waking up to this morning. we start with capitol hill where the intelligence commit inspector general has just arrived. he s telling house democrats behind closed doors more about the whistle-blower complaint against the president and the president himself may have something to say about the whole thing. he s getting ready to leave the white house again this hour, practically daring the house speaker to impeach him. the white house ready to send her a letter maybe today defying today s document deadline. as thor the bomb shells, plural, dropping overnight, the text messages that seem to show u.s. ambassadors making the ukrainian president s visit to the white house contingent on investigating the president s political opponents. we ll tell you why house democrats are so mad. we ve got our team on the hill, and slooalong with analysis. jeff ben it is on the hill where we just saw the intelligence inspector walk in. josh lederman is here with new
vice president. hans nickel, appreciate that. jeff, thanks to you both. we ll keep an eye on the president s departure. we also have new reporting this morning on a second government whistle-blower. this time over at the ira. here s the deal. a career irs official says they were told that a treasury appointee tried to interfere with the audit of the president s tax returns. that s according to the washington post citing multiple people familiar with the matter. we have confirmed the complaint is circulating on capitol hill where the post says it s alarming some congressional democrats. as for the white house, they say they re dismissing this whole thing as hearsay and politically motivated. with me somebody who knows the irs like nobody else, served as a commissioner in the trump administration as well as the obama administration, thank you for being with us. let me start here. did you ever witness any kind of political interference during your time in the trump administration?
reporting on the text messages. jeff, let me start with you, the intelligence community inspector general just walking in, right? yeah, right past us about 20 minutes ago, hallie. and michael adkinson is the inspector general who determined that the whistle-blower complaint was urgent and credible. so he is likely to give members of the house intelligence committee during this briefing, he is likely to give them the fullest accounting of the complaint and how it was handled short of this commit hearing from the whistle-blower him or herself. and on that front i can tell you i reached out to the attorney for the whistle-blower who says that the negotiations are still ongoing for any sort of meeting between the whistle-blower and congress. now, adam schiff, the chairman of the house intelligence committee, says he wants to know more from adkinson about how he handled this complaint and how he sought to corroborate the details that are alleged within it. here s what people should know
friday also marks the deadline that house democrats have set for the secretary of state mike pompeo to turn over any related documents. so far he s refused to do that voluntarily. next week you have more depositions set with more state department officials, including one according to the whistle-blower complaint, who listened in on the july 25th call in question between president trump and his ukrainian counterpart. now, you mentioned the whistle-blower at the beginning of the show. adam schiff says he wishes to speak with him or her very soon. the attorney for the whistle-blower is setting expectations. he told us overnight that although the discussions continue, they have not set a formal date or the arrangement for how that would go forward. jeff there by the secure room, i know you re going to be posting it up there for much of the week and kristen is on the front lawn. we can see president trump is es skating his attacks frankly on twitter. that s right, the white house
soon. on the other end of pennsylvania avenue i m told the white house is ratcheting up their rapid response strategy. our new nbc news team is reporting on the plan top advisers could present to the president this week with one source explaining to me why they think democrats might be vulnerable if the president sticks to the message they want. so far he s sticking it to democrats on twitter, suggesting chairman schiff should be arrested, demanding to meet his accuser as he put it, as the whistle-blower s legal team sounds the alarm. what they are now saying about their client s safety. we ve got our team of reporters and experts standing by to break this down, along with the other top stories of the day. i want to start with jeff ben it on capitol hill and hands nichols holding it down at the white house. that s actually kristen welker, my apologize. jeff, let me start with you. walk us through what we can expect to see. this is going to be a busy week with adam schiff suggesting tha