White House lawyer John Eisenberg is one of the most, and least, mentioned people in the entire Trump Ukraine scandal. That’s because, until he was summoned to appear before the House impeachment inquiry this week, Eisenberg’s name seems to pop up nowhere. But his role in the affair … that’s everywhere.
When former White House adviser Fiona Hill went to express her concern about the way that Trump’s “three amigos” were pressuring Ukraine to announce investigations, she went to “the lead NSC counsel.” When Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman worried over issues with Donald Trump’s phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, he went to “the lead NSC lawyer.” That lead National Security Council counsel is John Eisenberg.
Eisenberg has been described as taciturn, reclusive, and intensely careful to follow the rules of his position. He’s a man who works in a sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF, everyday, and a visit to Eisenberg means being buzzed into an area where no electronics are allowed for a conversation that is strictly confidential. All of that is fine. In fact, it’s exactly what should be required of the official in charge of the most sensitive national security information. But there is something deeply concerning in Eisenberg’s near-invisible participation in Trump’s Ukraine affair. In fact, more than one thing.
Going back to the original complaint, there were actually two points that the first whistleblower considered of equal concern. One was the contents of Trump’s phone call with President Zelensky. The other was how the transcript of that call was handled. According to the whistleblower, the decision was made by “White House lawyers” to take the transcript off the normal server where it was available to the State Department and Cabinet-level officials. Instead, it was moved to a secure server on which each document has a unique password, and only the most critical information on national security is stored. Further, the complaint indicates that this move did not follow the rules in that no reason was given for the abrupt increase in the security level. And that’s where Eisenberg comes into the conversation again. Because, according to The Washington Post, Vindman testified that it was Eisenberg who moved the call transcript to the secure server.
In other words, when Eisenberg was told about concerns over Trump’s demands of Ukraine, his response was to bury the evidence.
It’s possible that Eisenberg may have some other justification for why this transcript, and apparently some other transcripts of Trump calls to foreign leaders, were removed from the normal White House server and placed on a highly classified national security server—a national security server under the control of John Eisenberg. But if there is some justification, it was not provided. It appears that Eisenberg, a man whose reputation for following the rules is notorious in White House circles, failed to follow the rules for handling these documents both in where they were stored and in how they where marked.
If in fact Eisenberg is both the “lead NSC attorney” whom Hill and Vindman visited and one of the “White House attorneys” mentioned in the whistleblower complaint, then his fingerprints are all over this event. He was not just aware of the concerns about Trump’s call; he also had foreknowledge from Hill that Trump’s personal attorney and rogue “three amigos” team were attempting to strong-arm Ukraine into a political favor. And he had the position and experience to understand just how wrong the efforts to secure political favors from Ukraine were, as well as how they could affect national security.
Eisenberg may have been uniquely positioned in terms of hearing the complaints, having access to the information, and knowing how everything was supposed to be handled. But it very much appears at this point that the man everyone counted on to do the right thing hid the information and protected Trump. No matter how much Eisenberg hates talking in public, that demands an explanation.
The House summons requests that Eisenberg testify voluntarily on Nov. 4. As of Thursday morning, there has been no response to this request.