5 key takeaways and allegations from the Trump whistleblower complaint
We now have the seven-page declassified whistleblower complaint alleging misdeeds by President Donald Trump with regard to Ukraine.
Below are some of the key takeaways and allegations in it.
1. The White House allegedly tried to bury the Trump-Zelensky call
The whistleblower said the White House went outside the normal process to prevent officials from reviewing the rough transcript of Trump's July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky - the same rough transcript the White House released Wednesday amid pressure.
The complaint says officials told the whistleblower that they were told to "lock down" all records of the phone call, especially the official word-for-word transcript.
"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 of Intelligence Programs," the complaint says, noting that it's an isolated computer system for "codeword-level intelligence information."
The complaint says officials thought this was an abuse of the system because it was done "solely for the purpose of protecting politically sensitive-rather than national security sensitive-information."
This, notably, would fly in the face of White House claims that its release of the phone call Wednesday was done for transparency reasons and that there was nothing wrong with the call. The call contains no apparent sensitive national security information, yet it was allegedly buried.
The whistleblower also said they were told that this was "not the first time" something was handled like this.
2. Trump allegedly dangled a meeting with Zelensky as a reward
There has been plenty of speculation about whether military aid was a potential quid pro quo Trump used to encourage Zelensky to open his chosen investigations, including one involving Joe and Hunter Biden.
The complaint doesn't dwell upon that too much, saying it wasn't clear that Ukraine was even aware that aid was being withheld. What it does say is that officials believed Trump dangled a meeting with Zelensky - something the Ukrainian leader badly wanted - as a reward to "play ball."
"During this same time frame, multiple U.S. officials told me that the Ukrainian leadership was led to believe that a meeting 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 [former Ukraine prosecutor general Yuri] Lutsenko and [Trump's personal lawyer Rudolph W.] Giuliani."
The whistleblower clarifies, though, that "I do not know who delivered this message to the Ukrainian leadership, or when."
Separately, the whistleblower alleges that Trump also pulled back a planned visit to Ukraine by Vice President Mike Pence for these purposes.
"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," the complaint alleges. The whistleblower says it was "'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."
The Washington Post has previously reported that Trump has resisted the idea of meeting with Zelensky. But on the July 25 phone call with him, after Zelensky suggests that he will pursue the investigations Trump wants, Trump indicates they will plan a meeting in Washington.
"Whenever you would like to come to the White House, feel free to call," Trump says on the call. "Give us a date, and we'll work that out."
On Wednesday at the United Nations, Zelensky said in an apparently joking manner of the still-unscheduled meeting: "And I want to thank you for invitation to Washington. You invited me, but I think - I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But I think you forgot to tell me the date. But I think in the near future."
3. Two ambassadors allegedly worked to contain the potential damage
The whistleblower describes two U.S. officials - Kurt Volker, the U.S. special representative for Ukraine negotiations, and Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union - trying to mitigate the potential damage caused by Trump's efforts.
"Based on multiple readouts of the meetings recounted to me by various U.S. officials," the whistleblower says, "Ambassadors Volker and Sondland reportedly provided advice to the Ukrainian leadership about how to 'navigate' the demands that the President had made of Mr. Zelenskyy."
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