a whistleblower has claimed the White
House tried to cover up details of a
damning telephone conversation between
Donald Trump and the president of
Ukraine it's alleged that during the
call mr. Trump pushed Volodymyr zalenski
to investigate Joe Biden one of the
frontrunners hoping to challenge him for
the White House in next year's
presidential election Democrats in the
House of Representatives have now begun
an impeachment inquiry the process by
which an American president can be
removed from office a North America
editor John circle has the latest from
Washington Joseph Maguire is a man who
spent his career living in the shadows
not anymore the evidence that the Acting
Director of National Intelligence is
giving today could have a critical
bearing on the future of Donald Trump's
presidency following that contested call
with the Ukrainian leader Donald Trump
who met vladimir's olenski at the UN
yesterday insists that the call was
perfect
even though he blatantly asks the
Ukrainian leader to investigate his main
democratic political rival Joe Biden but
today a whistleblowers letter was made
public and it's allegations are damning
he says after an initial exchange of
pleasantries the president used the
remainder of the call to advance his
personal interests namely he sought to
pressure the Ukrainian leader to take
actions to help the president's 2020
re-election bid and he goes on White
House officials told me they were
directed by White House lawyers to
remove the electronic transcript from
the computer system in which such
transcripts are typically stored for
coordination finalization and
distribution to cabinet-level officials
and citing White House officials one
other thing the whistleblower says is
this isn't the first time the
administration has treated a transcript
like this not because it's a matter of
national security but because it's
politically sensitive and so too the
evidence would you agree that the
whistleblower complaint alleges serious
wrongdoing by the President of the
United States the first question seemed
to cause mr. Maguire discomfort there
was a ball complaint involved there the
allegation of that it is not
for me in the intelligence community to
decide how the president conducts as a
foreign policy the White House is sought
to undermine the credibility of the
whistleblowers the intelligence chief
though was noticeably not going there
I think the whistleblower did the right
thing I think he followed the law every
step of the way the complaint states
that the White House tried to lock down
all records of the call and Democrats
are seizing on the whistleblowers letter
this is a cover-up Donald Trump's anger
over attempts by Democrats to impeach
him is palpable what these guys are
doing Democrats are doing to this
country is a disgrace and it shouldn't
be allowed there should be a way of
stopping it the president returned to
the White House this afternoon after
what's been a bruising few days in New
York events are moving at speed and not
in the direction Donald Trump would want
what's been striking is that the
Republicans seem to be going after the
Democrats far more than this
whistleblower statement from the White
House said something along these lines
nothing has changed with the release of
the complaint which is nothing more than
a collection a third had accounts of
events and cobbled together press
clippings or yes but no because actually
what the whistleblower has done is made
some very specific allegations about
whether the transcript of this call was
handled differently from other calls and
that is very easy to prove or disprove
and that's going to be the focus of
questioning one other thing when
compared to the Russia investigation
which was sprawling and sometimes
nebulous and hard to get a grip on
actually what the whistleblower has said
in this call with the Ukrainian
president is very clear and very easy to
grasp and potentially therefore much
more dangerous live John thank you for
that John so Paul there live at the
White House
you