WASHINGTON - A senior Department of Homeland Security official alleges that he was told to stop providing intelligence analysis on the threat of Russian interference in the 2020 elections, in part because it "made the President look bad," an instruction he believed would jeopardize national security.

The official, Brian Murphy, who until recently was in charge of intelligence and analysis at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said in a whistleblower complaint that on two occasions he was told to stand down on reporting about the Russian threat.

On July 8, Murphy said acting Homeland Security secretary Chad Wolf told him that an "intelligence notification" regarding the Kremlin's disinformation efforts should be "held" because it was unflattering to Trump, who has long derided Russian interference as a "hoax" that was concocted by his opponents to delegitimize his victory in 2016.

It's not clear who would have seen the notification, but the DHS's intelligence reports are routinely shared with the FBI, other federal law enforcement agencies, and state and local governments.

Murphy objected to Wolf's instruction, "stating that it was improper to hold a vetted intelligence product for reasons [of] political embarrassment," according to a copy of his whistleblower complaint that was obtained by The Washington Post.

Murphy also alleges that two months earlier, Wolf told him to stop producing intelligence assessments on Russia and shift the focus on election interference to China and Iran. He said Wolf told him "that these instructions specifically originated from White House National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien."

Murphy said he would not comply with the instructions, which he believed would "put the country in substantial and specific danger," according to the complaint, which was filed Tuesday with the DHS inspector general.

The White House and the DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"Mr. Murphy followed proper lawful whistleblower rules in reporting serious allegations of misconduct against DHS leadership, particularly involving political distortion of intelligence analysis and retaliation," his attorney, Mark Zaid, said in a statement. "We have alerted both the Executive and Legislative Branches of these allegations and we will appropriately cooperate with oversight investigations, especially in a classified setting."

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that Murphy's complaint "outlines grave and disturbing allegations that senior White House and Department of Homeland Security officials improperly sought to politicize, manipulate, and censor intelligence in order to benefit President Trump politically. This puts our nation and its security at grave risk."

The committee has asked Murphy to testify this month.

Murphy's allegations track with concerns by other officials, including Democratic lawmakers and national security experts, that the Trump administration has tried to downplay the threat from Russia.

Last month, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence stated publicly that Russia, China and Iran were engaged in interference campaigns, an assessment that drew rebukes from Democratic lawmakers who said the administration was trying to equate the efforts of all three countries, when in fact Russia is the only one actively trying to help Trump by attacking his opponent, former vice president Joe Biden.

Murphy appeared to share those concerns, stating that the analysis in the intelligence notification, which he said was eventually leaked to the press, "attempts to place the actions of Russia on par with those of Iran and China in a manner that is misleading and inconsistent with the actual intelligence data."

Wolf singled out China as a unique "menacing actor" and singular threat to U.S. national security during a "State of the Homeland" speech to the department's senior officials on Wednesday. "China has leveraged every aspect of its country, including its economy, its military, and its diplomatic power, demonstrating a rejection of Western liberal democracy and continually renewing its commitment to remake the world order in its own authoritarian image," he said.

The DHS plays a key role in guarding against election interference, mainly by working with state and local governments to ensure that electronic voting systems are protected from hackers and outside manipulation. As part of its mission, the department has sent unclassified bulletins to state and local authorities describing foreign interference.

Recently, the DHS issued a report that Russian media are spreading false allegations that mail-in voting is unsafe, with claims that echo the baseless assertions Trump and Attorney General William Barr have made that voting by mail is rife with fraud.

Murphy stated that after being told to stand down on Russia in May and shift his focus, he made two classified disclosures on the matter in late May to Ken Cuccinelli, the second in command at the DHS. The second occurred after a deputies-level meeting of the National Security Council on election security.

Murphy did not provide further details on what he told Cuccinelli, but described his concerns as generally having to do with "abuse of authority, willfully withholding intelligence information from Congress, and the improper administration of an intelligence program."

Murphy was removed from his position at the DHS and assigned to a management role in July, following reports by The Post that his office had compiled "intelligence reports" about tweets by journalists who were covering protests in Portland, Ore.

Murphy also made a series of allegations in the whistleblower complaint that senior Trump administration officials had pressured him to provide misleading information about suspected terrorists crossing the border with Mexico, as part of an effort to bolster the case for building a border wall.

DHS officials came under pressure from the White House and then-spokesperson Sarah Sanders to provide information on "known suspected terrorists" to support construction of the border wall during the government shutdown in January 2019, a former DHS official confirmed.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, was not party to the communications outlined in Murphy's complaint, but said they were consistent with the pressure coming from the White House at the time.

"We were all under pressure to get data on security threats crossing the border," said another former senior DHS official. "The truth was that there is not a significant number of [known suspected terrorists] crossing illegally between ports of entry."