Seems like there are more damning details omitted in the rough transcript.
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.
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.
The note-takers and voice recognition software used during the July 25 call had missed Mr. Zelensky saying the word “Burisma,” according to people briefed on the matter, but the reconstructed transcript does refer to “the company,” and suggests that the Ukrainian president is aware that it is of great interest to Mr. Trump.
The rough transcript also contains ellipses at three points where Mr. Trump is speaking. Colonel Vindman told investigators that at the point of the transcript where the third set of ellipses appears, Mr. Trump said there were tapes of Mr. Biden.
There is no recording of the July 25 call by the American side. The White House uses note-takers listening in on the call as well as voice recognition software to create a rough transcript that is a close approximation of the call. But names and technical terms are frequently missed by the software, according to people familiar with the matter.
Important enough to have multiple note takers on the line but not important enough to just record it. If you record it, the note takers would be more accurate, but nah
It’s also worth knowing that the GOP has intentionally decided to ignore the ABAs detailed assessments of judicial nominees. In this case the committee interviewed 60 lawyers about the candidate and reviewed 5k pages of his work.
What are the odds that at some point down the road one of Trump’s lackeys will trot out a talking point along the lines of “Biden is not even Trump’s political opponent! He’s not running for president, for one thing. And hell, he and Trump even share a hatred for the Democratic Party’s nominee, the loonly left-wing communist, Pocaha… excuse me, Liz Warren!” I’m calling it.
People have already been testing it. Especially by posing the hypothetical “what if Biden was not running for president”? The answer is Trump would not have done this. His only concern is was to smear a political opponent.
Nah, they’ll just say that Trump was rooting out corruption and the Bidens happen to be A) corrupt and B) a fleeting presidential candidate that Trump never took seriously (and here the Tweets about Pocahantas and about Gillibrand being the only one Trump feared will be selectively produced).