Ukraine Shakedown Call Memo Had "Crucial" Phrases Edited Out

While what was in the memorandum (not a transcript!) of the July 25 shakedown call between insipid crime family boss Donald "Dumb Don" Trump and the Ukrainian president was damning enough, it appears some of those ellipses in the memorandum hid more incriminating evidence.  What a surprise!

The revelation came from testimony yesterday by Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman:

Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, told House impeachment investigators on Tuesday that the White House transcript of a July call between President Trump and Ukraine’s president omitted crucial words and phrases, and that his attempts to include them failed, according to three people familiar with the testimony.

The omissions, Colonel Vindman said, included Mr. Trump’s assertion that there were recordings of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. discussing Ukraine corruption, and an explicit mention by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, of Burisma Holdings, the energy company whose board employed Mr. Biden’s son Hunter.

Colonel Vindman, who appeared on Capitol Hill wearing his dark blue Army dress uniform and military medals, told House impeachment investigators that he tried to change the reconstructed transcript made by the White House staff to reflect the omissions. But while some of his edits appeared to have been successful, he said, those two corrections were not made.  [snip]

It is not clear why some of Colonel Vindman’s changes were not made, but the decision by a White House lawyer to quickly lock down the reconstructed transcript subverted the normal process of handling such documents, according to people familiar with the matter. 

In the whistle-blower complaint that was made public, the C.I.A. officer wrote that placing the rough transcript in the server was part of an effort to lock it down, restrict access and a sign that “White House officials understood the gravity of what had transpired in the call.”  (our emphasis)

Our reaction when we saw those ellipses in the memorandum was "what incriminating evidence did they edit out?"  By now, though, it's almost like carrying coal to Newcastle,  thanks to what they left in the memorandum anyway, multiple corroborating testimonies, and the blurting confessions by Dumb Don and his acting chief of staff.  But the selective editing and locking it down in the secure system could be evidence of a cover- up and obstruction of Congress, though there was no recording of the call on the American side to match to the memorandum and the rough transcript is locked away for now.  All things that would happen if you're totes not hiding more quid pro quo evidence.