Today's Bad News for Donald Trump
Republicans continue to argue that whatever deal was made to withhold aid to the Ukraine until the leadership there agreed to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden was made without Trump's knowledge. According to Jonathan Chait…
Yesterday, however, William Taylor testified that a member of his staff heard [Gordon] Sondland, in Kiev on a cell phone, speaking with President Trump, and that Trump asked about Ukraine opening "investigations." After the call, Sondland told the staffer, David Holmes, that Trump's highest priority in Ukraine was securing an investigation of the Bidens. Today, the Associated Press reports a second staffer, Suriya Jayanti, also heard the call.
Today's Outrage by Donald Trump
Trump continues to believe that the main thing going well in the Middle East is that "we" (presumably meaning the United States) is somehow getting the oil in the Syrian fields. The Department of Defense insists this is not so but Trump either doesn't care what they think or just likes saying it.
An Article of Interest
Matthew Yglesias and Andrew Prokop have compiled what they call "The ultimate guide to the Donald Trump impeachment saga." I don't know how ultimate it is but it will certainly answer a lot of questions you may have about the whole messy business.
It does not however answer one of mine. In large part, these hearings revolve around the phone conversation that Trumph had with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25, and what was said in a "transcript" of that conversation that was released by the White House. Trump said it was an "exact" transcription of the conversation "done by very talented people that do this." But right there on the transcript is this disclaimer:
CAUTION: A Memorandum of a Telephone Conversation. TELCON is not a verbatim transcript of a discussion. The text in this document records the notes and recollections of Situation Room Duty "Officers and-NSC policy staff assigned to listen and memorialize the conversation in written form as the conversation takes place. A number of factors can affect the accuracy of the record, including poor telecommunications connections and variations in accent and/or interpretation. The word "inaudible" is used to indicate portions of a conversation that the notetaker was unable to hear.
So my question is: Is there a better transcript or a recording of the call? And if the White House doesn't have one, does Ukraine? If not, why not? And if so, am I missing demands that it be produced? Especially after Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman testified that there were important things said that were omitted from the "transcript?" It seems to me this would matter.