facing criminal liability, not to mention professional jeopardy. ellen, let me put this back to you. the story and your reporting, one of the hallmarks of your reporting is the care with which everything is described and written for us, the readers. but i wonder if you can tell us if this whistleblower ever intended or desired for any of this to become public. usually they do not. yes. usually they do not. i believe the whistleblower did want this to eventually get to the congress. but the whistleblower s main goal was to follow the procedures, report the potential wrongdoing or serious or flagrant abuse problem and let the process play out. let those who are empowered or whose job it is to adjudicate this problem or this issue
issue here, that s part of the problem in which, you know, we find ourselves where the i.g. feels that this complaint should have been transmitted to congress. but the dni is saying no, it doesn t need to be because it doesn t involve an activity under my purview. but there s no, nothing in the law that accounts for such a scenario where you have the possible involvement of a president and possible, you know, implication of executive privilege and the possible intervention of the white house or in trying to stop this complaint from being submitted to congress. frank figliuzzi, therein to me lies one of the most extraordinary facets of an extraordinary piece of reporting by ellen and her colleagues that the systems are not set up for a president who causes such alarm over those who come in contact with him. it was pointed out to me by two former senior intelligence officials that this is another call from inside the house.
what we know is that the president often conducts policy and foreign policy by whim by personal preference not necessarily the national interest as we usually think about it. and he hides things from the app rat russ. and it s very possible that he has the right to do this. but it does underscore the problem that come the call is coming from inside the house we do not have a lot of mechanisms to correct it. ellen, i hear you need to go get to your typewriter. any last thoughts? no. just we ll have to see how this all plays out. chairman schiff today said that he s not ruling out the option of taking this issue to court, but stay tuned. we will. and we always are everything you and your colleagues report. thank you so much for your reporting on this and for spending some time on us. sam stein, just picking up on nick s point and once made by harry and frank, the system isn t designed for the president but neither was the system
urgent concern. largely along jurisdictional lines meaning that they found that the intelligence activity in question wasn t under the responsibility or authority of the dni. and i think that s where you have a disagreement between the dni and the inspector general. and the inspector general was on the hill today talking, testifying behind closed doors to members of the house intelligence committee. and he, over three hours repeatedly refused or declined to discuss the substance of the complaint because he was not authorized to do so. but he did explain the law and how he followed the law and how he believed he had a credible complaint before him and that there was a disagreement between himself and the dni. so that s where we are. ellen, let me read to you donald trump s response to your story. said no one in the era before trump but here we go.
to dealing with adversaries. chris wray s disclosure that he had never been directed by the president to strengthen our defenses against russian meddling. former deputy dni sue gordon s resignation. she wrote that she was going to allow donald trump to appoint a member of his own team. john bolton s departure following a dispute over inviting the taliban to camp david. and of course robert mueller s two-year investigation that found 150 contacts between trump s team in russia and at least a half a dozen acts of obstruction of justice as detailed in his report. and now the whistleblower. and that is where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. ell ellen nakeshima. former assistant director for counter intelligence with the fbi, frank figliuzzi. plus former deputy assistant attorney general harry litman,