Acting DNI Joseph Maguire just threw up his hands
Acting Director of National Intelligence has now been publicly testifying before the House Intelligence Committee for more than two hours. Early on he was trying really hard to stick to a script about how he wanted to cooperate but he was limited in what he was allowed to say. But as the hearings went on, Maguire finally has finally thrown up his hands.
Early on, Adam Schiff did get Joseph Maguire to admit that he sought advice from Bill Barr’s Department of Justice about whether to turn over the whistleblower complaint, even though he knew that Barr was one of the people accused of wrongdoing in the complaint. But even though that admission was crucial, Maguire was still intent on trying to keep his cool.
Then, shortly before noon, Democratic Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney finally got Acting DNI Maguire to partially crack. Maguire started showing his frustration by saying that former DNI Dan Coats, who resigned just as this scandal was about to explode, had far better timing than he did. Maguire said that “My life would have been a heck of a lot simpler” if he hadn’t taken the job. He stressed that when he made the decision not to turn over the complaint to Congress, he was still using GPS to find his way to work each morning.
It was clear that Joseph Maguire was starting to thoroughly regret having accepted the Acting DNI position, and that he was losing track of his own script. That’s when Congressman Maloney got Maguire to basically admit that he discussed the whistleblower complaint with Donald Trump, by getting him to specifically refuse to deny it. So now we know that Maguire is compromised, and he’s cracking. We’ll see if House Democrats can get him to fully crack before the end of the hearings.
