The newly declassified whistleblower letter about Donald Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is out and available now, and while Republicans are strenuously trying to downplay it, in a reasonable world it’s a massive bombshell.
The contents of Trump’s call with Zelensky—which the whistleblower wasn’t present for—are described very much in line with the partial “transcript” the White House released on Wednesday, which strongly backs up the whistleblower’s knowledge and truthfulness. The letter’s importance, though, is that it fleshes out a great deal about the context for the call and how it was treated within the White House. Officials there were clear about what Trump was doing: “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 interests,” and the officials in question “were deeply disturbed”—disturbed to the point that “there was already a ‘discussion ongoing’ with White House lawyers about how to treat the call because of the likelihood, in the officials’ retelling, that they had witnessed the President abuse his office for personal gain.”
This was a call that happened after “Ukrainian leadership was led to believe that a meeting or phone call between the President and President Zelenskyy would depend on whether Zelenskyy showed willingness to ‘play ball.’” Following the call, the whistleblower recounts, “senior officials had intervened to ‘lock down’ all records of the call, especially the official word-for-word transcript.” That’s critical because it “underscored to me that White House officials understood the gravity of what had transpired in the call.” To lock down that transcript, it was moved from the computer system where such documents are usually stored to a different system used for “classified information of an extremely sensitive nature.”
Later, Rudy Giuliani, in his capacity as Trump’s personal lawyer, went to Madrid and met with Ukrainian officials in a “direct follow-up” to the call. That trip by Giuliani—usually such a habitual grandstander—was not publicly reported.
So we have a call that happened after Ukrainian officials were told Zelensky had to play ball. What Trump said led White House officials to consult with lawyers and hide the transcript even internally. And Giuliani went on a secret mission thereafter to continue the pressure. But hey, congressional Republicans don’t see a problem.