A White House official who testified in front of the House Tuesday as part of its impeachment investigation reportedly said the White House’s rough transcript of a July phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky left out key words and phrases.
Three people familiar with the situation told The New York Times that Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman testified to congressional investigators that among the omissions was Trump’s assertions that there were recordings of former Vice President Joe Biden discussing Ukrainian corruption and a reference by Zelensky to Burisma Holdings, the energy company on whose board Biden’s son sat.
Vindman, a top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, also testified that he sought to change the memorandum of the conversation to include the omissions. While he was successful in making certain edits, those two omissions were not corrected, The Times reported.
While Vidnam did not identify a motive behind the omissions, his testimony is likely to fuel further speculation and questions from House Democrats as to how the July 25 call between Trump and Zelensky was handled.
The omissions do not alter the heart of the conversation, however, as the reconstructed transcript of the talk shows Trump repeatedly pushing Zelensky to investigate Biden, a top political rival, on unfounded corruption allegations.
Vindman expressed alarm Tuesday about the conversation, saying he twice raised objections to his superiors about Trump’s interactions with Ukraine.
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JUST IN: White House official says transcript of Ukraine call omitted key phrases: report https://t.co/BgAnAJ1hRK pic.twitter.com/WOsUZXT0gs
— The Hill (@thehill) October 30, 2019
Vindman testified that the transcript of the Ukraine call omitted key phrases, including a reference to Burisma, and that he tried to get it restored. https://t.co/PQ25N22Grd via @NYTimes
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) October 30, 2019
The best experts tell the truth, no matter what. https://t.co/MMlZ17Jlh5
— "Tom Nichols" is a scary enough Halloween name (@RadioFreeTom) October 30, 2019
Perfect call https://t.co/zUzvKsTQsw
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) October 30, 2019
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) October 30, 2019
So LTC Vindman says the Trump WH doctored the xcript of Donnie's notorious 25 JUL Prez2Prez call with Zelenskiy.
Who possibly could have seen this coming?
Aside from everybody awake who noticed that wasn't the xcript of a 30 min call.
The Impeachment Express is coming to town.
— John Schindler (@20committee) October 30, 2019
Trump is now explicitly demanding that Rs fully defend his corrupt pressure on Ukraine, as opposed to just attacking Dems/process.
The "transcript" is central to this: Trump wants Rs to say, "read the transcript!" just as he is.
That's much harder now.https://t.co/5caRiIOorN pic.twitter.com/Ophqbg3OpU
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) October 30, 2019
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