23 States Sue President Trump to Keep California's Auto Emission Rules

Courtesy: MGN

President Donald Trump says he agrees a whistleblower should be protected, “if the whistleblower is legitimate.”

Trump is commenting about a House impeachment inquiry Wednesday as he meets with the president of Finland.

Trump was highly critical though of the whistleblower report alleging he used the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election.

Trump says the whistleblower wrote about a “vicious conversation” that he asserted was in reality a “very innocent conversation.”

He says the whistleblower “either got it totally wrong, made it up, or the person giving the information to the whistleblower was dishonest, and this country has to find out who that person was.” He then described the person who talked to the whistleblower as a “spy.”

The whistleblower’s report was based on information from “multiple” U.S. government officials.

House investigators say they will issue a subpoena demanding all White House and Trump administration documents related to President Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rival Joe Biden.

House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings says in a letter to White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney that he wants all documents “memorializing communications between President Trump and the leader of any other foreign country” that relate to Trump’s efforts to pressure the Ukrainian president.

The letter says that includes any threats to condition U.S. aid on Ukrainian cooperation or to investigate Biden.

It also includes any efforts by Trump private attorney Rudy Giuliani or others to “induce, compel, petition, press, solicit, request, or suggest” help from Ukraine.

Cummings says he’ll issue the subpoena Friday.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff says President Trump’s tweets about the whistleblower amount to a “blatant effort to intimidate witnesses” and an “incitement to violence.”

Schiff, speaking at a news conference, said any effort by Trump’s administration to block the investigation would be considered more evidence of obstruction and perhaps generate more articles of impeachment.

Earlier, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed that he was on the telephone call between President Trump and the Ukrainian president that is the subject of an impeachment inquiry.

"I was on the phone call," Pompeo told reporters in Rome Wednesday during a news conference with his Italian counterpart Luigi Di Maio.

He did not give information about the contents of the call, saying only that he was well-versed in U.S. policy toward Ukraine.

In the July 25 call with the Ukrainian president, Trump prodded him to investigate Trump's Democratic rival Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.

Pompeo is under increasing scrutiny from House Democrats leading impeachment proceedings against Trump. On Tuesday, he pushed back on House demands for interviews with State Department officials about the administration's dealings with Ukraine that are at the center of the inquiry.

Earlier, Pompeo said in a letter to the House Foreign Affairs Committee that Democrats are trying to "intimidate" and "bully" State Department employees and that depositions scheduled by the panel are "not feasible."