What Went Down In Maguire’s Whistleblower Testimony

We’re getting close to the end here. Today’s hearing with Maguire involved a lot of stage-setting and not a lot of fireworks. But as it went on, I thought the Democrats did an increasingly good job of framing the process concerns (how the complaint was dealt with) in terms that people can understand — i.e., if the inspector general thought the allegations were credible and it involved something as serious as the president pressuring a foreign power to investigate a political rival, why didn’t you think Congress needed to see the complaint?

Going forward, I’m not sure how productive it will be to focus on whether Maguire did something wrong in his handling of the complaint, but I think overall the Democrats did a fairly good job with a witness who wasn’t really inclined to cooperate with them, especially the later questioners. And now the question is really who else the Democrats will be able to call to testify — Coats? Atkinson? Giuliani?

Important clarification that Schiff just got from Maguire. The DNI had said he hadn’t talked to anyone about Ukraine. That stood out to me given that he wouldn’t say earlier that he hadn’t talked to Trump about the whistleblower.

But Maguire just clarified to say he hasn’t talked to anyone about Ukraine about anything not involving this whistleblower complaint.

The hearing is wrapping up. The congresspeople have asked their questions, and now we’re getting a final word from Nunes and Schiff.