Rep. Devin Nunes said the intelligence community whistleblower did not want his complaint to be leaked to the public.
In questioning acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire during a House Intelligence Committee hearing on Thursday, Nunes described what lawmakers were told when they became aware of the whistleblower complaint earlier this month.
“We were told very specifically that the whistleblower did not want to get any of this information out, they didn’t want it to leak out. So there were only a few potential groups of people that would have known about this complaint,” the California Republican said before listing out the groups of people who might know its secret contents, some of which were leaked to the media and reported over the past couple weeks.
Maguire denied that anyone in the intelligence community leaked the material. “Ranking member, I lead the intelligence community. We know how to keep a secret,” he quipped.
He also hinted that the sources could be within the White House itself.
Asked by Nunes if it is normal to have the president’s phone calls leaked to the media — which has happened to Trump on multiple occasions — Maguire said, “I would have to leave that to the White House to respond to that, ranking member. But to me, the president of the United States’ conversation with any other head of state, I would consider privileged conversation.”
The whistleblower complaint, released on Thursday before the hearing, shows about a dozen people had knowledge of the July 25 call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, including members of the National Security Council.
Nunes was skeptical of that possibility, saying, “The White House probably didn’t leak this out.”
But Maguire noted, “I wouldn’t say the White House, but there are individuals within the White House that may or may not. I don’t know. But it would not be from an intelligence intercept. I will say that.”
The complaint, which the intelligence community inspector general deemed credible, alleged “senior White House officials had intervened to ‘lock down’ all records of the phone call, especially the official word-for-word transcript of the call that was produced — as is customary — by the White House Situation Room.” The identity of the whistleblower has not yet been revealed, but the complaint relies on unidentified U.S. officials who informed the individual.
The complaint’s existence was revealed roughly two weeks ago when House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff announced that he had subpoenaed for it.
