Washington: In the days following the phone call between US President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s new president, senior White House officials intervened to “lock down” all records of the call. That’s according to a declassified whistleblower complaint released on Thursday by the House Intelligence Committee.
The complaint says that the whistleblower learned about the effort from “multiple US officials.”
Committee members are hearing the testimony on Thursday over the complaint and details of the July 25 call on which Trump prodded Ukraine’s leader to work with Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and the US attorney general to investigate Democratic political rival Joe Biden.
Trump has said he’s done nothing wrong. “They are getting hit hard on this witch hunt because when they look at the information, it’s a joke,” he said. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry.
The House Intelligence Committee has released a redacted version of a whistleblower complaint at the centre of Demo-crats’ impeachment probe of President Donald Trump.
Lawmakers began reviewing a classified version of the complaint on Wednesday evening ahead of testimony on Thursday morning by acting Director of National Intel-ligence Joseph Maguire.
House Democrats who have read the document say it’s “deeply disturbing.”
The whistleblower’s identity was not made public.
The complaint is at least in part related to a July phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
The White House released a rough transcript of that call Wednesday morning.
