during a revealing moment at today s hearing the acting director of national intelligence was asked whether he discussed the whistleblower complaint with the president. it was a question joseph maguire refused to answer. did you ever speak to the president about this complaint? my conversations with the president, because i am the director of national intelligence, are privileged and it would be inappropriate me for me, because it would destroy my relationship with the president in intelligence matters, to divulge any of my conversations with the president of the united states. so we can be clear for the record, you are not denying that you spoke to the president about this complaint? what i am saying, congressman, is that i will not divulge privileged conversations that i have as the director of national intelligence with the president. has the white house instructed you to assert that privilege? no, sir.
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is someone whose record throughout the mueller report and the aftermath was really questioned because of his close relationship with the president, his decision not to continue with an obstruction of justice charge, his calling into a potential spying investigation, he used that word, there are a lot of questions that have led up to the way we already see the relationship between the president and his attorney general. one message that s been sending to those who work at the justice department, bill barr s general attitude toward investigations into this president, the way he summarized the mueller report, talked about needing to investigate the or begins of the mueller report, and whether that has sent a message without him having to say anything, i m not sure that s an open question. greg, there was another moment that was really interesting in the hearing. this came from joaquin castro when he was asking acting dni maguire why maguire decided that the president was outside of the
maguire handled this whistleblower complaint, why did he go to the white house first, why did he go to the doj, after all the white house was the subject, the president was the subject of the complaint and the attorney general was name checked in the complaint. by doing that, though, by taking that avenue going to the white house and going to the doj and having the white house slow walk it or the doj say nothing to see here, did he indirectly show how this how this entire system, the white house and the doj, operate? did he indirectly point to a cover-up or obstruction or, you know, at worst corruption? i think what we know from our reporting and separate from this hearing, although the hearing he s answering the technical questions, with our reporting combined with this, we know that maguire was trying to get some advice about whether or not this met urgent concern. his lawyer was essentially consulting with the law of the