nature of his contacts with the russians. susan, you say that this latest development makes it completely impossible to believe that the dni reasonably concluded that it was not an urgent matter and that they would try to hide this from congress. tell me why you think that. yes. so the question here has always been why exactly the dni was refusing to forward this whistle-blowing complaint to the intelligence committees, which is required by law. it s not optional. so the question was what the dni general counsel had said was that they didn t believe that this complaint met the statutory definition, that it wasn t an urgent concern related to an intelligence activity. now, it makes it really, really difficult to imagine that they don t believe that this is the kind of thing that congress needs to hear, that this is the kind of thing that is supposed to be covered by the statute. if the reporting is accurate, you know, it looks more like the intelligence community is essentially very
attempting to parse this definition, really hang it on legal technicalities, suggesting that somehow this isn t the kind of information that they re obligated to give to congress. you know, this is an extraordinarily serious development. it means that somebody who is an intelligence professional, reporting sort of on a temporary assignment to the white house, heard the president say something that was so alarming to them, that they went to the inspector general of the intelligence community, the proper channels, that the inspector general independently determined that this was an urgent a concern. that statutory definition means it is a flagrant and serious ongoing violation of the law or serious abuse. that now the director of national intelligence and the white house are getting involved and attempting to hide it from congressional committees. so really, you know, we don t know the substance of the complaint. we don t know who exactly the foreign leader is, but by all indications,
you need to know what happened, and you need to potentially take remedial action. again, as i said, the egregious claims, the behavior of this president in the mueller report, and then they downplayed it. i wonder if they re going to try to downplay this, and if we re going to find out what he said and what the promise was and to who. even if we find out, it isn t going to make any difference because impeachment seems to be off the table at this point. thank you all. i appreciate it. we ll be right back. (music plays throughout)
concluded that it was not an urgent matter and that they would try to hide this from congress. tell me why you think that. yes. so the question here has always been why exactly the dni was refusing to forward this whistle blowing complaint to the intelligence committees, which is required by law. it s not optional. so the question was what the dni general counsel had said was that they didn t believe that this complaint met the statutory definition, that it wasn t an urgent concern related to an intelligence activity. now, it makes it really, really difficult to imagine that they don t believe that this is the kind of thing that congress needs to hear, that this is the kind of thing that is supposed to be covered by the statute. if the reporting is accurate, you know, it looks more like the intelligence community is essentially very carefully attempting to parse this definition, really hang it on legal technicalities, suggesting that somehow this isn t the kind of information that th
report, and then they downplayed it. i wronder if they re going to try to downplay this, and if we re going to find out what he said and what the promise was and to who. eenl if we find out, it isn t going to make any difference because impeachment seems to be off the table at this point. thank you all. i appreciate it. we ll be right back. it s not just easy. it s having-jerome-bettis- on-your-flag-football-team easy. go get em, bus! ohhhh! [laughing] c mon bus, c mon! hey, wait, wait, wait! hey man, i got your flag! i got your flag, man! i got your flag! it s geico easy. with licensed agents available 24/7. 49 - nothing! woo!