Acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire. | J. Scott Applewhite, file/AP Photo Congress Whistleblower wants to appear before Congress, Dems say

Congress might soon get a chance to hear directly from the whistleblower who filed a formal complaint involving President Donald Trump’s communications with foreign leaders.

A lawyer for the whistleblower, who lodged the complaint to the Intelligence Community’s Inspector General in early August, has been in touch with both the House and Senate Intelligence Committees regarding potential testimony, according to the panel’s top Democrats.


“The lawyer for the whistleblower has reached out for a counsel meeting but we’re going to have to take this one step a time,” Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told POLITICO on Tuesday. “And I think it’s terribly important to get the facts.”

“What we want is an orderly process where the full committee will get a chance to hear from both the IC inspector general and the acting DNI Adm. [Joseph] McGuire,” Warner added.

Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, separately tweeted on Tuesday that the panel had “been informed by the whistleblower’s counsel that their client would like to speak to our committee and has requested guidance from the Acting DNI as to how to do so.” He added: “We’re in touch with counsel and look forward to the whistleblower’s testimony as soon as this week.”

Lawyers for the whistleblower confirmed in a written statement on Tuesday night that they had reached out to Maguire “to request specific guidance as to the appropriate security practices to permit a meeting, if needed, with the Members of the Intelligence Oversight Committees.“

Maguire’s office responded that it was consulting with “other Executive Branch stakeholders” before providing any guidance.

It remains to be seen whether Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence, provides that guidance. Maguire so far has been unwilling to hand over the substance of the complaint to the intelligence committees, despite intelligence community watchdog Michael Atkinson deeming the information “urgent” and credible.

Lawyers for ODNI told Congress that after consulting with the Justice Department, they believed the statute did not require complaints regarding individuals and activities outside the purview of the intelligence community to be transmitted to lawmakers. Atkinson has separately argued, however, that the complaint falls squarely within ODNI’s jurisdiction.

Both Maguire and Atkinson are set to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, according to Warner. Maguire will also testify before the House Intelligence Committee that day.

"We intend to see these key folks in front of the whole committee," Warner told reporters on Tuesday. "We'll have an opportunity to question them."

At least part of the whistleblower’s complaint is believed to center around a phone call Trump had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in late July, in which Trump allegedly pressured Zelensky to investigate his political rival Joe Biden.

POLITICO first reported in August that Trump had ordered a hold on military assistance aid to Ukraine. On Monday night, the Washington Post reported that the hold came about a week before the phone call in question.

Trump has offered differing explanations about what exactly was discussed during the call. Earlier Tuesday, the president changed his story about the conversation, saying he temporarily withheld the aid because other Western states had not contributed similar amounts to the Eastern European nation.

But on Monday, Trump asserted that he denied the nearly $400 million in assistance because he feared bureaucratic corruption within Ukraine’s government. He now says he plans to release a fully declassified and unredacted transcript of the phone call.

It's not clear whether the whistleblower's complaint exclusively involves Trump and Zelensky's July 25 call. Trump and Zelensky also spoke on April 21, after Zelensky won election.

Trump pledged on Tuesday afternoon to release the transcript of the July conversation, but later in the day a senior administration said the White House was preparing to release to Congress both the whistleblower complaint and the inspector general‘s report by the end of the week.

Warner said the committee was still uncertain whether and when it would see the original whistleblower complaint.

The Intel panel's chairman, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), declined to expound on the committee’s contact with the whistleblower. "I’m not going to tell you what the committee does or doesn’t do," he said. "We’re going to investigate."

Late on Tuesday, the Senate approved by voice vote a resolution from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) that called for the whistleblower complaint to be provided to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.

“I cannot imagine any legitimate or straight-faced reason to an objection to this unanimous-consent request,” Schumer said, prior to the measure’s passage. “The only reason would be to shield the president’s conduct from scrutiny by the public and the representatives they elect to represent them.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) did not block the resolution, but noted that the Senate Intelligence Committee was already working in a bipartisan way to receive more information from Maguire and Atkinson.

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“I don’t believe this made-for-TV moment was actually necessary,” McConnell said. “It doesn’t serve the committee or its goals to litigate its business here on the floor or the television cameras. Nevertheless, I agree that the DNI should make additional information available to the committee.”

Not much is known about the whistleblower's identity, except that the person is in the intelligence community and was reportedly detailed to the National Security Council at the time he or she filed the complaint. Nor is it clear where the whistleblower is now, but the whistleblower’s desire to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation and loss of their security clearance suggests they've returned to the intelligence community, experts said.

“Because the DNI’s counsel refused to permit the IC IG to share the disclosure with the relevant committees, this whistleblower had to take the courageous step toward making direct contact with Congress," said Irvin McCullough, a national security analyst for the Government Accountability Project who focuses on intelligence community and military whistleblowing.

"Though I’m afraid this could invite retaliation against the whistleblower, and would normally caution against making such direct contact, we are living in abnormal times.”

Kel McClanahan, executive director of the National Security Counselors law firm, said the whistleblower and the whistleblower’s lawyers are likely "threading the needle as best they can" when it comes to getting the complaint to Congress despite the DNI's refusal to transmit the complaint.

"They are making sure that if someone retaliates, they have the best possible argument for it being illegal," McClanahan said. He also noted that the law only explicitly prohibits the IC IG from revealing the whistleblower's identity — no one else, including the DNI, is required to keep it a secret.

Marianne LeVine contributed reporting.