is supposed to be done. I yield back. Mr. Heinz. Director maguire, thank you for being here and thank you for your prou profound service and the service of your family to this country. Director, what i find bewildering about this whole conversation is that we are not
sitting here today and the American Public is not aware of the allegations of the president asking for a favor of investigation into his political opponent, were not aware of the murky decision to withhold aid, not aware of mr. Giuliani apparent establishment of a personal State Department, not aware of a possible retaliation against a u. S. Ambassador, none of this happens but for the decision of your Inspector General, Michael Atkinson, a man who was appointed by president trump, and confirmed by a republican senate, to examicome this committee seven days after the complaint was required by law to be transmitted to us. It was his decision, personal decision, not the kaleidoscope of Conspiracy Theories the Ranking Member thinks is happening here, but it was the decision of Michael Atkinson, an
appointee of this president , to come to this Committee Following not advice from you or any law, but following his own conscience, without his decision to do this, none of this is happening, correct . I applaud michaels the way he has done this. He has acted in good faith. He has followed the law every step of the way. The question is, congressman, does it did it or did it not meet the legal def figures. Definition. Without his decision, its a simple question. Without his decision none of this is happening, that is correct . We have to back up to the whistleblower as well. Okay. I should have noted that the whistleblower also deserves the same accolades that mr. Atkinson does. Director, were you ever advised by the white house not to provide this complaint to congress for any reason . No, congressman. Okay. And as i understand it, the opinion was that you were not
obligated to convey, despite the very clear wording of the law, to convey the complaint to congress. So the decision was taken to defy a subpoena of this congress, the subpoena of september 17th, to turn over the complaint who made the decision to defy that subpoena of september 17th. Congressman, urgent concern im asking a simple question. Who made the decision to defy the congressional subpoena . Somebody said we will not abide by this subpoena and i would like to know who that somebody was. Congressman, nobody did. I endeavored once we no longer had urgent concern with the sevenday timeline to work to get the information to the committee. What i needed to do was to get work through the Executive Privilege Hurdles with the office of Legal Counsel at the white house. Although this was the most important issue to me, the white house has other issues they
dealt with. I would have liked to have had as i said to the chairman perhaps this moved a little faster than it did, but this is a very deliberate process and finally came to head yesterday. When i received the information on the 26th Of August we had seven days based on the Whistleblower Protection Act. All we did was lose those seven days. It may have taken longer than you would have liked but you have the information. Im focused on the subpoena. Subpoena is on your desk. Its clear in what it asked for. Youre saying a decision was never taken not to comply with that subpoena and yet somehow it wasnt complied with. Im looking for the decisionmaking process to ignore a legal congressional subpoena. I did not ignore. I dealt with the chairman of this committee and asked to have one more week to be able to do what i needed to do to get this information released. He was gracious enough and this committee was supportive. It wasnt something that it was ready to go but i was committed fully committed to this committee and the chairman to get that information and i was able to provide that yesterday. Thank you, director. Did you or your office ever speaks to the president of the United States about this complaint . Congressman, im the president s intelligence officer, i speak with him several times throughout the week. Let me repeat my question. Did you ever speaks to the president about this complaint . My conversations with the president , because i am the director of National Intelligence, are privileged and it would be inappropriate for me because it would destroy my relationship with the president in Intelligence Matters to divulge any of my conversations with the president of the United States. But just so we can be clear for the record, you are not denying that you spoke to the president about this complaint . What im saying, congressman, is that i will not divulge privileged conversations that i
have as the director of National Intelligence with the president. Has the white house instructed you to assert that privilege . No, sir. Thats just a member of the executive committee, Executive Branch as a member of the National Security council and the homeland committee. I just have to maintain the discretion and protect the conversation with the president of the United States. Thank you, director. I appreciate that answer. The clock is broken but i would yield back the remainder of my time. Thank you for being here. You and i are at a competitive disadvantage because neither one of us are lawyers. That may be a badge of honor for some of us. You have lawyers on your staff . I do, congressman. All right. And your lawyers have looked at this urgent concern definition thoroughly and have given you advice . Yes, congressman. If the Black Letter Law was so clear in black letter how is it weve got different attorneys giving you and i different
opinions . Thats a rhetorical question. With respect to this issue. Just to clarify, Mike Atkinson was in front of us last week and did a very good job of telling us what he did and didnt do. We now know for sure what it is he was able to do. As part of his investigation, he did not request records of the call from the president and the reason he did is he cited the difficulty of working through all of that would have probably meant he couldnt comply with the 14day time frame. Even he did not try to overrun the white houses executive privilege over the conversation that the president had with president zelensky. He also said in his letter, i also determined quoting michael, determined that there were reasonable grounds to believe that information relating to the urgent concern appeared credible. Thats a different statement than credible. Is there anything in the statute that your lawyers have been advising you that says that the determination of urgent concern, lies solely with the icig . No, sir i was never advised by my Legal Counsel to that effect. Has the Justice Department ever weighed in to say that dni cant make a separate decision with respect to the sevenday process that the matter is not of urgent concern as your team decided . The matter of urgent concern is a legally defining term. It pretty much is either yes or no. Apparently thats not the case because ig said it was and youre saying its not under that Legal Definition, because it involved the president , last time i checked, youre pretty familiar with change of command, i know. Hes not hes not in your chain of command. Youre in his chain of command. For very definite reasons appear to be credible, doesnt meet the
statutorily urgent concern definition with respect to the Whistleblower Blower Protections of the i. G. And your team made that call. The Inspector General made a different call. No, sir. John ratcliffe it was the department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel that made the determination that it was not urgent concern. All we wanted to do was just check and see and to me, it just seemed prudent with the matter at hand right now, to be able to just make sure that, in fact, it did. And when it didnt i want to say once again, i endeavored to get that information to this committee. Okay. Sir. Just to clarify the role that the Inspector General had with respect to the Department Of Justice, i heard you say he was involved in the conversations allowed to make his case but also said you gave him the letter, gave the Justice Department the letter. What was his involvement in making his case to the Justice Department to his decision . Was he there present physically or his lawyers there . To the best of my knowledge, the icigs Transmittal Letter as well as the complaint from the whistleblower were forwarded to the office of Legal Counsel for their determination. I believe that that is what they based their opinion on. You dont think if im incorrect i will come back to the committee and correct that sure. Appreciate that. Youre in a tough spot. I appreciate your long, storied history. I apologize if your integrity was insulted. That happens in this arena a lot. Sometimes justified and most of the time not. Your integrity was not justified. The fact that we have differences of opinion when we start losing those differences of opinion we attack each other and call each other names and those kinds of things. My experience is when youve got a legal matter ive got lawyers i pay, youve got lawyers you pay, typically stick with the
lawyers that im paying and so you have good legal advice on this issue in a tough spot wanting to make sure this whistleblower was protected but at the same time that if, in fact, there was something awry here, that it would be you would get the full airing that its clearly getting. Thank you for your service and i yield back. Thank you very much, congressman. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And Director Maguire, thank you so much for being here. I want to turn to what i fear may be one of the most damaging longterm effects of this whistleblower episode and that is the Chilling Effect that it will have on others in government who may witness misconduct, but now may be afraid to come forward to report it. Sir, im worried that Government Employees and contractors may see how important this situation has played out and decide its not worth putting themselves on the line. The fact that a whistleblower
followed all of the proper procedures to report misconduct and then the Department Of Justice and the white house seems to have weighed in to keep the complaint hidden, is problematic, sir. I want to know whether or not you see how problematic this will be and having a Chilling Effect on members of the ic that you are sworn to represent and ostensibly protect . Congresswoman, i think thats a fair assessment. I dont disagree with what youve said. I have endeavored to trans