Worries Inside the Spy World
The whistleblower within the intelligence community brought the matter to the attention of its official watchdog, raising the prospect that Trump's conversation might have violated U.S. law.
The inspector general concluded that it rose to the level of an "urgent concern" because the intelligence community is responsible for safeguarding elections.
Then the matter was referred to the Justice Department, officials said, which reached its conclusion about the paucity of evidence that a campaign finance law had been broken.
Justice Department officials also say Barr, the attorney general, learned about the conversation several weeks after it took place but has not spoken about it with Trump and was never asked by Trump to contact anyone in Ukraine.
The DOJ officials said Barr has not spoken about the Ukraine affair with Giuliani, either.
Giuliani, meanwhile, has acknowledged that he has been closely involved with talks with Ukrainians about launching or reviving some kind of investigation into Hunter Biden's time doing in business in Ukraine.
Former Vice President Biden said Tuesday that neither he nor his son have done anything wrong and he decried what he called the smears and conspiracy theories that were being propounded by the White House.
Trump is guilty of abusing his office, Biden said, and if he continues what Biden called his "stonewalling" of Congress, the former vice president said he'd support impeachment.
House Democrats say they've agreed to initiate a new phase of their impeachment inquiry, although it isn't clear how soon that might result in new action in the Congress or against Trump.
Backstory
The dispute over the whistleblower's complaint began when House intelligence committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., learned that it had been filed but not what it contained.
Schiff and other members of Congress argued the administration had no right under the law to withhold the matter from the committees of oversight.
Notwithstanding the intelligence community watchdog's conclusion that the complaint was an "urgent concern," the Justice Department opined that the complaint didn't arise "in connection with intelligence activity," DOJ officials said on Wednesday.
That is the standard under the law that governs the relationship with Congress, the officials said, and that is why the Justice Department took the position that the administration did not have to give the document to lawmakers.
Schiff's complaints about the administration's positions started a snowball that resulted in growing attention to the whistleblower case and then press reports that helped shape public understanding about the Ukraine affair.
The temperature rose in Washington to such a point that Trump — who says that he has not done anything wrong and there was no "quid pro quo" in his discussion with Zelenskiy — felt obliged to release the official White House records about his call.
What still isn't clear is whether the whistleblower complaint itself might become public. Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Magquire is scheduled to appear before Schiff's committee on Thursday.
Complaint Called 'Partisan'
Trump and White House officials have said they don't know the identity of the whistleblower, but the president nonetheless dismissed the person's actions as "partisan."
And officials at the Justice Department on Wednesday affirmed that the intelligence community's inspector general found "some indicia of an arguable political bias on the part of the complainant in favor of a rival political candidate."
At the same time, the IG concluded that the complaint's allegations nonetheless appeared "credible."
Trump's allies, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have argued that the "partisan" nature of the complaint must be taken into account in understanding the full story.