Trump whistleblower complaint

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Did some looking around late last night (got trapped into a few rabbit holes) and at the end of my search - I am still unable to find an official source (non political - Non news article) that spells out the process on how a US President's phone call is recorded/transcribed in modern times.

So, as I suggested up thread, I am motivated to proceed with caution concerning what I had thought/presumed (That I was reading an actual transcript of the call). I guess I (we all?) will learn more as this unfolds.

Well, maybe this post will help you figure out what's going on:

https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comm ... ?context=1

[–]PoppinKREAM

[+5] 197 points 19 hours ago*

What happened between President Trump and President Zelensky?

1. The Trump appointed Inspector General detailed his concerns in letters where he stated that the whistleblower complaint being kept from Congress was both urgent and “relates to one of the most important and significant of the (Director of National Intelligence)’s responsibilities to the American people.”[1] President Trump attempted to block the whistle blower and called it fake news.[2]

2. In a phone call with the President of Ukraine, President Trump repeatedly urged newly elected President Zelensky to investigate former VP Joe Biden. President Trump offered the assistance of the American Justice Department, Attorney General Bill Barr, and his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.[3]

3. Attorney General Barr attempted to cover all of this up by denying the whistle blower from going to Congress.[4]

4. Following President Zelenksy asking for foreign military aid President Trump segued into asking the Ukrainian President to investigate his political opponent.[5]

President Zelensky: Yes you are·absolutely right. Not only 100%, but actually 1000% arid I can tell you the following; I did talk to Angela Merkel and I did meet with her. I also met and talked with Macron and I told them that they are not doing quite as much as they need to be doing·on the issues with the sanctions. They are not enforcing the sanctions. They are not working as much as they should work for Ukraine. It turns out that even though logically, the European Union should be our biggest partner but technically the United States is a much bigger partner than.the European Union and- I'm very grateful to you for that because the United States is doing quite a lot forUkraine. Much more than the European Union especially when we are talking about sanctions against the Russian Federation. I would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps specifically we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.

The President: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike ... I guess you have one of your weal thy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There- are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation .. I think you are surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you said yestrday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance-, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible.

...The President: Good because I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor bf New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what's happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great. The former ambassador from the United states, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that. The other thing, 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. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it ... It sounds horrible to me.

So what does this conversation mean?

President Trump is referring to a thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory that the FBI and CrowdStrike failed to seize a DNC folder that supposedly held information about the hack that supposedly the "deep state" was hiding the truth about Hillary Clinton's emails. This conspiracy theory was pushed by President Trump in July of 2018 during his visit with Putin when Trump refused to say that Russia was engaged with cyber warfare and were involved with the DNC hack. CrowdStrike didn't withhold information and the FBI recovered all missing material from the Clinton scandal concluding that the investigation "found no evidence that any of the additional work-related emails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them."[6]

Furthermore, the Ukrainian prosecutor that Trump claims was supposedly "very good" was unfairly shut down by Vice-President Biden because he supposedly feared his son was being investigated. This is a complete mischaracterization of events. Following Ukraine's revolution and the annexation of Crimea Ukrainian President Poroshenko was dealing with corruption by the elite. Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was a discredited individual who was leading an investigation into corruption. For example following assistance from the International Monetary Fund a $1.8 billion loan to help the Ukrainian banking system disappeared offshore in accounts owned by a Ukrainian Oligach.[7] At one point Shokin fired prosecutors who were working on corruption cases against corrupt officials.[8] Following pressure from Western Allies the Ukrainian parliament overwhelmingly voted to fire Prosecutor General Viktor. The decision was celebrated by Western Allies providing financial support to Ukraine including the European Union.[9] Moreover, in his most recent interview former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko debunked President Trump's conspiracy that Biden forced the firing for Shokin to protect his son, Hunter Biden, who had been working in Ukraine. Prosecutor General Lutsenko stated that "“[f]rom the perspective of Ukrainian legislation, he did not violate anything,” and added “Hunter Biden cannot be responsible for violations of the management of Burisma that took place two years before his arrival.”[10]

1) PBS - Read what the inspector general said about the ‘urgent’ whistleblower concern

2) Global News - Trump admin blocks ‘urgent’ whistleblower complaint from Congress

3) Washington Post - Trump offered Ukrainian president Justice Dept. help in an investigation of Biden, memo shows

4) New York Times - Justice Dept.’s Dismissal of Ukraine Call Raises New Questions About Barr

5) Washington Post - Official readout: President Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky

6) NBC News - Trump promotes conspiracy theory: Clinton's deleted emails are in Ukraine

7) Reuters - Corruption in Ukraine is so bad, a Nigerian prince would be embarrassed

8) Kyiv Post - Demonstrators protest Shokin’s firing of anti-corruption prosecutors

9) New York Times - Ukraine Ousts Viktor Shokin, Top Prosecutor, and Political Stability Hangs in the Balance

10) Washington Post - Former Ukraine prosecutor says Hunter Biden 'did not violate anything’

Following the narrative, the user then posts:

[–]PoppinKREAM

[+5] 146 points 19 hours ago

A breakdown of what this all means:

In a phone call on July 25 2019 with newly elected Ukrainian President Zelensky, President Trump attempted to solicit the support of a foreign government and may be in violation of Federal Campaign Finance Laws.[1] In a mafiaso style shakedown following President Zelensky asking about military aid Trump segued the conversation into requesting an investigation on trumped up charges against one of his political opponents. A month before this phone call in June the Pentagon announced plans to provide $250 million to Ukraine in security cooperation funds for things such as training and equipment in an attempt to build the capacity of Ukraine's armed forces following Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine.[2] The State Department announced plans to provide $141 million in aid.[3] However, the Trump administration decided to freeze this aid days before the phone call with President Zelensky.[4] The White House attempted to mislead by claiming that aid was frozen due to corruption in Ukraine, however NPR obtained a letter from the Pentagon certifying that Ukraine had taken action to decrease corruption.[5]

So why are the United States and Western Allies sending aid to Ukraine? In 1994 former Soviet Union member states including Ukraine signed the Budapest Memorandum. It was a diplomatic memorandum under which Ukraine removed all Soviet-era nuclear weapons and signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. In return for these concessions the former Soviet state consecrated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine as an independent state by applying the principles in a Cold War era treaty signed by 35 states including the Soviet Union. Russia violated this agreement in 2014 when they invaded Ukraine.[6] It should also be noted that President Trump has repeatedly lied that Europe is not providing Ukraine with aid.[7]

Following the phone call a whistleblower from DNI filed a complaint that stated President Trump "using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the US 2020 election," characterizing the conduct as a "serious or flagrant problem, abuse, or violation of law". President Trump has been attempting to cover all of this up.[8]

1) Washington Post - How Trump’s Ukraine call could violate campaign finance laws

2) Military Times - Russia’s conflict with Ukraine: An explainer

3) Defense News - Here’s what you need to know about the US aid package to Ukraine that Trump delayed

4) CNN - Trump ordered hold on military aid days before call with Ukrainian President, senior administration officials say

5) The Hill - Pentagon letter certified Ukraine had taken action to decrease corruption before White House blocked aid

6) Radio Free Europe: Radio Liberty - Explainer: The Budapest Memorandum And Its Relevance To Crimea

7) Politifact - Donald Trump said European nations have not put money into Ukraine. They have put in a lot

8) BBC - White House 'tried to cover up details of Trump-Ukraine call'

So, when the President froze the approved funds designated for Ukraine, he was literally breaking the law. Here's a few links that break down the Biden issue Conservatives are trying to push:

https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comme ... e/f1j6v1c/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Keep_Track/com ... e/f1dqdqf/

https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comm ... ?context=1

tl;dr - It's BS.

Also, I'd recommend anyone who's actually interested in this issue to go back to Chap's whistleblower link and read the complaint. And then re-read it slowly. And then read a few more times in order to wrap your mind around it. The complainant is a CIA officer assigned to the White House.

- Doc

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Does anyone have a subscription to the Washington Post? If so, would you copy and paste the article titled, "Whistleblower painstakingly gathered material and almost single-handedly set impeachment in motion"?

- Doc

[_Nomomo]

Does anyone have a subscription to the Washington Post? If so, would you copy and paste the article titled, "Whistleblower painstakingly gathered material and almost single-handedly set impeachment in motion"?

- Doc

if you delete your cookies for "all-time" then you can read the article.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... complaint/

Debunking the attempts to discredit the whistleblower complaint - Washington Post article

[_Res Ipsa]

Does anyone have a subscription to the Washington Post? If so, would you copy and paste the article titled, "Whistleblower painstakingly gathered material and almost single-handedly set impeachment in motion"?

- Doc

I have a subscription, and would be happy to post portions of articles.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Does anyone have a subscription to the Washington Post? If so, would you copy and paste the article titled, "Whistleblower painstakingly gathered material and almost single-handedly set impeachment in motion"?

- Doc

I have a subscription, and would be happy to post portions of articles.

Thanks, I'm very interested in the article.

- Doc

[_Res Ipsa]

The whistleblower’s identity remains obscured, the details of his work for the CIA cloaked in secrecy. But the document he delivered reveals almost as much about the investigative mission he carried out in stealth as it does about the alleged abuses of power by the president.

From the moment he learned about President Trump’s attempts to extract political dirt on former vice president Joe Biden from the newly elected leader of Ukraine on July 25, the CIA officer behind the whistleblower report moved swiftly behind the scenes to assemble material from at least a half-dozen highly placed — and equally dismayed — U.S. officials.

He wove their accounts with other painstakingly gathered material on everything from the intervention of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani in the U.S.-Ukraine relationship to alleged efforts by American diplomats sent to Kiev and attorneys in the Office of the White House Counsel to contain or suppress the accruing damage.

ADVERTISING

On Aug. 12, he delivered his document — a nine-page version of which was made public on Thursday — to the intelligence community’s inspector general, triggering an almost immediate clash between the executive branch and Congress.

[Read the unclassified whistleblower complaint]

Six weeks later, the whistleblower has by some measures managed to exceed what former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III accomplished in two years of investigating Trump: producing a file so concerning and factually sound that it has almost single-handedly set in motion the gears of impeachment.

What the acting DNI told Congress about the whistleblower complaint

Acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire testified Sept. 26 before the House Intelligence Committee after a whistleblower complaint about Trump. (Video: Monica Akhtar/Photo: Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
“In the course of my official duties,” the whistleblower writes in the first sentence of his complaint, he learned 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.”


The file goes on to bolster that contention with specific language that matches the since-released White House summary of Trump’s call with the Ukrainian president and points to other potential witnesses and grave allegations.

Perhaps the most explosive is the document’s assertion that White House officials used a classified computer system to hide documents that might be politically damaging to the president.

Among them, the complaint says, was the rough transcript of the call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which Trump urged his foreign counterpart to mount investigations that would potentially deliver damaging information about Biden and his family.


The detailed notes of that call released this week show that the whistleblower’s depictions — having neither heard the conversation nor seen the transcript — were eerily accurate. The contents of the call alone were widely regarded as politically damaging to the president.


A pedestrian walks past the U.S. Capitol on Thursday in Washington. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
[The full, rough transcript of Trump’s call with Ukraine’s president, annotated]

The whistleblower report raises troubling new allegations about the call, saying that White House officials quickly moved it from a widely shared internal computer network to one reserved for “codeword-level” records about CIA covert-action programs or other highly classified material.

If true, that could implicate those who directed the relocation of the files and serve as evidence of their motivation: concealing presidential conduct they understood to be problematic and potentially illegal.


A paragraph in the appendix asserts this was not an isolated incident.

“According to multiple White House officials I spoke with,” the document says, White House lawyers had on other occasions used the “codeword-level system solely for the purpose of protecting politically sensitive — rather than national security sensitive — information.”

Trump, speaking at the United Nations in New York on Thursday, disparaged the author of the report, saying that he was “almost a spy” and potentially guilty of “treason.”

Attacking his accusers is one of Trump’s standard tactics when thrown on the defensive. He repeatedly accused Mueller and other investigators on the Russia inquiry of being dishonest, beholden to Democrats and engaged in a politically motivated “witch hunt.”


Significant differences between the Russia investigation and the whistleblower complaint, however, may make it more difficult for Trump to rely on such tactics. Among them are the accuser’s anonymity, the existence of a transcript that many regard as formidable proof of the underlying allegation and the speed with which the complaint has already transformed the political landscape in Washington.

“He’ll be remembered as a truth-seeker,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University. If and when his identity is revealed, “it’ll be one of those names in the history books and around forever, like Daniel Ellsberg,” who was responsible for the release of the Pentagon Papers.

Trump has all but called for the whistleblower and those who assisted him to be unmasked, despite federal laws designed to protect identities and prevent reprisals in such cases.


“I want to know who’s the person who gave the whistleblower . . . the information,” the president said Thursday.

Other officials have said they are intentionally not seeking information about his identity. Joseph Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence, testified Thursday that he does not know who wrote the document. A Justice Department file related to the case noted that the inspector general found “some indicia of an arguable political bias on the part of the complainant,” but Maguire said he did not question the whistleblower’s motivations.

“I think the whistleblower did the right thing,” he said. “I think he followed the law every step of the way.”


Although his name has not been disclosed, aspects of his background have emerged. He works for the CIA, an affiliation first reported by the New York Times on Thursday, according to current and former officials familiar with his identity and position in the intelligence community.

U.S. officials and an attorney for the whistleblower have asked news organizations to refrain from releasing details about him, citing concerns for his privacy and safety.

In the complaint, the whistleblower describes receiving troubling reports about the Trump administration’s approach with Ukraine from “more than half a dozen U.S. officials” over four months.

But the document suggests that it was only after learning about the nature of Trump’s call July 25 with Zelensky that the whistleblower went from sharing colleagues’ concerns to being convinced that he needed to document and report them.


An approximate transcript released by the White House shows Trump prodding Zelensky to direct his government’s investigative bodies to turn their attention to alleged corruption by an energy company for which Hunter Biden, the former vice president’s son, had served as a board member.

Trump has alleged that the elder Biden used his influence to shut down a corruption investigation targeting the company. The claim has been repeatedly discredited, and there is no credible public allegation that Hunter Biden was guilty of wrongdoing.

Trump also urged Zelensky to “meet or speak with” Giuliani and Attorney General William P. Barr to redouble Ukraine’s efforts to seek damaging material tied to Biden.

“Multiple White House officials with direct knowledge of the call informed me that, after an initial exchange of pleasantries, the president used the remainder of the call to advance his personal interests,” the whistleblower report says.

The document also cites other developments that allegedly troubled White House officials, including the abrupt removal of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in May after a campaign by right-wing media entities to discredit her.

Although the report does not describe explicit coordination between the whistleblower and White House officials, it depicts an arrangement in which he so routinely received communications of concern from White House officials that it raises the question of whether they knew he intended to file a whistleblower complaint.

The report refers to a “discussion ongoing” between those troubled by the call and White House lawyers, indicating administration attorneys were aware of internal concerns about Trump’s conduct before the whistleblower complaint surfaced.

The report lays out investigative leads for Congress or other authorities. It notes that there were “approximately a dozen White House officials who listened to the call” and identifies a State Department official — referred to with conspicuous formality as “Mr. T. Ulrich Brechbuhl” — as another participant.

Brechbuhl had joined the State Department only in May, as an adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Beyond his sourcing at the White House, the whistleblower has remarkable insight into the activities of U.S. diplomats and Ukrainian officials. The report notes that Kurt Volker, the U.S. special representative for Ukraine, and Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, arrived in Kiev the day after Trump’s call and proceeded to advise officials there on how to “navigate” the demands of the American president.

The document also traces Giuliani’s extensive intervention in U.S.-Ukraine affairs, including a meeting in Madrid with one of Zelensky’s senior advisers. The Madrid trip was described as a “direct follow-up” to the Trump-Zelensky call, for a fuller discussion of the “cases” mentioned in the two leaders’ discussion.

At its core, the complaint makes the case that Trump was withholding items that Ukraine desperately wanted — including hundreds of millions of dollars in aid and an invitation to the White House — to use as leverage.

The Trump administration had been sending those signals since Zelensky’s inauguration on May 20. American officials who traveled to Kiev to attend the ceremony “made clear” to the Ukrainians that Trump would not meet the new leader until he saw how Zelensky “chose to act,” according to the document. Any meeting or phone call would hinge on the Ukrainian president’s willingness to “play ball” with his American counterpart, the whistleblower wrote.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Weird that Volker just resigned. Crazy. Totally unforeseen.

- Doc

[_Res Ipsa]

Weird that Volker just resigned. Crazy. Totally unforeseen.

- Doc

Damn. I stop reading for a few minutes, and I'm already behind.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Weird that Volker just resigned. Crazy. Totally unforeseen.

- Doc

Damn. I stop reading for a few minutes, and I'm already behind.

Ha! Yeah, this doesn’t bode well for Trump now that Volker isn’t under his thumb. I expect some closed door testifying to take place, so I’m not sure how many details we’ll get from his inevitable testimony to Congress. It’ll be interesting to see who he lawyers up with.

- Doc