I’m torn over impeachment – because the Senate either will not act, or will go through the motions and acquit the Tweeter-in-Chief. Plus I think the Dems need to start emphasizing program over Trump. BTW – did you-all know that in England “trump” is slang for fart? True. When my then-young nephews came over with my late brother-in-law (stationed there in the Air Force) around 1958 they used it all the time – “I trumped!”
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This is a new wrinkle…T called Pelosi today. Good job Nancy!
“The President actually said to Nancy Pelosi, ‘Hey, can we do something about this whistleblower complaint, can we work something out.’ And she said ‘Yes, you can tell your people to obey the law.’ So she quickly swatted that down." -
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And now the WH is releasing the Whistleblower report. Gee, was it all about not releasing the report? T does not want this inquiry to go to a vote…very bad for his re-election. Hmmmm.
White House preparing to release whistleblower complaint to Congress
Trump has approved releasing the document at the center of his latest standoff with lawmakers, a senior administration official said.
By NANCY COOK
09/24/2019 06:56 PM EDT
Updated 09/24/2019 08:03 PM EDT
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The White House is preparing to release to Congress by the end of the week both the whistleblower complaint and the Inspector General report that are at the center of House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, according to a senior administration official, reversing its position after withholding the documents from lawmakers.
The move shows the level of seriousness with which the administration is now approaching the House‘s new impeachment proceedings, even as President Donald Trump publicly tried to minimize the inquiry as a “witch hunt” or “presidential harassment,” or a move that will help him win his 2020 reelection campaign.
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No guard rails on this impulsive President…he’s without any internal forces that might have blocked his guile and underhanded method of getting dirt on Biden.
He’s fired them all…except his pal Giuliani who according to this article inserted himself into the Ukraine issues, and forced some of the giving the Ukraines some heat to get some dirt on Biden, as well as punishing them for Manafort’s treatment (see black log book, which T claimed was falsified)
So Giuliani is talking about how the State Dept asked that he go to Ukraine and how the FBI could not do this…(on Laura Ingraham show - below)
I think this reveals that Bolton is at least a leaker.
But Trump admitted this week that he had done some of what his own advisers feared, using the call to raise the issue of Biden with Zelensky. And the wave of consternation triggered by that call led someone in the U.S. intelligence community to submit an extraordinary whistleblower complaint, setting in motion a sequence of events that now includes the start of an impeachment inquiry in the House of Representatives.
…
But Trump admitted this week that he had done some of what his own advisers feared, using the call to raise the issue of Biden with Zelensky. And the wave of consternation triggered by that call led someone in the U.S. intelligence community to submit an extraordinary whistleblower complaint, setting in motion a sequence of events that now includes the start of an impeachment inquiry in the House of Representatives.
Though the whistleblower report focuses on the Trump-
Zelensky call, officials familiar with its contents said that it includes references to other developments tied to the president, including efforts by Giuliani to insert himself into U.S.-Ukrainian relations.Trump announced Tuesday that he would release a transcript of his call, insisting that it would show there was “NO quid pro quo!” and would reveal a conversation that was “friendly and totally appropriate.”
But even within Trump’s party, few have gone so far as to say they would consider it appropriate for the president to solicit foreign help in an American election. And his political fate may hinge on how lawmakers and the public assess not only his intentions on the call but also the actions of his subordinates in the events surrounding it.
U.S. officials described an atmosphere of intense pressure inside the NSC and other departments since the existence of the whistleblower complaint became known, with some officials facing suspicion that they had a hand either in the complaint or in relaying damaging information to the whistleblower, whose identity has not been revealed and who is entitled to legal protection.
…
Trump’s closest advisers, including acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who was ordered by Trump to suspend the aid to Ukraine, are also increasingly targets of internal finger-pointing. Mulvaney has agitated for foreign aid to be cut universally but has also stayed away from meetings with Giuliani and Trump, officials said. But the person who appears to have been more directly involved at nearly every stage of the entanglement with Ukraine is Giuliani.
“Rudy — he did all of this,” one U.S. official said. “This s—show that we’re in — it’s him injecting himself into the process.”
…
Several officials traced their initial concerns about the path of U.S.-Ukrainian relations to news reports and interviews granted by Giuliani in which he began to espouse views and concerns that did not appear connected to U.S. priorities or policy.
The former New York mayor appears to have seen Zelensky, a political neophyte elected president of Ukraine in April and sworn in in May, as a potential ally on two political fronts: punishing those Giuliani suspected of playing a role in exposing the Ukraine-related corruption of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and delivering political ammunition against Biden.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!
Yesterday Trump was telling us he held up the aid to Ukraine because of “the corruption.” Today, he probably realized the optics on that weren’t good since it played into the allegations that he was pressuring the Ukraine to drum up charges of corruption against Joe Biden’s son. So today, he came up with a completely different story. Now he’s really grumpy because “just the United States” is giving aid to Ukraine. “[Other countries] are not doing it.”
Well, it’s not surprising to discover that Trump’s claim that we are the only ones financially supporting Ukraine is total B.S. (see the E.U. response below) – but then Trump only has the vast resources of the State Department at his disposal. Guess he couldn’t pick up the phone to get the facts, but decided to soak up disinformation on Fox News instead – and base his new lie on that.
Trump is desperately trying to convince us that he didn’t hold up the aid as a way of pressuring Ukraine to dig up dirt on his political rival. He’s doing a dismal job of that. It’s hard to believe someone who first tells you one story and then abruptly bails on that story and concocts a new one that is equally unbelievable because it has no basis in reality.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday shifted his explanation for temporarily withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine, citing what he criticized as a lack of similar financial contribution by other Western powers to the Eastern European nation.
Trump’s latest remarks are at odds with his assertion Monday that he denied the assistance because he feared bureaucratic corruption within Ukraine’s government. The new claim also comes after weekend reports that he repeatedly pressured newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a July phone call to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden’s son.
…
“But my complaint has always been, and I’d withhold again, and I’ll continue to withhold until such time as Europe and other nations contribute to Ukraine,” he continued. “Because they’re not doing it. Just the United States. We’re putting up the bulk of the money. And I’m asking, why is that?”
…
The president, who has long grumbled about U.S. expenditures toward international alliances, appeared to reprise that line of reasoning later Tuesday. Trump said he had vented his frustrations to several Cabinet officials, and singled out France and Germany as countries that should commit greater resources to Ukraine’s protection.“I keep asking the same question," he told reporters, appearing alongside British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. "Why is it that the United States is always paying these foreign countries, and other foreign countries that, frankly, are much more affected, they’re not?”
But the European Union pushed back on Trump’s assertions in a statement Tuesday.
"The European Union’s support to Ukraine in the past 5 years has been unprecedented and consistent," said Maja Kocijancic, an EU spokesperson for foreign affairs and security policy. "Since 2014, the EU and the European Financial Institutions have mobilized more than €15 billion in grants and loans to support the reform process, with strong conditionality on continued progress."
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Here’s some interesting background on what the term “transcript” really means when used to refer to a record of a presidential phone call. It’s actually a collection of notes taken by two or more note takers. It is not based on a tape. A source for this article states there are no known tapes of Trump’s phone calls.
The source also states that note takers tend to omit “issues that could be controversial.” WTF? Those are the very parts of any call that it would be most important to have a record of!
Excuse my cynicism, but I’m already suspicious about the provenance of the “transcript” Trump will be releasing. Are there various drafts of such a collection of notes? Are we getting the first draft or a later draft that may have been edited? The document released should contain a detailed description of how it was created and the history of any modifications.
This is why I’m glad that a formal impeachment inquiry has begun. It should give Congress more power to collect the information they need. For example, it may be necessary to subpoena the note takers who were on this call and question them regarding details of the call – especially if the transcript does not appear to be a comprehensive record.
Details from a phone call made by Donald Trump that has led the U.S. House of Representatives to launch a formal impeachment inquiry against the president isn’t likely to come from a recording or be verbatim, former White House and national security officials say.
Instead, because of standard White House protocol for handling phone calls between the president and other world leaders, a transcript is likely to be put together from written notes by U.S. officials who listen in.
Trump said on Tuesday a “complete, fully declassified and unredacted transcript” of the July 25 call would be released on Wednesday. In it, the Republican president is alleged to have pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Joe Biden, the U.S. Democratic presidential front-runner.
The transcript would show the call was “totally appropriate,” Trump said on Twitter.
However, standard practice when a president is talking to a foreign leader is not to make a recording but to have at least two and sometimes more note-takers from the National Security Council (NSC) on the call, a former senior NSC official told Reuters.
Those note-takers are themselves usually Central Intelligence Agency officers on assignment to the NSC, he said.
Their notes serve as the principal record of such calls, the former official said. He was not aware of any electronic recordings made by the U.S. government on calls between Trump and other world leaders.
Evelyn Farkas, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense during the Obama presidency, said not only would any so-called transcript be based on notes, but it would also likely be incomplete because the note-takers usually do not include issues that could be controversial if they became public.
“Typically a note-taker will write notes about what the principal says in a fashion that does not embarrass their principal,” said Farkas.
A former White House senior official concurred there was unlikely to be a recording.
“There’s no physical recording but there are a lot of people listening and taking contemporaneous notes of these calls,” the official said. “When you read it, it looks almost like a transcript.”
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What you need to know about the impeachment inquiry into Trump
What is the process for an impeachment inquiry?
Pelosi said Tuesday that the six key committees that are already investigating the president will continue to investigate Trump “under that umbrella of impeachment inquiry.” If the investigations conclude there are reasons for impeachment, the Judiciary Committee will draw up articles of impeachment, and the Judiciary Committee and then the full House will vote on it.
Here’s how Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) summed up the process in August to CNN, when he decided his committee was launching an impeachment inquiry: “We are investigating all the evidence, gathering the evidence. And we will [at the] conclusion of this — hopefully by the end of the year — vote to vote articles of impeachment to the House floor. Or we won’t. That’s a decision that we’ll have to make. But that’s exactly the process we’re in right now.”
So the House was already in an impeachment inquiry?
Yes. Well, kind of. It depends on whom you ask. Nadler’s committee has charge over impeachment, and he surprised some of his members this summer when he publicly said they’ve started an inquiry. Pelosi was not supportive of this, and as recently as last weekwouldn’t say “impeachment inquiry” publicly. But the allegations facing Trump on Ukraine changed her mind.
How long does the impeachment process take?
It can be as long or as short as the House wants. As The Fix’s Aaron Blake notes, if past is precedent, this could be wrapped up in four months. But Democrats probably are on a tight timeline here; politically it could be much more difficult to make their case that impeachment is necessary if it’s 2020 and nearing an election where Trump could get thrown out of office anyway. Before the Ukraine allegations, polls showed a majority of Americans didn’t support impeachment.
Will the Senate remove Trump from office?
As it stands now, probably not. There’s no evidence the Republican-controlled Senate wants to confront Trump in such a way. In fact, on Monday Senate Republicans were trying to defend Trump. It’s up to House Democrats to uncover something that could change Republicans’ minds.
Another fascinating point on this: If the House impeaches Trump, it’s possible Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) could just refuse to hold a trial. For centuries, the agreed-upon reading of the Constitution is that if the House impeaches a president, the Senate holds a trial to convict or acquit the president. But there could be some wiggle room for McConnell to avoid that spectacle, writes Bob Bauer, who served as White House counsel under Barack Obama.
Could Trump run in 2020 even if he’s impeached?
If he’s impeached by the House, yes. If he’s removed from office, well, that’s never happened before so we’d probably all be armchair-interpreting the Constitution to figure that one out.
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we need to respect nancy’s timing; it’s uber complex b/c it could definitely help the scump-bag. people are so sexist towards post-menopausal women—just sayin’. on the other hand I’m CELEBRATING!
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The Transcript is released today…and of course we do not know if the transcript is exact ( see @Keaton_James The Impeachment of President Donald J. Trump) but we do hear that T is asking for investigations to be made on Biden, asks Zelensky to talk with AG Barr and Giuliani to follow up on this, and says Mueller’s work was “incompetent” with a lot of issues that Mueller had investigated had started with Ukraine.
Yes, there’s T’s request for Ukraine’s help to find out about Biden…and there will be more deciphering as we want to hear or know that the full whistleblower’s account will be looked at separately. There is bound to be a lot more than this I think.
According to the transcript, Mr. Trump didn’t make an explicit link on the call between the U.S. aid—which he had ordered a hold on a week earlier—and an investigation into Mr. Biden’s son. Mr. Zelensky responded that the president was “absolutely right” and that European countries were “not working as much as they should work for Ukraine.”
…
The transcript, released Wednesday morning, isn’t verbatim and was based off the “notes and recollections” of Situation Room and National Security Council officials, the White House said.
The president on the call raised a discredited claim that his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has been pressing for months: that Mr. Biden as vice president called for the ouster of Ukraine’s prosecutor general to protect his son, Hunter, who sat on the board of a company whose owner the prosecutor had investigated. The prosecutor was the target of widespread criticism from the U.S. and other countries and had in fact hampered the investigation into the younger Mr. Biden’s company, Burisma Group. Ukraine’s prosecutor general in May said he had no evidence of wrongdoing by Mr. Biden or his son.
“There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great,” Mr. Trump told Mr. Zelensky. “Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution, so if you can look into it…it sounds horrible to me.”
He said Mr. Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr would call Mr. Zelensky and added: “I’m sure you will figure it out.” A Justice Department spokeswoman said the president never asked Mr. Barr to make the call nor did he ask the attorney general to investigate Mr. Biden. Mr. Barr also did not discuss the call or other matters related to Ukraine with Mr. Giuliani, she said.
…
Mr. Zelensky assured him that the new prosecutor general would “look into the situation,” and said that if Mr. Trump had any additional information to provide, it would be “very helpful for the investigation.”
Mr. Zelensky was the first person on the call to bring up Mr. Giuliani, after the president asked him to “do us a favor” and investigate matters involving Ukraine related to former special counsel Robert Mueller ’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. Mr. Trump pointed to Mr. Mueller’s testimony before Congress a day earlier, which he said was “incompetent,” but added that “a lot” of the special counsel investigation had “started with Ukraine.
Transcript - Trump and Zekinsky discussion
Ongoing updates from NYT
and T’s reponse
Before the release, he declared on Twitter that Democrats had fallen into his trap, and that the release of the transcript would exonerate him — and make them look foolish.
Will the Democrats apologize after seeing what was said on the call with the Ukrainian President? They should, a perfect call - got them by surprise!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 25, 2019
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From that NYT piece,
President Trump urged the president of Ukraine to contact Attorney General William P. Barr about opening a potential corruption investigation connected to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., according to a transcript of a July phone callat the center of accusations that Mr. Trump pressured a foreign leader to find dirt on a political rival.
“I would like you to do us a favor,” Mr. Trump said in response to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine raising the prospect of acquiring military equipment from the United States. The president then also asked for another inquiry: that the Ukrainians examine an unsubstantiated theory about stolen Democratic emails.
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Yes it does.
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Does anyone know if the phone call was conducted in English on both sides or if translations were going on? The reason I ask is that I read the transcript out loud and it took about 13 minutes. At the top of the document, the length of the phone call is given as 30 minutes so if there were translations going on, then there may be no missing dialog or up to a few minutes missing. If the call was in English, then there are perhaps around 15 minutes of missing dialog.
This seems like an important piece of information about the call, but I can’t find out anything about it. Anyone out there know the answer?
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Three Committee Chairmen to White House: Any Attempt By Trump to Use Presidency for Personal Gain Undermines Our Sovereignty, Democracy and the Constitution
Chairs Demand Documents from White House by Thursday, White House Must Assure Congress No Reprisals Against Officials With Knowledge of Whistleblower Complaint
Today, Rep. Adam Schiff, the Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, the Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, and Rep. Eliot L. Engel, the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, sent a letter to White House Counsel Pat Cipollone demanding that the White House turn over documents relating to the President’s efforts to influence a foreign country to interfere with our upcoming election, which the Chairmen noted would amount to a gross abuse of power. The letter also warned against the President’s persistent attacks on a credible whistleblower from the intelligence community, demanding the White House ensure that any individual with knowledge relevant to the Committees’ investigation—including knowledge of the subject of the whistleblower complaint—is not subject to intimidation, reprisal, or threat of reprisal.
In the letter, the Chairmen wrote:
Our Committees have a constitutional duty to serve as an independent check on the Executive Branch and to determine the facts regarding the actions of the President.
Any attempt by a President to use the office of the presidency of the United States for personal political gain—rather than the national interest—fundamentally undermines our sovereignty, democracy, and the Constitution.
If the recent reports are accurate, it means the President raised with a foreign leader pursuing investigations related to a political opponent in an upcoming U.S. election. That is the very definition of corrupt abuse of power. The corruption exists whether or not the President mentioned or threatened—explicitly or implicitly—that a lack of cooperation could result in the President withholding U.S. security assistance or other forms of assistance.
This President’s alleged misconduct is all the more egregious in context. Ukraine depends on U.S. economic, military, and diplomatic support and continues to face a military threat from Russia. It is, therefore, particularly vulnerable to pressure from a U.S. President.
Exploiting that vulnerability to advance the President’s personal political interests—whether or not the President ever expressly tied his request to a quid pro quo —subverts the constitutional duties he is sworn to uphold and presents an acute crisis for our democracy. Misuse of the office of the presidency for such a corrupt purpose would thus represent a clear breach of the trust placed in the President to faithfully execute the laws of the United States and to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.
The President’s alleged wrongdoing is compounded by his Administration’s attempt to block a credible whistleblower who lawfully sought to provide Congress with urgent information about serious or flagrant abuse, which public reports indicate relates to the President himself.
This letter comes amid reports that the Department of Justice, the White House Counsel’s Office, and the White House Counsel have played a direct role in devising a flawed legal basis for the Acting Director of National Intelligence to circumvent both the statute and Congress’ clear intent that all whistleblower disclosures intended for Congress reach the relevant committees unfiltered.
The Committees also demanded that the White House produce all documents by Thursday, September 26, that they requested in their previous letter to Cipollone, including the transcript of the President’s July 25, 2019, call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
September 24, 2019
Mr. Pat Cipollone
Counsel to the President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20002Dear Mr. Cipollone:
On September 9, 2019, the Committees on Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, and Oversight and Reform wrote to you requesting documents relating to reports that President Trump and his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, pressed the Ukrainian government to interfere with the upcoming U.S. Presidential election by pursuing investigations that could benefit President Trump politically. Our request was predicated on a growing public record of the President and his personal lawyer’s participation in such a scheme, which prompted our Committees to initiate a joint investigation in June.
We asked that the White House produce these documents by September 16, 2019. To date, the White House has failed to acknowledge our request or comply in any way with the Committees’ request for documents.
According to press reports, which multiple outlets have confirmed, documents requested by the Committees—particularly the transcript of the President’s July 25, 2019, phone call with newly-elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—may be part of or related to a lawful whistleblower disclosure that Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire continues to improperly withhold from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, in violation of his express statutory obligation.
Over the past few days, there has been a dramatic shift in the President’s public statements about his call with President Zelensky, as well as troubling attacks by the President on the whistleblower. The President initially appeared to deny press reports that he urged President Zelensky to investigate the son of 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden. By Sunday, September 22, the President explicitly admitted that he raised during his call with President Zelensky the widely debunked conspiracy theory attempting to link Vice President Biden to corruption in Ukraine. He stated:
The conversation I had was largely congratulatory, with largely corruption, all of the corruption taking place and largely the fact that we don’t want our people like Vice President Biden and his son creating to the corruption already in the Ukraine and Ukraine, Ukraine’s got a lot of problems. The new president is saying that he’s going to be able to rid the country of corruption, and I said that would be a great thing. We had a great conversation…It was a perfect conversation.
The President’s admission followed that of his personal attorney, Mr. Giuliani, who acknowledged during an interview on national television last week that “of course” he had asked Ukraine to investigate President Trump’s political opponent.
Our Committees have a constitutional duty to serve as an independent check on the Executive Branch and to determine the facts regarding the actions of the President.
Any attempt by a President to use the office of the presidency of the United States for personal political gain—rather than the national interest—fundamentally undermines our sovereignty, democracy, and the Constitution.
If the recent reports are accurate, it means the President raised with a foreign leader pursuing investigations related to a political opponent in an upcoming U.S. election. That is the very definition of corrupt abuse of power. The corruption exists whether or not the President mentioned or threatened—explicitly or implicitly—that a lack of cooperation could result in the President withholding U.S. security assistance or other forms of assistance.
This President’s alleged misconduct is all the more egregious in context. Ukraine depends on U.S. economic, military, and diplomatic support and continues to face a military threat from Russia. It is, therefore, particularly vulnerable to pressure from a U.S. President.
Exploiting that vulnerability to advance the President’s personal political interests—whether or not the President ever expressly tied his request to a quid pro quo —subverts the constitutional duties he is sworn to uphold and presents an acute crisis for our democracy. Misuse of the office of the presidency for such a corrupt purpose would thus represent a clear breach of the trust placed in the President to faithfully execute the laws of the United States and to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.
The President’s alleged wrongdoing is compounded by his Administration’s attempt to block a credible whistleblower who lawfully sought to provide Congress with urgent information about serious or flagrant abuse, which public reports indicate relates to the President himself.
The Department of Justice, your office, and you personally have reportedly played a direct role in devising a purported legal basis for the Acting DNI to circumvent both the statute and Congress’ clear intent that all whistleblower disclosures intended for Congress reach the relevant committees unfiltered. If true, your office’s involvement raises the specter of a signficant cover-up, in which the White House has improperly intervened to withhold such information from Congress in contravention of the clear command and purpose of the whistleblower statute. That the White House, through you and your office, appears to have received information about or even potentially possesses a whistleblower disclosure involving the President vitiates the purpose of the statutory framework that was established to ensure protected disclosures to Congress are insulated from political interference.
In light of the President’s persistent attacks on the whistleblower, and consistent with the White House’s preservation obligations as set forth in our September 9 letter, the White House must also assure the Committees that it is taking all steps to ensure that no officials with knowledge relevant to the Committees’ investigation, including knowledge of the subject of the whistleblower complaint, are subject to intimidation, reprisal, or threat of reprisal. Any attempt to intimidate or retaliate against these officials is illegal, and the Committees will treat any such allegation with the utmost gravity.
For all these reasons, we now request that you produce—by Thursday, September 26—all of the documents we requested in our letter of September 9. In light of these grave allegations, the President must immediately abandon his stonewalling of Congress and his refusal to submit to any scrutiny or examination of his actions. Failure to comply with our request will compel our Committees to resort to escalated measures.
Sincerely,
Rep. Adam Schiff ,
Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on IntelligenceRep. Elijah E. Cummings ,
Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and ReformRep. Eliot L. Engel ,
Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
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I saw a couple of news items on MSNBC “Last Word” about that with someone who had been a ‘transcriber’ in one administration - Larry Pfeiffer, former Chief of Staff for CIA Director (2006-9 GWBush admin) and Director of the SItuation Room for Obama .
Situation Room -This is where transcripts are worked on and released…there will always be a rough version where 2 or 3 people will be transcribing this information…
If it is anything less than what it seems like the final memo…then you can go to the verbatim translation…or to a summary which is the shortest version.
We do not tape anymore, post Nixon…and Pfeiffer said he was aware of ‘a few’ countries who may tape conversations.
Good summary on this clip with Rep Adam Schiff saying if it does not appear to be the fuller version, we need to do some more checking…and I think you have a good point @Keaton_James that it does appear streamlined. It also has the specific talking points that T 'n co are using - funny, isn’t it!!! 
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@Pet_Proletariat, @dragonfly9 - Lots of good background info on how presidential calls are documented. A fascinating glimpse of what goes on in the situation room!
I still wish I could find out whether or not Zelensky was speaking English. If he was speaking English, there is a significant amount of dialog missing from the 30-minute call.
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Excellent point. I’m sure seeing original whistleblower complaint would help add some more much needed context. Why not release it to the House Intel Committee?
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Acting director of national intelligence threatened to resign if he couldn’t speak freely before Congress on whistleblower complaint
The acting Director of National Intelligence threatened to resign over concerns that the White House might attempt to force him to stonewall Congress when he testifies Thursday about an explosive whistleblower complaint about the president, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
The revelation reflects the extraordinary tensions between the White House and the nation’s highest-ranking intelligence official over a matter that has triggered impeachment proceedings against President Trump.
The officials said that Joseph Maguire, who was thrust into the top intelligence post last month, warned the White House that he was not willing to withhold information from Congress, where he is scheduled to testify in open and closed hearings on Thursday.
The move was in part designed to force the White House to make an explicit legal decision on whether it was going to assert executive privilege over the whistleblower complaint, which centers on a call that Trump made with the leader of Ukraine in late July.
Some Senate Republicans stunned,question White House’s judgement after release
In essence, Maguire was serving notice that he intended to cooperate with lawmakers unless the White House moved forward with a legal case to prevent him from doing so, the officials said.
The White House and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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@Keaton_James - Zelensky does speak English. He’s in front of T at the UN - looking for a clip. He can speak for the most part…sounds fluent.
T is talking about how great the US economy is…making campaign-like platitudes.
Your theory would be right…the discussion should have been a long one and does NOT seem to be reflected in the 13 mins notes. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgeibpHgyNU
And there is a NOTE TAKER there…
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Breaking…
Whistleblower report to be released today.
PBS news Lisa Lesjardins.
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