President Trump on Monday told reporters that the White House is actively trying to determine the identity of the whistleblower who raised concerns about his July 25 call with Ukraine’s president. “We’re trying to find out about a whistleblower. When you have a whistleblower that reports things that were incorrect... The statement I made to the president of Ukraine, a good man, a nice man... was perfect. It was perfect. But the whistleblower reported a totally different statement, like the statement was not even made,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “When the whistleblower reported it, he made it sound terrible. Then you have [House Intelligent Committee Chair] Adam Schiff, even worse, made up my words. Which I think is just horrible.” The president continued, claiming he was seeking to “drain the swamp” of the “tremendous corruption” on the other side of the aisle. “The new president of Ukraine ran on the basis of no corruption... but there was a lot of corruption having to do with the 2016 election against us,” he said. “We want to get to the bottom of it and it’s very important that we do.”

According to the bombshell whistleblower complaint, and a subsequent memo of the call released by the White House, Trump asked President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son. In response to Trump’s remarks, the whistleblower’s attorneys tweeted that their client is “entitled to anonymity.” “Law and policy support this and the individual is not to be retaliated against. Doing so is a violation of federal law,” lawyer Andrew Bakaj wrote.