“Mr. Murphy adopted correct, lawful whistle-blower guidelines in reporting critical allegations of misconduct in opposition to D.H.S. management, significantly involving political distortion of intelligence evaluation and retaliation,” Mark S. Zaid, Mr. Murphy’s lawyer, mentioned in an announcement.
Democrats on the Home Intelligence Committee requested Mr. Murphy to testify in personal on Sept. 21, a potential precursor to a public listening to within the weeks earlier than Election Day.
“We are going to unravel this, expose any and all misconduct or corruption to the American folks, and put a cease to the politicization of intelligence,” mentioned Consultant Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and the chairman of the committee. He mentioned the allegations of politically censored intelligence assessments had been significantly worrisome in mild of the Trump administration’s choice final month to stop briefing lawmakers in person on election safety threats.
Sarah Matthews, a White Home spokeswoman, mentioned in an announcement that Mr. O’Brien had “by no means sought to dictate the intelligence neighborhood’s concentrate on threats to the integrity of our elections or on every other matter.” She known as Mr. Murphy a “disgruntled former worker” whom Mr. O’Brien had by no means heard of. However, she added, the nationwide safety adviser “constantly and publicly advocated for a holistic concentrate on all threats to our elections — whether or not from Russia, Iran, China or every other malign actor.”
Alexei Woltornist, the spokesman for the Homeland Safety Division, rejected Mr. Murphy’s allegations.
“We flatly deny that there’s any reality to the deserves of Mr. Murphy’s declare,” Mr. Woltornist mentioned. “D.H.S. seems to be ahead to the outcomes of any ensuing investigation, and we anticipate it is going to conclude that no retaliatory motion was taken in opposition to Mr. Murphy.”
As president, Mr. Trump has clashed continuously with the intelligence neighborhood, significantly over the difficulty of election interference. At a information convention in 2018 in Helsinki, Finland, Mr. Trump sided with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and mentioned he didn’t suppose Moscow was answerable for the 2016 interference. A couple of months later, Mr. Trump dismissed the C.I.A.’s evaluation that the Saudi crown prince was answerable for the homicide of Jamal Khashoggi, a outstanding Washington Publish columnist. In February 2019, after intelligence chiefs provided Congress assessments on North Korea and Iran that had been at odds with the White Home, the president instructed them to “go back to school.”
