Joseph Maguire is the Acting DNI, appointed by Trump. He is a former military man for decades. He just testified that he believed there were others who could do the DNI chief job better than he, but the President asked him to do it, so he did.
He was forwarded the Whistleblower complaint from the Inspector General. Law requires that such a complaint be forwarded to the Congress within 7 days.
However, he is testifying that he alone made personal decision to NOT forward the complaint to Congress because he felt that the complaint did not fall under some classification that required him to do that.
The Dems are trying to point out that this is a major No-No, and asserting that if it were not for this hearing, they would never have received the complaint, as required under law. To his credit, Maguire is saying he will turn it over to Congress (I think he did indeed say that very simply).
But at least one GOP committee member used his 5 minutes to try and shame Dems for impugning this character of this career military man.
Seems to me this Maguire guy has gotten caught up, as so many GOP members do, in simply following the pack, the chain of command.
"I'm not guilty. I was only following (unspoken) orders."