The White House Tried to Bury Records of Trump’s Ukraine Call. Not Shady at All.

And apparently, it wasn't the first time they put Trump's communications with a foreign leader in a top-secret filing system because it was "politically sensitive."

The House Intelligence Committee released a declassified version of the whistleblower complaint into the dealings between Donald Trump, American president, and Ukraine. It is not good. "In the course of my official duties, I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election," it says near the top. From there, it does not get better.

The whistleblower makes clear that the report is based on accounts from other officials—that it is secondhand, which Trumpists will use to attack it. In fact, they already have. The report appears to be an almost journalistic enterprise, where (in most cases) multiple sources have corroborated the individual claims. This is where we remind you that the inspector general for the office of the Director of National Intelligence, a Trump appointee, assessed the report to be urgent and credible.

It recounts some of what we already know: that Trump pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate a political opponent, Joe Biden, and to dig anything up that might muddy the waters around Russian interference in 2016. That Rudy Giuliani was at the center of these efforts, circumventing official State Department channels—and U.S. national security interests—for the president's political gain. That Attorney General William Barr appears to be intimately involved, too.

But there are a couple of new items as well. The first has to do with how White House officials responded to the now-infamous July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—namely, by immediately recognizing that some shady shit had gone down, and allegedly trying to shove it under the rug.

In the days following the phone call, I learned from multiple U.S. officials that senior White House officials had intervened to "lock down" all records of the phone call, especially the official word-for-word transcript of the call that was produced—as is customary—by the White House Situation Room. This set of actions underscored to me that White House officials understood the gravity of what had transpired in the call.

You don't say. And how did they go about this "lock down"?

White House officials told me they were "directed" by White House lawyers to remove the electronic transcript from the computer system in which such transcripts are typically stored for coordination, finalization, and distribution to Cabinet-level officials.

Right. The contents were sensitive because the president was selling out the national interest for his personal political gain. But the real gold is in the footnotes on this issue:

According to multiple White House officials I spoke with, the transcript of the President's call with President Zelenskyy was placed into a computer system managed directly by the National Security Council (NSC) Directorate for Intelligence Programs. This is a standalone computer system reserved for codeword-level intelligence information, such as covert action. According to information I received from White House officials, some officials voiced concerns internally that this would be an abuse of the system and was not consistent with the responsibilities of the Directorate for Intelligence Programs. According to White House officials I spoke with, this was "not the first time" under this Administration that a Presidential transcript was placed into this codeword-level system solely for the purpose of protecting politically sensitive—rather than national security sensitive—information.

"Not the first time." The president's staff have been stuffing some of his communications with foreign leaders into a top-secret digital filing cabinet because it's politically sensitive. What, pray tell, makes it so? Based on what we know about this instance, it may well be that the president makes a habit of subjugating the national interest to his own when dealing with other heads of state. Shocker. Do we think his communications with Russian President Vladimir Putin are in there? After all, Trump once seized a translator's notes on his meeting with Putin, part of a pattern of obfuscation when it comes to their face-to-face meetings. So, how about their phone calls?

74th session of UN General Assembly continues in New York City
Trump’s communication with Zelensky appears to be part of a wider pattern.
Valery SharifulinGetty Images

How much of this, like Zelensky's behavior on the other end, is indicative of wider patterns in this White House? Surely this is a line of inquiry for congressional committees, which should demand to see other communications with heads of state that were filed in the codeword-level system for political reasons.

There's also the context around the call. The whistleblower is clear that he or she cannot definitively draw a connection between Trump's order to withhold military aid to Ukraine and the request for an investigation into Biden, but that was just some of the background noise around the call.

I learned from U.S. officials that, on or around 14 May, the President instructed Vice President Pence to cancel his planned travel to Ukraine to attend President Zelenskyy's inauguration on 20 May; Secretary of Energy Rick Perry led the delegation instead. According to these officials, it was also "made clear" to them that the President did not want to meet with Mr. Zelenskyy until he saw how Zelenskyy "chose to act" in office. I do not know how this guidance was communicated, or by whom. I also do not know whether this action was connected with the broader understanding, described in the unclassified letter, that a meeting or phone call between the President and President Zelenskyy would depend on whether Zelenskyy showed willingness to "play ball" on the issues that had been publicly aired by Mr. Lutsenko and Mr. Giuliani.

Giuliani and Lutsenko, the former prosecutor general in Ukraine, had been publicly airing allegations about, among other things, Biden's supposed activities in Ukraine. (There is no evidence Biden did anything improper.) The whistleblower could not link these things definitively, but this raises the possibility that Trump made it clear he would not deal with the Ukrainian president—including, possibly, providing military aid already appropriated by Congress—until Zelensky ginned up an investigation into Biden.

That would be nailed-on quid pro quo of the variety Trump and his pet toads have been saying are not there in this case, not that it is needed to justify impeachment. Trump has already admitted he pressured a foreign head of state to investigate a U.S. citizen—an invitation to a foreign power to interfere in a U.S. election for Trump's personal political gain. It is a betrayal of the national interest and a violation of his oath of office, and not his first. He should be removed.

This post has been updated.

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