Report: Official Said Trump's Ukraine Call Was 'Crazy'

Whistleblower listed 3 reasons why he might be accused of anti-Trump bias
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 9, 2019 3:49 AM CDT
Report: Official Said Trump's Ukraine Call Was 'Crazy'
A letter from White House counsel Pat Cipollone is photographed in Washington, on Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2019.   (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)

New details have surfaced from the whistleblower complaint that sparked the Trump impeachment inquiry. In a memo reviewed by the New York Times, the whistleblower wrote that a White House official who listened to President Trump's July 25 phone call with Ukraine's president found the conversation "crazy" and "frightening." The whistleblower, described by the Times as a CIA officer, wrote that the White House official was "visibly shaken by what had transpired" during the call, in which Trump asked Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden. The whistleblower wrote that the official told him lawyers were worried because Trump had "clearly committed a criminal act by urging a foreign power to investigate a US person for the purposes of advancing his own re-election bid in 2020."

Michael Atkinson, inspector general of the intelligence community, submitted the memo to Congress last week along with other documents related to the complaint. The Times notes that the whistleblower listed three facts that could lead to him being accused of anti-Trump bias. Two were redacted, and the third states that he is a registered Democrat. Sources tell Fox that the whistleblower also disclosed that he had worked with a prominent Democratic politician. The whistleblower did not, however, disclose that he had contacted an aide to Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff. In another development, sources tell CNN that when Energy Secretary Rick Perry and other officials tried to set up a meeting between Trump and Zelensky in May, Trump circumvented official channels and told them they would have to deal with his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, first. (More Trump impeachment stories.)

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