The US House Intelligence Committee is in a closed-door meeting with the Inspector General of Intelligence, Michael Atkinson, over a complaint filed by a whistleblower in the intelligence community upset over promises President Donald Trump allegedly made to a certain foreign leader.
As reported by the Voice of America (VOA), the report on the secret application was first published by the Washington Post, and Trump called it "fake news".
The Post states that the report is based on information from two former officials familiar with the entire event, but it is not clear which leader Trump communicated with or what he may have promised.
The whistleblower's cryptic complaint drew the ire of Democrats on Capitol Hill.
At the center of the story is the concern of a member of the intelligence community who filed a report with the inspector general.
The details of that application are confidential and not known to the public.
However, ABC News has obtained letters exchanged between Congress and the Office of National Intelligence, which confirm that the inspector general deemed the whistleblower report an "urgent matter" that may need to be addressed. notify Congress.
Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire did not seem to share that opinion.
The letters show that Maguire, after consulting with the Justice Department, disagreed with the assessment that the matter was urgent, and concluded that his agency had no obligation to refer it to Congress.
The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Democrat Adam Schiff, believes that the director broke the law by not forwarding the report within seven days.
According to a Washington Post report, President Trump is at the center of everything, VOA writes.
"In a call to a foreign leader, he made a promise that officials in the intelligence community found so disturbing that they filed this complaint," said Greg Miller, the Washington Post's national security correspondent and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner.
Trump used the familiar phrase "fake news" on Twitter to dismiss the report.
"Is anyone so stupid as to believe that I would say something inappropriate in a conversation with a foreign leader," he asked, adding that he would only do what was good for the United States.
He also wrote that he is aware that every time he talks to a foreign leader, that conversation may be listened to by people from various American agencies as well as those other countries.
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