Lawmakers who've read the Trump whistleblower's Ukraine report say it's bad, with breadcrumbs to even worse

The whistleblower complaint that sparked President Trump's Ukraine scandal has been declassified and lightly redacted, though it apparently won't be released to the public until at least Thursday morning, when acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire testifies before the House. But congressional leaders and members of the intelligence committees were allowed to read the classified version late Wednesday, and the consensus, at least from Democrats and a few Republicans, is that the complaint is credible, detailed, and more troubling than the log of Trump's phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy released Wednesday morning.

House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) called the complaint from the unidentified intelligence officer "deeply disturbing," said it "exposed serious wrongdoing," and "certainly provides information for the committee to follow up with others." Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he was "more worried" after reading the complaint, and "there are huge numbers of facts crying out for investigation."

On MSNBC Wednesday night, a "stunned" Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) described the complaint "as nothing short of explosive. It is so much more than the summary of the telephone call that has been presented by the White House as evidence."

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But some Republicans who read the complaint were disquieted, too. "Republicans ought not to be rushing to circle the wagons and say there's no 'there there' when there's obviously a lot that's very troubling there," said Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), adding that "Democrats ought not be using words like 'impeach' before they knew anything about the actual substance."

A GOP congressional source with direct knowledge of the whistleblower complaint told conservative commentator Erik Erickson that it "paints a clear path to impeachment," Erickson writes at The Resurgent. "I wasn't happy with the transcript, but it was Trump. What do you expect? Now we are dealing with something that looks like it could be outside the bounds of acceptable conduct." The whistleblower, the source added, is "someone who does not like the president," but "regardless, the whistleblower is credible."