White House official: Trump’s ‘exact’ transcript omitted key details
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
White House official: Trump’s ‘exact’ transcript omitted key details
Five times yesterday, Donald Trump published tweets insisting that everyone “read the transcript” of his July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The advice seemed unwise: those who’ve read the call summary realize it includes incriminating details that make Trump look worse, which is why many Republicans said it was a “huge mistake” for the White House to release it.
But there’s a related problem of even greater importance: the summary of the controversial call isn’t a transcript at all.
At first glance, the problem with the ellipses in the call summary may not seem altogether new. Those who read the document carefully, for example, know that it showed Trump telling Zelensky, “Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it… It sounds horrible to me.”
It hasn’t been clear what those ellipses between “look into it” and “it sounds horrible” represented. Were words omitted? Did Trump trail off, losing his train of thought? Was there a brief interruption to the call? What about the other two instances in which ellipses appeared in the call summary?
Those ellipses have suddenly taken on an even greater significance, following yesterday’s testimony in the congressional inquiry.
Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, told members of Congress that he tried to edit a White House log of a July call between President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s president to include details that were omitted, one lawmaker present at the testimony and another source familiar with it confirmed to NBC News.
Vindman testified in a closed-door deposition before House impeachment investigators that the attempted edits were to reflect Trump mentioning possible recordings of former vice president Joe Biden discussing corruption in Ukraine and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy mentioning Bursima, the company who had hired Biden’s son, Hunter, the sources said.
A New York Times report added that there is no audio recording of the Trump/Zelensky call, but White House notetakers and voice recognition software created a rough transcript. At that point, the document went to Vindman, the top Ukraine expert on the White House National Security Council, to help fill in gaps, especially as they relate to proper nouns and technical terms that would be unfamiliar to notetakers and the software.
Vindman reviewed the rough transcript and made edits. Yesterday, the Army lieutenant colonel told lawmakers that some of those edits were not reflected in the final document that was released to the public.
And according to the latest reporting, some of the omissions related specifically to Trump’s interest in Joe Biden.
For context, it’s worth noting that Donald Trump has assured the public that the released call summary is “an exact word-for-word transcript of the conversation.” In fact, the American president has referred to the document as an “exact” transcript at least 16 times.
It now appears those claims were false – and it’s a curious thing for Trump to have lied about.
What’s more, some of the White House’s more sycophantic allies, including lawmakers such as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) have repeatedly suggested that the call summary is the only relevant piece of evidence, and it’s not incriminating enough to warrant presidential impeachment. It’s a dubious argument for a variety of reasons – not the least of which is that the call summary is just part of a larger picture – but it’s suddenly even less convincing now that we know that the transcript isn’t a transcript, and its omissions are directly relevant to the scandal.
As for the apparent attempt at a White House cover-up, it’ll be interesting to know who was involved in keeping Vindman’s recommended edits out of the official document.
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First of all, Trump has said numerous times that the "transcript" he released a few weeks ago is an "exact transcript" of the phone call. Apparently, surprise!, Trump has been lying about that.
Secondly, the witness Alexander Vindman says Trump mentioned to the Ukranian president something about a video (of Biden talking about the Ukranian prosecutor who was fired.)
Why did the Trump white house cut that out of the transcript? What exactly was said?
Why is the left still protecting Biden?
The left generally protects anyone unjustly accused.
Why is the right condemning Biden for a fake news story that was debunked years ago?
Tell it to Kavanaugh................oh and Mr. Trump
Prove it!
I said "UNJUSTLY", you seem to have missed that part.
It seems funny that your only 2 examples, have never been thoroughly investigated (if at all).
Yes everyone knows that almost three years isn't enough............I'll bet Mr. Mueller would take exception to that.
I like how you get to the heart of the issue, every body needs to read your comment at least 5 times and let it sink in
Ozzie, I don't remember that investigation. Care to elaborate?
That transcript could have been authenticted in triplicate by God himself and many on the progressive liberal left would still shoot it down solely because it is Trump whom they hate above all else.🤣
Color me not surprised. Surely Trump knows the whole transcript will eventually get out. Doesn't he?
Crooked donnie never learns, the entire call will come to light, and what's sad is his defenders will think nothing of it.
His defenders have already given up trying to come up with excuses for the call, now they just attack the process.
Extortion is not a high crime or misdemeanor Wally?
"Give us our fake investigation or we won't give you your 400 million dollars."
It's like the tax returns. Without looking, they're 100% certain that evidence of crime will be found when see the raw document. It couldn't possibly be that there is a legitimate reason for redacting some portion of a transcript.
Meanwhile, hearings into the matter are closed-door for national security reasons and everyone is just supposed to understand and accept that.
Each side points to similar behavior in the other and insists that it's "obvious" signs of a cover-up.
So you're on board with there being redactions in the summary. PROGRESS.
They aren't hearings, they are depositions.
There is plenty of evidence in the public domain that can be read, correlated, corroborated and evaluated.
What are you alleging? What behavior is on the other side of Trump's that connotes a 'cover-up?
Where did you go Tacos!
You like to demand answers, how about producing some yourself.
What's curious about it? He lies about everything
You know who will see this? Not many. Millions saw Adam Schiff's opening statement at a congressional hearing featuring acting Department of National Intelligence Director Joseph Maguire,
Schiff gave a fictional retelling of the conversation between Trump and Kelensky. Millions of people saw that and many of them don't even realize he was lying, but with the help of the corrupt MSM and other Left Wing sources the propaganda is what many believe. The public is served a heavy dose of propaganda daily, but few will take the time to look for the truth. That is what the Socialists are counting on.
But, millions saw this.
So until the Socialists start allowing the American Citizens, who put them in office, to hear the whole truth instead of the sanitized propaganda they want us to see and believe, I have no desire to take any of this seriously,.
Thats obvious from reading the efforts of Republicans, conservatives , libertarians and right wing anarchists hopelessly trying to defend him on social media and internet discussion forums.
So let us assess this seed:
1) The author asserts that the transcript of the phone call includes incriminating details, but dosen't explain specifically what they are.
2) The author asserts that the transcript of the phone call is actually a summary AND that no actual recording of the call exists (according to the New York Times).
3) The author asserts that there are "ellipses" in the summary AND they MAY represent words missing!!!!!
4) The author asserts that Vindman tried to edit the summary but the final summary didn't include his edits AND we don't know how or why.
5) The author asserts that a "lawmaker" present at yesterday's secret hearings had leaked info to NBC news
6) The author asserts that Vindman specifically "testified in a closed-door deposition before House impeachment investigators that the attempted edits were to reflect Trump mentioning possible recordings of former vice president Joe Biden discussing corruption in Ukraine and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy mentioning Bursima, the company who had hired Biden’s son, Hunter, the sources said."
7) The author asserts that the President lied about the call. (Like he lied about his innocence in the Russia hoax?)
What the author dosen't mention is that Republican members of the Intelligence Committee were prevented from getting answers to the question of who Vindman actually talked to about his "concerns."
I wonder why Adam Schiff wouldn't want us to know that little detail?
The gaslighting that comment illustrates is galactic.
Everything will come to a head soon. The GoP kept bitching about a vote and open discussions, they'll be getting it now. The House committees will be able to openly subpoena all relevant information while the White House will need to be more inventive in their obstruction excuses.
The Senate is talking about getting this in a matter of a couple of weeks. After all that bitching about procedure they won't be able to shut it down on the first (not only that, they don't have the majority votes to do so). (If Trump doesn't quit first) We will all be able to hear all the evidence, the Trump lawyer will be able to examine the evidence and question the witnesses. They we will have a vote and then it will be endlessly debated during until Nov. (probably longer, sigh...)
Wait until the transcripts come out and everyone finds out that the GOP Congressmen @ the depositions didn't ask any questions actual issue being investigated. They mostly tried to out the whistleblower and question the loyalty [to Trump, not the country] of the witnesses. Nunes and Jordan are going to look like utter morons. Not that their minions will care mind you.