The House committees conducting the impeachment inquiry released transcripts Saturday of the closed-door testimonies earlier this month of outgoing National Security Council aide Tim Morrison and Vice President Mike Pence aide Jennifer Williams.Both Morrison and Williams raised their concerns about the now-infamous July call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that was part of effort to dig up false allegations against Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
Meta-point: both links in the article go to house.gov.
If you support the House impeachment effort, please click on both links, even if you don’t intend to read them. If I were the House, I’d use traffic numbers as an insight into public interest in the details. This is perhaps a zero-effort way to resist Trump/GOP.
There is a lot here about the handling and preservation of a particular version of the “transcript” of the phone call. Also weird stuff (in Morrison’s) about John Eisenberg saying that the Executive Secretary made a mistake by putting it on the highly classified system. I do hope at some point that particular aspect of the cover-up sees sunlight, and Eisenberg (and Barr) are punished for their parts in a criminal conspiracy.
There may be something here akin to the “Butterfield Moment” where Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence of the Nixon tapes. I’m referring to the following exchange on page 53 of the transcript:
Q A MEMCON package. Did you review the MEMCON package in order to make any edits based on your notes?
A I reviewed the package. I do not recall making any edits.
Q But the purpose of the reviewing the package was to review your notes and make any edits that you deem necessary?
A Yes, but it’s also to review the original speech-to-text translation of the caIl.
This is the first time I’ve seen an admission that there was some kind of word-for-word record made of the call – albeit by a computer instead of a stenographer.
If Edwards wins reelection tonight, that will be a sign Trump has no coattails and perhaps a couple more Republicans will see the light.
Polls close at 8:00,CT. It’s going to be a long night. Polls say 48 to 46 with Edwards leading.
Forgive me if I’m mistaken, Summer, but my conception of a Prime Membership included you reading this stuff for me. It was my sincere belief that you would digest, analyze and distill such documents for the benefit of members, not unlike me, who are both lazy and, frankly, none too bright.
Tim Morrison, the former National Security Council official, testified he had “concerns” about National Security Council official Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman’s judgement in regards to policy.
Did Morrison only come forward to undercut Vindman?
This election and the one in Kentucky are as important if not more then the testimony. Republican senators will only stay with the President if he can help them win.
He’ll claim he really wants to serve (out his term) but … the doctors say ….
“The doctors tell me it’s time for me to look out for myself, to take care of myself, like, my health. I don’t want to. But they say, “Sir, you must.” And we all agreed, I need to do it. Not just for me, but for the sake of my family, like for my young son, Bannon.”
OT, also WUHU: Rispone just conceded. Somebody might not quite be the kingmaker he thought he was, ISN’T THAT RIGHT, LOOOOOSERRRRRRRR??? Maybe standing in a hall and telling a bunch of demagogic lies to a pack of yahoos isn’t quite the society-transforming exercise you once strayed into magical thinking to think? You should stray out again and breathe the fresh, crisp mountain air of the reality that you suck.
Where is @georgeh when we need him to tell us how badly this is all going for “the Dems”, and how poorly Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff have steered this whole program of meaningless slow-walking inquiry because they didn’t know how to position their party to prevail against Current Occupant?
