White House and intelligence officials are working out a deal to allow the whistle-blower who filed an explosive complaint about President Trump to speak with congressional investigators, as part of a broader effort by the administration to quell calls for Mr. Trump’s impeachment, two people briefed on the matter said Tuesday.
The director of national intelligence is also expected to release a redacted version of the whistle-blower’s complaint in coming days, people familiar with the situation said.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi told fellow Democrats that in a private call that she had with the president on Tuesday, he said was not responsible for the whistle-blower complaint being withheld from Congress and would like to find a way to share it, according to Democrats.
The president and his aides had initially rejected congressional requests to examine the complaint. But as pressure has built in the House to begin impeachment proceedings against Mr. Trump, administration officials concluded that holding out would put them in a politically untenable position.
The appearance that they are stonewalling Congress, in their view, could prove more damaging than the whistle-blower’s account. Mr. Trump also believes that the allegations about him are not nearly as damning as they have been portrayed and that disclosing them will clear his name, people close to the president said.
Intelligence community lawyers sent a letter to the whistle-blower’s lawyers on Tuesday, indicating that the office was trying to work out the issues that would allow the whistle-blower to speak with Congress
Andrew P. Bakaj, a lawyer for the whistle-blower, had sent a letter to the director of national intelligence earlier on Tuesday, saying that his client wanted to meet with members of Congress but needed the office’s approval.
“We applaud the decision to release the whistle-blower complaint as it establishes that, ultimately, the lawful whistle-blower disclosure process can work,” said Mr. Bakaj and I. Charles McCullough III, the lawyers for the whistle-blower.
Intelligence community lawyers have had discussions with the White House and the Justice Department officials about how the whistle-blower can share his complaint without infringing on issues like executive privilege.
A meeting with the whistle-blower could provide House Democrats with additional material as they build a case for the president’s impeachment. The precise nature of the whistle-blower’s complaint has not been made public.
Allowing the whistle-blower to meet with investigators would allow the whistle-blower to share at least some details of the complaint he filed — which relates to Mr. Trump’s efforts to get the Ukrainian government to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son — even if the full document is not handed over to Congress.
Mr. Maguire said Tuesday that he would work with Congress and the administration to find a resolution in the standoff over congressional access to the complaint.
In a sharply worded statement, Mr. Maguire pushed back on a statement by Ms. Pelosi that he had acted illegally by withholding the whistle-blower complaint from Congress.
“In light of recent reporting on the whistle-blower complaint, I want to make clear that I have upheld my responsibility to follow the law every step of the way,” Mr. Maguire said.
Mr. Maguire also appeared to defend the whistle-blower, saying that all members of the country’s intelligence agencies “have a solemn responsibility to do what is right, which includes reporting wrongdoing.”
The administration had originally barred the whistle-blower’s complaint from being shared with Congress, arguing that it did not meet the legal definitions of a matter under the purview of office of the director of national intelligence.
But by Tuesday, the administration was working on several fronts to disclose key elements of the material sought by Congressional Democrats. Mr. Trump said as he attended meetings at the United Nations on Tuesday that he would release a transcript of his call on July 25 with Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
The decision to release a transcript of the call made seeking a compromise on the whistle-blower easier, a person familiar with the matter said. But the information in the complaint goes beyond the material in the transcript, meaning there are still potential issues of White House executive privilege that need to be resolved, the person said.
A spokeswoman for the office of the director of national intelligence declined to comment.
Since before the confrontation over the whistle-blower complaint became public, Mr. Maguire has been trying to broker a compromise that would allow some or all of the information to go to Congress to resolve the crisis.
Friends of Mr. Maguire has said he has felt caught between his duty to inform Congress on the one hand and his legal advisers and the Justice Department on the other. They had said he was not legally permitted to share the information.
The White House deliberations came as Democrats announced that they were moving forward with a former impeachment investigation of Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump, according to people close to him, believes Democrats will overplay their hand and that once the transcript is released, it will not prove to be a problem for him.
But the whistle-blower’s complaint is said to extend beyond the one phone call, and Mr. Trump has had at least one other phone call with Mr. Zelensky, on April 21.