"I think the whistleblower did the right thing." With these words, the US intelligence coordinator, Joseph Maguire, defended the whistleblower in the Ukraine affair. Maguire said Thursday in front of the US House of Representatives' intelligence committee. He said he was convinced that the informant had "acted in good faith" and always followed the law.
Maguire had initially blocked the passing of the whistleblower report to Parliament - although Michael Atkinson, the Inspector General of Intelligence, described the complaint as "credible" and "urgent".
Meanwhile, the nine-page document was published by Congress. The informant states that he has been notified by other government officials that Trump "uses the power of his office to solicit interference by a foreign country in the US 2020 election."
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Whistleblower's complaint about Trump (pdf) PDF size: 4 MB
Matter is "unprecedented"
Maguire now said, "I believe everything in this matter is unprecedented." He defended the decision that he had not submitted the complaint immediately to the intelligence committees. It touched "complicated and sensitive matters" and could not be released until after Trump authorized the publication of the minutes, Maguire said.
The minutes had been published on Wednesday (read the wording here).
The whistleblower's complaint is dated 12 August and touches on the contentious phone call between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian head of state Volodymyr Selenskyj. That US intelligence official was so alarmed by the phone call that he filed an official internal complaint about Trump. The allegation: Trump abuses his office in an illegal way, to get help from abroad in the election campaign.