Trump impeachment: Republican senator admits whistleblower complaint is ‘deeply disturbing'

The contents of the whistleblower’s complaint about Donald Trump’s call to the leader of Ukraine are “deeply disturbing”, according to politicians who read the material.

Senior members of the Senate and the House of Representatives received copies of the document filed by a member of the US intelligence community, whose concern about the president’s July conversation sparked the crisis facing the president.

Mr Trump claimed the whistleblower, whose identity has not been made public, did not “have any first class or first rate or second tier information”.

However, politicians who examined the complaint suggested they too were troubled.

Republican Ben Sasse, a member of the Senate intelligence committee, told reporters there were “real troubling things” in the materials.

“We need to slow down. This place is terrible at deliberation. Democrats ought not to be using the word impeach before they had the whistleblower complaint or read any of the transcript,” he said.

“Republicans ought not to be rushing to circle the wagons and say there’s nothing there when there’s obviously a lot that’s very troubling there.”

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said the document was “very troubling”.

He added: “There are so many facts that have to be examined."

House intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff said after reading the document he found the whistleblower’s allegations “deeply disturbing” and “very credible”.

The intelligence committees of both chambers reviewed the complaint after it had been withheld for several weeks because acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, had determined it wasn’t an “urgent concern”.

He will appear on Capitol Hill where he will be questioned by members of Congress.

Another Democrat who read the material, senator Mike Quigley of Illinois, told CNN he also found it “deeply disturbing”.

He said the complaint was “extraordinarily detailed and very, very well done”. He added: “It reinforces the concerns that what we previously learned and I think it is a blueprint for what we still need to know. It lays out exactly what Congress needs to investigate.”

Earlier this week Democrats announced they were launching formal impeachment proceedings against Mr Trump after it emerged he had asked Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky, to investigate political rival Joe Biden and his son.

The president has denied doing anything wrong.

Additional reporting by agencies