Whistleblower: White House tried to ‘lock down’ call details

A lot of new developments today, including the news that the released transcript may not the original one but that the word for word transcript was locked away and moved to another computer to prevent exposure.

The 9-page document released Thursday fleshes out the circumstances of a summertime phone call in which the president encouraged his Ukraine counterpart to help investigate a political rival, alleges a pivotal role for Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and suggests a concerted White House effort to suppress the exact transcript, including by relocating it to a separate computer system.

The whistleblower said that White House officials had tried to suppress the exact transcript of the call that was produced -- as is customary -- by the White House Situation Room, according to the complaint.

The officials told the whistleblower 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.

DNI Maguire testified today and had some scathing words:

Maguire said he was unfamiliar with any other whistleblower complaint in American history that “touched on such complicated and sensitive issues.” He praised the whistleblower as having acted honorably, said he recognized the complaint as immediately sensitive and important and insisted the White House did not direct him to withhold it from Congress.

“I believe that everything in this matter here is totally unprecedented.”

There are now allegations that this is not the ONLY such transcript and that this has happened before and other transcripts were hidden:

Those officials told the whistleblower that “this was ‘not the first time’ under this administration that a presidential transcript was placed into this codeword-level system solely for the purpose of protecting politically sensitive -- rather than national security sensitive -- information,” the complaint said.

And we now know that Guiliani had already met with Ukraine officials in Madrid, after one of his phone calls:

The complaint also focuses on Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer. It says that multiple U.S. officials reported that Giuliani traveled to Madrid one week after the call to meet with one of Zelenskiy’s advisers, and that the meeting was characterized as a follow-up to the telephone conversation between the two leaders.

Associated Press

And speaking of Giuliani, and the way the president presents him in the phone call. The president only presents him as a mayor and a great one at that but never makes the distinction that he is a personal attorney. He even lists him in the same sentence as Attorney General William Barr, equating the two. So this made me think, how can this be and what could the president be thinking:

1.) The president believes Giuliani to be an employee of the government since he works for him and thinks it's ok for him to conduct State matters.

2.) The president believes William Barr is his personal attorney and has to do as told.

3.) The president is aware that both of these are untrue and he decided to break the law anyway.

originally posted by: Oraculi

Maguire said he was unfamiliar with any other whistleblower complaint in American history that “touched on such complicated and sensitive issues.”

Guess he has never heard of the obvious Snowed or manning... or even the less well known ones. Seems like a case of intentional ignorance.

a reply to: Antipathy17


Good guess, I'm sure he is totally unaware of them.

You must not have read the transcript. Trump presented Giuliani as a former mayor and a private citizen. "Mr Giuliani" rather than "Mayor Giuliani."

Is this how we are doing things now pulling info from other posts on the topic and slamming them to the front page even though its been discussed in great detail else where

a reply to: Oraculi

It makes one wonder how many other conversations are being covered up.

a reply to: Sookiechacha

No Kidding

as if it was planned to make you think that, and you think that


AMAzing you are a zombie..


no suprise, have a nice day


Impeach 46,47 or 48 depending on which one is a democrat.

a reply to: Oraculi

I think his people knew what he did was wrong so tried to hide the evidence , I'd still like to see the actual transcript perhaps at some point it will appear.

originally posted by: putnam6
Is this how we are doing things now pulling info from other posts on the topic and slamming them to the front page even though its been discussed in great detail else where

Same could be said about the myriad of Trump threads that pop up on a daily basis.

Sent the transcripts to a seperate server that is encrypted for classified information.

This is where the transcripts from the Putin phone calls go and the Kim Jong Un phone calls and Tayyip Erdogan phone calls and Bashar al-Assad phone calls all go.
They all go into the super secret no one can know about it server that we just learned about this morning.

NYT just reported that the "whistle-blower" is a CIA officer detailed to the White House.

originally posted by: Sillyolme
Sent the transcripts to a seperate server that is encrypted for classified information.

This is where the transcripts from the Putin phone calls go and the Kim Jong Un phone calls and Tayyip Erdogan phone calls and Bashar al-Assad phone calls all go.
They all go into the super secret no one can know about it server that we just learned about this morning.

yep
the whistle blower added the transcripts with the abominable snowman were shredded
the recordings of nessie were moved
the transcripts of the conversation with santa have had a format change
*this was all second hand information*

a reply to: Oraculi

I figured when Trump was so eager to release the single transcript that there was much more to be seen. I do not think most reasonable people would think a matter like this was sparked by a single short phone call.

As usual, Trump's faithful and his lackeys were quick to declare the first transcript a nothing burger, nothing else to see, and deflect all blame to Biden and a liberal witch hunt.

a reply to: Oraculi

I think that the terminology ''whistleblower'' needs to be dropped. Whoever he is he was not so much whistleblowing but rather making a report in lawful accordance with law. This was his job, to report to authorities in position to correct the incorrect actions he had had reported to him.

a reply to: jrod

They released a memorandum which is different to releasing the transcript of the call , transcripts are verbatim memo's not so much.

I wonder if any of these whistleblower accusations can actually be proven with real evidence (such as a call log from the lawyers to them, email, txt, etc... showing the contact of request to suppress). Or are they the usual unsubstantiated claims by someone that hates the president?

That, IMO, is needed to qualify the claims made before we make any decisions on the content of the released transcripts.

originally posted by: IAMTAT
NYT just reported that the "whistle-blower" is a CIA officer detailed to the White House.

If they know who the whistle blower is, that's a very bad thing. It means that people with an agenda have decided that their agenda is more important than the law or the promise of anonymity for the whistle blower. The NYT's just took a dump on the whistle blower and someone or group of someones probably broke the law themselves or the NYT's would not be reporting that.

One thing for sure here is that people we elected are willing to leak information they should not for purely partisan reasons and that makes any of them doing it undeserving of holding office. That swamp smell is getting overwhelming.

After reading it all, one thing that stands out to me is that the complaint does not match the content of the call and the whistle blower is passing on second hand information and was not a witness to anything. In an actual court they could not even be called to testify if I'm not wrong.

The dog and pony show continues.

originally posted by: Sillyolme
Sent the transcripts to a seperate server that is encrypted for classified information.

This is where the transcripts from the Putin phone calls go and the Kim Jong Un phone calls and Tayyip Erdogan phone calls and Bashar al-Assad phone calls all go.
They all go into the super secret no one can know about it server that we just learned about this morning.

Trump is not a dummy, as people think he is. He is just used to breaking the law and getting away with it.

At least he learned a lesson from Nixon: Don't make tapes!

Instead, create code worded documents, remove them from the government computers and hide them from the government and the people.

a reply to: Blaine91555

Actually the whistleblower served his/her purpose magnificently.

This created an opportunity to push for impeachment. It will start an investigation.

This is just like the "dossier" spurring the Mueller investigation.


Look, I'm not the brightest bulb on the strand, but if I can see it, why can't everyone else?

Just revealed that The Whistleblower is a CIA operative who is good friends with former CIA director John Brennan. He was planted in the White House.