Whistleblower: Officials Told To 'Lock Down' All Records Of Ukraine Call.
Updated at 11:58 a.m. ET
A government whistleblower received information from "multiple" government officials that President Trump "is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election."
An unclassified version of the whistleblower's complaint was made public Thursday by the House intelligence committee. It says that the president's lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, "is a central figure in this effort. Attorney General [William] Barr appears to be as well."
The complaint centers on Trump's July 25 call with the president of Ukraine, an account of which was released Wednesday by the White House.
The whistleblower says that during the call, Trump "sought to pressure the Ukrainian leader to take actions to help the president's 2020 reelection bid."
The White House memorandum of the call shows that Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for "a favor" — to investigate political rival and former Vice President Joe Biden.
According to the whistleblower, White House officials were "deeply disturbed by what had transpired in the phone call."
The complainant said that afterward, "senior White House officials had intervened to lock down all records of the phone call," which the whistleblower says "underscored to me that White House officials understood the gravity of what had transpired in the call."
The whistleblower said this "was not the first time" that a presidential transcript was placed into a "codeword-level system solely for the purpose of protecting politically sensitive — rather than national security sensitive — information."
Translation: White House officials handled materials related to the call differently from the way they usually do, adding additional security to restrict the circle of people who might be able to view them.
That is likely to raise questions about just what other information might be so protected relating to Trump's other conversations with foreign leaders.
The White House issued a statement on Thursday calling this situation unremarkable.
"Nothing has changed with the release of this complaint, which is nothing more than a collection of third-hand accounts of events and cobbled-together press clippings — all of which shows nothing improper," the statement said.
At least one Republican lawmaker disagrees. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, who is not running for reelection next year, wrote this on Twitter:
"There is a lot in the whistleblower complaint that is concerning. We need to fully investigate all of the allegations addressed in the letter, and the first step is to talk to the whistleblower."
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