Report: White House official told whistleblower Trump's Ukraine call was 'frightening' and 'crazy'

Donald Trump.
(Image credit: Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images)

The whistleblower who filed a complaint about President Trump's July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke shortly afterwards with a White House official who described the exchange as "frightening," "crazy," and "completely lacking in substance related to national security," The New York Times reports.

The whistleblower wrote a memo prior to filing a complaint with the intelligence community inspector general in August. In it, the whistleblower stated that the White House official, who listened in on the call, was "visibly shaken by what had transpired," the Times reports. Inspector General Michael Atkinson deemed the subsequent complaint credible, and last week, Atkinson passed the memo and other documents related to the whistleblower to Congress; someone who was familiar with the memo described it to the Times.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.