the failure to produce this witness, the failure to produce these documents, we consider yet additional strong evidence of obstruction of the constitutional functions of congre congress, a co-equal branch of government. and administration officials held a conference about the letter to the house speaker. officials w call what democrats would have to do in order to secure the cooperation of the white house. one official said the white house did not want to get into hypotheticals at this point, an indication the president is digging in his heels. nancy pelosi is threatening the administration with consequences for obstructing the impeachment inquiry. she said it will be regarded as further evidence of obstruction. and now house democrats have
conservatively in the direction of keeping the curtain closed. and perhaps the confrontation with what the intelligence community has set up in terms of its own very controversial, very rigorous, very well earned oversight strictures. from the post-watergate era. carol, joining us on very short notice, contributor to this new reporting from the post tonight. thank you for helping us understand. i appreciate it. my pleasure. good luck, carol. the headline just breaking from the washington post. president trump s communications with foreign leader are part of whistleblower complaint that spurred standoff between spy chief and congress. we have been watching this unfold since late on friday night when the intelligence committee chairman adam schiff let it be known he was aware somebody within the intelligence community had come forward, through proper channels, to the inspector general and said, i have a serious problem.
the public may not love what he promised, if these sources are correct. but he does have the authority under the law to do that if that s what s happened. although, carol, correct me if i m wrong, the whistleblower process, particularly within the intelligence community, going through the intelligence community s inspector general, is such that something being classified shouldn t be a barrier toward it being treated as a whistleblower matter through this process, right? at every sort of step of the way here, both at the i.g. and with the director of national intelligence and with the intelligence commit teals in congre congress, they re supposed to be able to handle classified information no matter how classified it is, if it is still, nevertheless, a matter of concern or grave abuse. oh, absolutely. it s not something the gang of eight can t know about. remember that one of the big clues here is that someone along the way, either the justice
to the infrastructure and pow e grid of puerto rico. but if you look at it from the trump administration s own perspective, in terms of what they care about and what they want to be seen doing, i mean, there s president trump today at the border in california, signing a piece of the border, literally writing his name on a piece of the border. and here s the trump administration happily defying the pentagon and congress and a million different lawsuits and reasonable concerns including national security concerns to, instead, take money from wherever the president can, including the u.s. military, because it has to go instead to the border, because the border must be secured, because homeland security is everything. well, this is the stuff they most care about. this is the stuff they most want to be judged on. this is the stuff, where they re putting all of their effort, to the detriment of other stuff that has real political cost when they low ball it.
administration officials close to the president. well, tonight, the washington post has just broken this news. a scoop that suggests chairman adam schiff was onto something. the headline is this. trump s communications with foreign leader are part of whistleblower complaint that spurred standoff between spy chief and congress. here s the lede. the whistleblower complaint that has triggered a tense showdown between the u.s. intelligence community and congress involves president trump s communications with a foreign leader, according to two former officials familiar with the matter. trump s interaction included a promise promise is in quotes a promise that was regarded as so troubling that it prompted an official in the u.s. intelligence community to file a formal whistleblower complaint with the inspector general for the intelligence community. it was not immediately clear which foreign leader trump was speaking with or what he pledged to deliver, but his direct involvement in t