Acting DNI Joseph Maguire
After a series of false starts on impeachment proceedings, House Democrats finally offered Americans a hearing on Thursday that yielded some pretty simple takeaways that help the case for further investigation into what was an obvious cover-up by the Trump administration.
Although the acting director of national intelligence wasn't an entirely cooperative witness, his appearance before the House Intelligence Committee was plagued by very little of the hostility and total reticence demonstrated by former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and special counsel Robert Mueller.
While Republicans' defense of Donald Trump's actions during the hearing boiled down almost entirely to process arguments, Democrats managed to score some damning exchanges and affirmative statements from acting DNI Joseph Maguire. Here are three big initial takeaways.
1) Acting DNI Maguire took the whistleblower complaint directly to the subject of the complaint, Donald Trump's White House, for advice on how to proceed with the complaint.
House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff got Maguire to clarify whether he sought guidance from the White House first on what to do with the complaint. "The first place you went was to the White House," Schiff said. "Do I understand that from your opening statement? The first place you went for a second opinion was to the White House?"
"I did not go for a second opinion. The question was, is the formation contained here subject to executive privilege," Maguire responded, "We went to the White House first."
“So you went to the subject of the complaint for advice first about whether you should provide the complaint to Congress," Schiff said in summation.
This is a very easily comprehensible concept. You simply do not got to the subject of a complaint for an objective opinion about how to move forward with that complaint.
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