Trump says the whistleblower complaint isn't accurate. The White House keeps showing how it is.
This is an unsubtle and obvious effort to encourage his supporters to adopt this new line of argument. It’s secondhand! It’s inaccurate! How can this be used to criticize Trump?
The answer is simple. Although much of what the complaint includes is indeed secondhand or based on news reporting, those are hardly disqualifying. The news reports are mostly citations of Trump’s mentions of the situation with Ukraine or references to Trump-friendly articles at the Hill. And those secondhand assertions in the complaint (read them here https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/read-the-whistleblower-complaint-regarding-president-trump-s-communications-with-ukrainian-president-volodymyr-zelensky/4b9e0ca5-3824-467f-b1a3-77f2d4ee16aa/) that can currently be verified have been verified — by White House comments or in the rough transcript (read it here https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/09/25/rough-transcript-trumps-call-with-ukraines-president-annotated/) of the July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
What has garnered more attention over the past 24 hours is another assertion made in the complaint.
“White House officials told me that 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,” the whistleblower writes. “Instead, the transcript was loaded into a separate electronic system that is otherwise used to store and handle classified information of an especially sensitive nature. One White House official described this act as an abuse of this electronic system because the call did not contain anything remotely sensitive from a national security perspective.”
On Friday morning, the White House provided a statement to CNN: That move did happen, at the request of National Security Council lawyers.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/09/27/trump-says-whistleblower-complaint-isnt-accurate-white-house-keeps-showing-how-it-is/
= new reply since forum marked as read
And is pretty much stabbing everybody else in the White House too.
