The Director of National Intelligence and the intelligence community’s inspector general both sent the whistleblower’s complaint against President Donald Trump to the U.S. Dept. of Justice, suggesting a criminal investigation be opened. The DOJ, under Attorney General Bill Barr, refused to prosecute the president.
“The department’s criminal division reviewed the matters and concluded that there was no basis for a criminal investigation into Mr. Trump’s behavior,” The New York Times reports. “Law enforcement officials determined that the transcript of the call did not show that Mr. Trump had violated campaign finance laws by soliciting from a foreign national a contribution, donation or thing of value.”
In fact, many legal experts believe the opposite.
The so-called “transcript,” which the Trump administration released at 10 AM ET Wednesday, shows that President Trump urged the president of Ukraine to dig up dirt on his top political opponent, Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter Biden. It clearly shows Trump promising U.S. government assistance should President Zelensky fulfill the “favor” Trump was requesting.
Experts say that is evidence of quid pro quo and something of value.
The “transcript” is just five pages and those familiar with such documents say were it complete it would be far longer than five pages. The White House even says it is not a “verbatim” account of the telephone conversation.
The whistleblower’s complaint, which the White House has never released to Congress despite the law mandating it do so, is believed to refer to many more actions than just that July 25 telephone call.
The whistleblower complaint was reportedly filed August 12. Trump fired Dan Coats, the Director of National Intelligence in July but Coats stayed until August 15. The Times does not state if Coats was the DNI or if his successor, Acting DNI Joseph Maguire, was the one who referred the complaint to the DOJ.
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