Whistleblower: White House tried to 'lock down' call details

The secret whistleblower complaint at the center of Congress' impeachment inquiry alleges that President Donald Trump abused the power of his office to "solicit interference from a foreign country" in next year's U.S. election.

The White House then tried to "lock down" the information to cover it up, the complaint says.

The 9-page document was released Thursday ahead of testimony to House investigators from Joseph Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence, who acknowledged that the complaint alleged serious wrongdoing by the president but insisted that it was not his role to judge whether the allegations were credible or not.

Maguire said he was unfamiliar with any other whistleblower complaint in American history that "touched on such complicated and sensitive issues." "I believe that this matter is unprecedented," he said.

The document, with its precise detail and clear narrative, will likely accelerate the impeachment process and put more pressure on Trump to rebut its core contentions and on his fellow Republicans to defend him. The complaint provides a road map for corroborating witnesses and evidence, which will complicate the president's effort to characterize the findings as those of a lone partisan out to undermine him.

Trump insisted anew that it is all political. After the complaint was released, he immediately tweeted, "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."
The whistleblower said that White House officials had raised concerns that the rough transcript was moved to a separate computer system that is "reserved for codeword-level intelligence information."
In a statement Thursday, the White House said "nothing has changed with the release of this complaint, which is nothing more than a collection of third-hand accounts of events and cobbled-together press clippings_all of which shows nothing improper."
He added that "Democrats ought not be using words like 'impeach' before they knew anything about the actual substance."