Chairman Schiff or his staff prior to submitting the whistleblower complaint to the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community. Several witnesses contradicted assertions made by the anonymous whistleblower. The whistleblower's complaint did not accurately reflect the tone and substance of the phone call, which is unsurprising given the whistleblower's reliance on secondhand information that had likely already been colored by biases of the original sources.
A. The evidence does not establish that President Trump pressured President Zelensky during the July 25 phone call to investigate the President's political rival for the purpose of benefiting him in the 2020 election.
On July 25, 2019, President Trump and President Zelensky spoke by telephone.[1] This conversation would later serve as the basis for the anonymous whistleblower complaint and the spark for the Democrats' impeachment inquiry. Contrary to allegations that President Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate a domestic political rival during this call,[2] the evidence shows that President Trump did not pressure President Zelensky to investigate his political rival.
The call summary and initial read-outs of the conversation reflect no indication of conditionality, coercion, or intimidation—elements that would have been present if President Trump had used his authority to pressure President Zelensky to investigate his political rival. Importantly, both President Zelensky and President Trump have said publicly there was no pressure or anything inappropriate about their conversation. The anonymous whistleblower complaint—which sparked the impeachment inquiry—contains sensational rhetoric about the July 25 phone conservation that has prejudged subsequent views of the call.
1. The call summary does not reflect any improper pressure or conditionality to pressure Ukraine to investigate President Trump's political rival.
The best evidence of the telephone conversation between President Trump and President Zelensky is the contemporaneous summary prepared by the White House Situation Room. The Democrats' witnesses described how National Security Council (NSC) policy staffers and White House Situation Room duty officers typically listen in on presidential conversations with foreign leaders to transcribe the contents of the conversation.[3] This process occurred for President Trump's July 25 phone call with President Zelensky.
- ↑ President Trump had spoken with then-President-elect Zelensky on April 21, 2019, to congratulate him on his election. See The White House, Memorandum of Telephone Conversation (Apr. 21, 2019). This conversation too contained no indication of pressure, intimidation or threats. See id.
- ↑ See, e.g., Josh Dawsey et al., How Trump and Giuliani pressured Ukraine to investigate the President's rivals, Wash. Post, (Sept. 20, 2019).
- ↑ See, e.g., Deposition of Dr. Fiona Hill, in Wash., D.C., at 297-300 (Oct. 14, 2019) [hereinafter "Hill deposition"]. Although some have alleged that the presence of ellipses in the call summary connotes missing text, witnesses testified that call summaries often use ellipses to denote unfinished thoughts and not to "read too much" into the use of ellipses. See, e.g., id. at 307. LTC Vindman testified in his closed-door deposition that any editing decisions or missing words were not done maliciously. See Deposition of LTC Alexander Vindman, in Wash., D.C., at 253 (Oct. 29, 2019) [hereinafter "Vindman deposition"]. In his public testimony, LTC Vindman explained that although the summary did not mention the word "Burisma," it was "not a significant omission." Impeachment Inquiry: LTC Alexander Vindman and Ms. Jennifer Williams, supra note 6. Morrison testified in his deposition that he believed
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