Originally posted by the Voice of America. Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America, a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in the public domain. Trump and House Democrats Battle Over Whistleblower Complaint Masood Farivar WASHINGTON - A whistleblower complaint by an anonymous U.S. intelligence official has provoked a spiraling political standoff between the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats seeking to investigate the alleged wrongdoing. The complaint reportedly involves an allegation that Trump in a July 25 phone call to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy repeatedly pressed him to investigate former Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter at a time Kyiv was eagerly anticipating $250 million in U.S. military aid. The controversy centers on Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maquire's refusal to forward the complaint to Congress even after the intelligence community's inspector general found the complaint from a whistleblower to be "credible" and of "urgent concern." While Maquire apparently blocked the complaint, partly because it involved "confidential and potentially privileged information", House Democrats say the law is explicit in requiring that the report be shared with congressional intelligence committees. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave Maquire until Thursday, when he is set to appear before the House Intelligence Committee, to produce the document.Pelosi warned that unless Maquire complied, the House would sharply escalate its investigation of Trump and his administration, hinting at impeachment. A whistleblower is someone in government or private industry who reveals wrongdoing or potential criminal activity. The DNI has never withheld from Congress an "urgent matter" complaint found credible by the intelligence community's inspector general, according to Bradley Moss, a Washington lawyer who specializes in representing whistleblowers. "The way the law is set up, it is absolutely mandatory," Moss said. "The key word is 'shall,' not 'may,' and 'shall' means must: the DNI shall transmit the complaint to the intelligence committees. "The Administration's blocking of Acting DNI Maguire from providing Congress with the whistleblower complaint calls upon him to violate the federal statute, which unequivocally states that the DNI 'shall' provide Congress this information," Pelosi wrote in a "Dear Colleague" letter on Sunday. The whistleblower complaint is the latest in a series of confrontations between the Trump administration and House Democrats over congressional authority to oversee the executive branch, issue subpoenas and appropriate funds. The complaint was filed by an unidentified intelligence official on Aug. 12 under the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, one of two laws that shield federal employees and contractors from retaliation for reporting activities that are illegal or unethical. The 1989 Whistleblower Protection Act applied to all government workers except members of the intelligence community because of concern that classified information could be jeopardized. To allow intelligence community whistleblowers to report abuses, Congress in 1998 passed the Intelligence Community Protection Act. Subsequently, the Obama administration instituted administrative protections for IC whistleblowers. The statute allows whistleblowers to report violations of laws and regulations to the intelligence community's inspector general. It also sets up a process for reporting matters of "urgent concern" directly to congressional intelligence panels. An urgent concern is defined in the statute as a "serious or flagrant problem, abuse, violation of law or executive order relating to'¦an intelligence activity within the responsibility and authority of the Director of national Intelligence involving classified information." .