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Democrats reading the document, which is available to lawmakers in a secure facility, say it backs up their commitment to their investigation. The move comes just hours after the White House released a rough transcript of a July 25 phone call that shows the President repeatedly pressed the leader of Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.
“I found the allegations deeply disturbing,” said House Intelligence chairman Adam Schiff, D-California. “I also found them deeply credible and I understand why the inspector general found them credible.”
Illinois Democrat Rep. Mike Quigley, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, called the whistleblower complaint “troubling, disturbing” and “reinforces our concerns.”
“Having read the documents in there, I’m even more worried about what happened than I was when I read the memorandum of the conversation,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Rep. Eric Swalwell, also a Democrat on the House committee, would not comment on the contents of the complaint but said it gives Congress new leads to investigate and heightens the push towards impeachment.
The conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is included in the whistleblower complaint, a source familiar with the situation said last week, a revelation only raised more questions in the ongoing controversy.
Trump has downplayed the significance of the complaint, claiming the whistleblower is partisan and his conversations with foreign leaders are “appropriate.”
During a news conference in New York, the President claimed the individual — who has not been identified — “didn’t have any first class or first rate or second tier information from what I understand.”
Trump said he has told House Republicans he wants “full transparency on the so-called whistleblower information,” but continued to peddle conspiracy theories about the Bidens and Ukraine.
Most lawmakers declined to comment on the complaint.
“I’m not going to talk about classified information, you know better than that,” said Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican.
Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine, said he still has some “open questions” so he’d rather not comment further.
Sen. Richard Burr, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he has started to read the document but declined to give his initial thoughts.
“It provided information beyond the transcript,” he said of the complaint, but wouldn’t weigh in on whether that information is detrimental or beneficial to Trump.
The intelligence community inspector general last week suggested that the whistleblower complaint that triggered the Ukraine-Trump drama, raised concerns about multiple actions, sources told CNN.
However, the inspector general — who spoke at a closed-door briefing last week — would not say if those instances involved Trump, the sources said.
On Thursday, acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire will appear before the House Intelligence Committee to discuss the issue. He will also brief members of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
This story is breaking and will be updated.
CNN’s Kevin Liptak, Manu Raju, Haley Byrd and Nick Neville contributed to this report.
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