broader play book this president has developed for dealing with the scandals of deny, deflect and try to divert everyone s attention. the president has evolved his message over the weekend. we are understanding that just by what he said, i did bring up vice president joe biden in my conversations with the leader of ukraine as we have also seen some leaders in the republican party saying, we re not sure. but republicans a s have not st up in congress to say this report needs to come out. it is typically administratively what should happen but is not happening this time. mitt romney did today indicate that he thinks the facts need to come out. i think what a lot of republicans are saying is let s examine the whistleblower process and how we can get more protection for the whistleblowers to ensure that if the i.g. says this needs to be referred to congress, they can refer it to congress.
that we don t even know about? first, be clear. we re all focused on this one phone call with president zelenske, but let sing clear what we don t know. maybe other details, other pieces to this story that we haven t yet been exposed to. right? i just want to underscore, we re maybe just seeing one piece right now and there may be a longer story here. for me, again, i want to underscore. i m speculating based on limited information. you would not, know, if you worked in the government, go through the whistle-blower process, an extraordinary, difficult process, threatening to your career, unless it was something very serious. to me, there s just two categories. one, possible criminal behavior. or, two, some exposure of intelligence or an asset that was done inappropriately by the president or somebody around him. it sounds like it probably is not the latter given the tidbits
now, the complaint at least appears to be getting treated here as if it is outside the bounds of the law that protects whistle-blowers. the law that protects whistle-blowers from among other things being prosecuted for bringing forward sensitive information like this through the appropriate channels. now, why would that be? it has emerged over the past 24 hours that the justice department led by william barr for some reason they have been brought into this process. they re not supposed to be within the whistle-blower process, but the justice department has now been brought into this and it appears that they have provided some sort of legal argument, which nobody has seen, but the legal argument is reportedly that this complaint, this whistle-blower complaint, isn t a real whistle-blower complaint and shouldn t be treated this way. this whistle-blower should not be treated as a real whistle-blower who was protected by the law. and, therefore, this whistle-blower complaint doesn t need t
basically threatening prosecution of this whistle-blower for coming forward with whatever this disturbing information is about president trump s alleged behavior. now, the complaint at least appears to be getting treated here as if it is outside the bounds of the law that protects whistle-blowers. the law that protects whistle-blowers from among other things being prosecuted for bringing forward sensitive information like this through the appropriate channels. now, why would that be? it has emerge ed over the past hours that the justice department led by william barr for some reason they have been brought into this process. they re not supposed to be within the whistle-blower process, but the justice department has now been brought into this and it appears that they have provided some sort of legal argument, which nobody has seen, but the legal argument is reportedly that this complaint, this whistle-blower complaint, isn t a real whistle-blower complaint and shouldn t be treated this
was concern that he discussed classified intelligence with putin in hamburg. you now have someone taking a step here to use this relatively rarely used process, a whistleblower process, citing another concern here. not necessarily relating to intelligence but still, communications with the foreign leader. why no bipartisan reaction to this? i think that part of the reason is, as wes was saying, there have been these leaks and things about basically the way president trump has handled his talks with foreign leaders and, in the past, he s been able to get at least past them to kind of get through those scandals. and so you see republicans are probably reticent to come out until they know exactly what is being said because they know if they do, they risk the president attacking them. and, look, this isn t an issue deal with the security of the u.s. you d think that would be a bipartisan issue, but in this town, often it s looking at the