The White House confirmed to CNN Friday that its lawyers directed the notes of the phone call between Donald Trump and the Ukrainian president to be moved to a highly classified system that’s usually reserved for information with a “Top Secret/Codeword” classification. The order came from National Security Council (NSC) attorneys, in particular, which makes sense because only a select number of NSC staff have access to that super secret system.
"NSC lawyers directed that the classified document be handled appropriately," a senior White House official said in a statement to CNN. The White House tried to pass it off as a nothingburger by saying it was already classified so the move was totally normal, but no one who knows anything about that highly secured system believes the conversation warranted the upgrade from the system where such phone calls are normally stored.
Score another one for the whistleblower. This is exactly what they said was happening and now the White House has confirmed yet another important detail of the complaint. Most likely, the White House calculus was that this would be an impossible action to cover up now that Democrats have bread crumbs to the entire coverup of Trump’s abuse of power on that call. White House officials must figure it’s better to cop to the truth now than get caught trying to hide it.
What remains murky about the directive is who else might have been involved in making the decision to move the transcript and whether the NSC lawyers made the decision in consultation with other White House officials, or even Trump himself.