A second US intelligence official has testified about the campaign of Donald Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani for Ukraine’s investigation of Presidential candidate Joe Biden and the Democratic Party.

Mark Zaid, part of the legal team of the original whistle-blower, confirmed that his firm is now representing the second official.

Zaid said the second official has “first-hand knowledge that supported the first whistle-blower”. He confirmed that his client has spoken with the intelligence community’s Inspector General, including about the original formal complaint, made by the CIA’s liaison with the White House over Ukraine.

Another attorney, Andrew Bakaj, said his firm is representing others who are giving evidence.

Andrew Bakaj said in a statement: “I can confirm that my firm and my team represent multiple whistle-blowers in connection to the underlying August 12, 2019 disclosure [the formal complaint] to the Intelligence Community Inspector General.”

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The development undercuts the counter-attack of the Trump camp that the first US intelligence official did not listen to Trump’s call to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in which Trump pressed for the investigation of former Vice President Biden and of other conspiracy theories that targeted the Democratic Party and covered up Russia’s interference in the 2016 US election.

Trump and allies maintained that the whistle-blower’s account was “second-hand” or even “fake”. However, the complaint made clear that the testimony, of the campaign since last November by Giuliani and Trump, was based on evidence from “multiple White House officials”. Its narrative was corroborated by the transcript of the Trump-Zelenskiy call, finally released by the White House after weeks of delay, and by texts between US diplomats.

Scrambling after the confirmation of the second US official, Trump put out a flurry of tweets on Sunday night:

But doing so, he undercut his latest defense that his campaign with Ukraine was all about dealing about corruption, and not about undermining Biden.

Trump and Giuliani have been pressing the unsupported conspiracy theory that Joe Biden arranged the dismissal of Ukraine’s Prosecutor General in 2016 to protect his son Hunter, a board member of Burisma, Ukraine’s largest private gas company.

In fact, prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko, who had no legal experience, was removed by Ukraine’s Parliament in March 2016 over claims that he was not investigating corruption.

Both Ukrainian and US officials have said that Joe and Hunter Biden were never accused of “legal violations”. The investigation of Burisma was closed in 2012, two years before Hunter Biden joined the board.

With pressure building, Trump and his defenders have flailed in recent days. They have insisted that an impeachment inquiry is a “Deep State Coup”. Trump further implicated himself by calling on China as well as Ukraine to investigate the Bidens.

And on Friday, Trump tried to pin the blame on Energy Secretary Rick Perry, saying he requested that Trump call Zelenskiy on July 25 to discuss shipments of US natural gas to Ukraine.

After hearing closed-door testimony from the intelligence community’s Inspector General and from the former US envoy to Ukraine, House committees have subpoenaed the White House, Giuliani, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for documents, and requested material from Vice President Mike Pence.

The White House has balked at providing documents. Giuliani has said that he will not cooperate while Rep. Adam Schiff is chair of the House Intelligence Committee. The State Department missed a Friday deadline to hand over information, with Pompeo saying that a letter to the House committees was an initial response.