From the beginning, it’s been clear that the “transcript” produced by the White House of Donald Trump’s “prefect call” with Ukrainian President Zelensky was … not a transcript. It’s a “read out,” an approximation recreated from notes. There may be a more accurate transcript somewhere, but if there is, it’s likely locked down tight in a high security server. Or destroyed.
But the Tuesday testimony from Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman provides the first glimpse of just how bad the “not a transcript” really is. And the answer is … bad. The New York Times reports that Vindman testified that when he saw the publicity released document, he sought to amend the text to include a number of “missing words” and “key phrases” that had appeared in the actual conversation between Trump and Zelensky.
Those missing words were not minor. For example, left out of the text was Trump insisting “that there were recordings of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. discussing Ukraine corruption.” Also missing from the text that Zelensky made it clear Trump wanted him to announce an investigation of Burisma Holdings, the company where Hunter Biden served on the board
Vindman said that he offered up both these corrections when the document was being assembled, but they were not included. While neither of these omissions really changes the meaning of the conversation, which was already clear, but they do prevent an explicit underlining of what Trump was insisting on in exchange for American assistance.