UPDATE 2-House Speaker Pelosi accuses U.S. Attorney General of going "rogue"

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday accused U.S. Attorney General William Barr of going "rogue" in the Justice Department's handling of a whistleblower report that President Donald Trump solicited a political favor from Ukraine's president that could help him get re-elected.

The Democratic House leader, who launched an impeachment inquiry on Tuesday against the Republican Trump, has accused the administration of trying to cover up the whistleblower complaint. On Friday, she lambasted the Justice Department and the country's top intelligence official for their roles.

Democrats say Barr should recuse himself from matters related to the whistleblower complaint prompted by a July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. "He's gone rogue," Pelosi said of Barr in an interview with MSNBC.

According to a summary of the call released by the White House, Trump asked Zelenskiy to work with Barr and his personal lawyer Rudolph Giuliani, who was pressing the Ukrainians to investigate matters related to former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Hunter Biden served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company when Biden was in office. Biden is the front-runner in the Democratic race to challenge Trump in the November 2020 presidential election.

Trump denies he pressured Zelenskiy to do anything improper and accuses Democrats of launching a politically motivated investigation. Trump never asked Barr to contact Ukraine, Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said this week, and Barr has not communicated with Ukraine about a possible investigation or any other subject. The department said Barr will not recuse himself from Ukraine-related investigations.

"COVER-UP OF THE COVER-UP"

The complaint, which was made public on Thursday, described how White House officials removed an electronic record of Trump's call with Zelenskiy from the computer server where such records are normally kept to one reserved for highly classified intelligence matters.

Pelosi criticized Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, who testified before the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday, for notifying the White House and Justice Department of the whistleblower complaint. The law requires such complaints to be turned over to Congress. Maguire said he went to the White House first because he thought calls involving the U.S. president could be protected by executive privilege.

"I think where they're going is a cover-up of the cover-up," Pelosi said. "To have a Justice Department to go so rogue -- well they have been for a while and not it just makes matters worse." Pelosi said Maguire "broke the law" by not going to Congress first.

Ukraine reports raised serious concerns that Trump's actions have jeopardized national security and the integrity of U.S. elections, Pelosi said. "The clarity of the president's actions is compelling and gave us no choice but to move forward," she told MSNBC.

TRUMP CRITICISM

The impeachment inquiry is casting a new pall over Trump's presidency just months after he emerged from the cloud cast by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into whether he colluded with Russia in the 2016 election.

Trump has reacted furiously, accusing Democrats of launching another "witch hunt" and repeatedly attacking one of his fiercest Democratic critics in Congress - Adam Schiff, who is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee that will lead impeachment proceedings. After suggesting on Thursday that White House officials who fed the whistleblower information were as good as spies, he said on Friday that the whistleblower may have been a lone wolf "partisan operative."

Trump said on Twitter that "there may not have even been somebody else, a leaker or spy, feeding it to him or her?" Maguire, the top intelligence officer, testified that he believed the whistleblower acted "in good faith throughout."

Three House committees said they would issue subpoenas to the White House and State Department as soon as Friday if the Trump administration missed a deadline to send a wide range of documents related to its dealings with Ukraine. The House Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, and Oversight Committees launched an investigation into the matter this month before news broke about a whistleblower complaint that led Pelosi to announce an impeachment inquiry on Tuesday.

In a Sept. 9 letter, the panels' chairmen set a Thursday deadline for the documents to be handed over and threatened to issue subpoenas if necessary. Schiff set a Friday deadline for Barr to hand over a range of Justice Department communications and correspondent about the complaint.