(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump faces a steeper challenge to discredit the whistle-blower claims at the heart of an impeachment inquiry after several key details in the informant's complaint were corroborated.
A senior administration official on Friday confirmed one of the most significant claims: that National Security Council lawyers directed White House staff to store the record of Trump's July 25 conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on a classified system reserved for highly sensitive information.
The detail is central to the whistle-blower's allegation that the White House recognized Trump's potential misconduct on the call and sought to conceal it.
Trump has tried to undermine the whistle-blower as a partisan who cobbled together second-hand gossip. But the confirmation about classification, along with a rough transcript of Trump's call, corroborates key elements of the whistle-blower's account, making it more difficult for Trump to discredit the full complaint.
Democratic lawmakers have pounced on the revelations to take broader aim at the Trump administration for what they call a “cover up.”
Earlier Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Attorney General William Barr -- whom Trump mentioned repeatedly in his call with Zelenskiy -- has “gone rogue” and that the Justice Department is covering up Trump's actions. Pelosi was specifically referring to Barr having directed acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire to withhold the whistle-blower's report from Congress; she said the move violated the law.
Read more: Trump Attacks Whistle-Blower in Private Remarks, Video Shows
According to the rough transcript released by the White House -- and the whistle-blower's report -- Trump asked Zelenskiy to work with his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and Barr in an investigation into whether Joe Biden, a frontrunner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, improperly helped his son with his business in Ukraine. The Justice Department has said Trump never asked Barr to follow up with Zelenskiy.
To be sure, not all of the assertions have been corroborated. Giuliani on Thursday denied to CNN the whistle-blower's claim that two State Department officials spoke to him in an attempt to “contain the damage” his work in Ukraine was doing to U.S. national security interests.
| More Trump-Ukraine coverage |
|---|
Yet the general content of the July 25 phone call with Zelenskiy and then the efforts to restrict access to the record of it are the first two pillars of the whistle-blower's report. And while Trump has said the call was “perfect,” even members of his own party have disagreed.
Even so, Trump and his allies have gone on the offensive. His re-election campaign and the Republican National Committee said Friday that they were spending a total of $10 million on ads connecting Biden to Ukraine and attacking Democrats over the impeachment.
In response, Biden's campaign said that Trump “is falling back on his signature playbook: doubling-down on lies, and now putting millions of dollars in advertising behind them. This president in a panic about holding onto power is launching an unprecedented general election attack ad campaign before the first Democratic primary has been held.”
Trump on Thursday used a closed-door gathering with U.S. diplomats in New York to disparage the whistle-blower and other informants.
“I want to know who's the person, who's the person who gave the whistle-blower the information? Because that's close to a spy,” Trump said, referring to the whistle-blower in a 15-minute video obtained by Bloomberg News.
--With assistance from Tyler Pager.
To contact the reporter on this story: Joshua Gallu in Washington at jgallu@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, John Harney
©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
Essential Business Intelligence, Continuous LIVE TV, Sharp Market Insights, Practical Personal Finance Advice and Latest Stories — On NDTV Profit.
