Thursday morning, at 9 AM ET, Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire will publicly testify to the House Intelligence Committee about the whistleblower complaint involving Donald Trump, aid to Ukraine and his attempts to get that country to dig up dirt on Joe Biden. We’ve got it streaming after the jump.
The Washington Post, whose YouTube video of the proceedings you can watch below, says about the proceeding, “Maguire, who held back the whistleblower’s complaint involving President Trump and Ukraine from Congress, will testify before the House on the process and handling of that complaint.”
That sounds rather dry but there will almost certainly be fireworks.
Also, on Wednesday, The Post reported that Maguire had threatened to resign if the White House blocked him from testifying. Maguire has denied that but what would you expect him to say? The Post stands by the story.
Also, Maguire seems like a possibly decent fellow. He could become a history-making truth-teller. That same Post report included this:
Maguire has been caught in the middle of a fight between Congress and the executive branch over the contents of the whistleblower report since it reached his office late last month.
He has at times expressed his displeasure to White House counsel Pat Cipollone and others that the White House had put him in the untenable position of denying the material to Congress over a claim that it did not fall within his jurisdiction as leader of the intelligence community.
No, I'm not getting my hopes up but I don't expect him to act like Corey Lewandowski, either.
So if you watch it, share your thoughts and observations below, in our comments thread. I’ll be sharing mine there.
(Maguire image via screen grab)
As I said earlier, forget Bob Barr is a drooling Trump sycophant which is bad enough. He’s named in the phone call and it’s a complete conflict of interest for him to be involved in any investigation. Note the corrupt s.o.b. didn’t recuse himself.
The story always remains the same with the Trump administration. Officials consistently showing poor, highly questionable, and even illegal judgement that conveniently excuses and covers up clearly corrupt Trump malfeasance. Time to drain the swamp!
What we can be 100% confident about Maguire’s actions is that he will have left a comprehensive paper trail about every little thing that happened on his watch. Whatever our quibbles over his cautious approach, he doesn’t strike me as a shredder.
I’m not experienced with the DNI but I would expect they’d have clear policies and internal legal experts to solve such a problem as how to appropriately handle said complaint.
IMHO, Maquire showed extremely poor judgement in referring this to the DoJ. The DoJ is a fully partisan organization under Barr. Barr acts as Trump’s personal attorney and pretends the DoJ is merely a private law firm whose sole client is Trump.
But forgetting those politics, Bob Barr is a subject of the whistleblower’s complaint so how can you refer the complaint to him for a legal opinion? The DoJ’s Office of Legal Council that somehow got involved is the frick’n advisor to the White House! MSNBC reporting is basically saying the DoJ ‘investigation’ was wholly superficial, a joke, and an exercise in foot dragging. Did Maquire seek a 2nd opinion given this? Nope.
Based on what I saw during the hearing Maquire was merely covering his ass and performing for an audience of one.
Something seems to be wrong with my computer keyboard.
That said, I’m not sure Maguire did the complete right thing but it does seem that he was trying to make his way through a terrible situation.
I’m not sure the Democrats helped themselves by suggesting he had willingly participated in a cover up.
I have to say I actually sympathized with Maguire. Maybe because I’m a former public service worker myself but the guy was new on the job and this was a terrible pickle for him. Career public servants tend to work for and with “the system,” rather than align with or oppose whoever is temporarily in power. Who was he supposed to turn to?
This proves, despite his lies to the contrary, he’s not acting independently. I caught him parroting a least 1 White House talking point in his testimony as well. What a hack!
I have some alternate wording suggestions but they may not be appropriate for live TV.
