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Since the transcript of the call was released, the attempt to make it something is entirely partisan. Both "sides" are being partisan and trying to make it look

Since the transcript of the call was released, the attempt to make it something is entirely partisan. Both "sides" are being partisan and trying to make it look like they are just doing whatever is good for the country while the other is in it for themselves.

lazide 7y ago
No transcript was released. A memorandum of the 'recollections of the staff involved' written by the whitehouse describing the call (and widely referred to as the transcript) was released. The actual word for word transcript is still stored in the top secret security system it was moved to when it was obvious there was a problem. No one outside the whitehouse has seen that yet. If you read the actual released document, it has a huge disclaimer on the first page which states this. You can see it yourself here https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/25/politics/donald-trump-ukraine-transcript-call/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/25/politics/donald-trump-ukraine...
- mortehu 7y ago
  > The actual word for word transcript is still stored in the top secret security system it was moved to when it was obvious there was a problem Is it really? Are you sure you're not confused by articles referring to the same document by different names?
  - ethanbond 7y ago
    Yes. If you look at the PDF of the "transcript" that was released, there is a note on the document itself that it is in fact not a verbatim transcription, but instead an incomplete reconstruction. It also happens to have ellipsis surrounding Crowdstrike/Biden/server topics.
- maxlybbert 7y ago
  You are correct that the “transcript” is not a verbatim transcript. However, according to Reuters, it’s likely all that exists at this point ( https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-whistleblower-transcript/trumps-transcript-of-ukraine-call-unlikely-to-be-verbatim-idUSKBN1W935S https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-whistleblower-t... ): “[S]tandard practice when a president is talking to a foreign leader is not to make a recording but to have at least two and sometimes more note-takers from the National Security Council (NSC) on the call, a former senior NSC official told Reuters. ... “Their notes serve as the principal record of such calls, the former official said. He was not aware of any electronic recordings made by the U.S. government on calls between Trump and other world leaders. “Evelyn Farkas, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense during the Obama presidency, said not only would any so-called transcript be based on notes, but it would also likely be incomplete because the note-takers usually do not include issues that could be controversial if they became public. ... “A former White House senior official concurred there was unlikely to be a recording. “‘There’s no physical recording but there are a lot of people listening and taking contemporaneous notes of these calls,’ the official said. ‘When you read it, it looks almost like a transcript.’”
wwweston 7y ago
This point of view contributes just as much to the corruption of politics as people who may actually be acting it out, because it implicitly asserts that there are no values in play beyond power. There may be no way of knowing for sure if anyone involved genuinely holds principles above power. But there are absolutely issues of principle in play, and in a well-functioning representative society, everyone has the privilege of lining up behind principles to give them currency. Personally, I'm behind the idea that our head of state should be determining benefits offered to foreign nations by recognizable general national interest, not by personal interest, or partisan interest, certainly including tying foreign participation in investigation theater to aid. Hell, I'm behind the idea that our head of state should have a coherent concept of what the national interest is. But then again, that'd require voters who have some idea of this. And citizens who have a vision of society that's more than a struggle for status and privilege for those who achieve it.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- povertyworld 7y ago
  So, shouldn't you be in favor of the investigation into Biden? Since that is exactly what he did. "This plane's leaving in about 6 hours. If the prosecutor [investigating his son's firm] isn't fired, you're not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch, got fired!" 52 minutes in: https://youtu.be/Q0_AqpdwqK4?t=3140 https://youtu.be/Q0_AqpdwqK4?t=3140
  - jakelazaroff 7y ago
    The prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, was not investigating Burisma, the firm that employed Hunter Biden [1]: > Mr. Shokin was not aggressively pursuing investigations into Mr. Zlochevsky or Burisma. But the oligarch’s allies say Mr. Shokin was using the threat of prosecution to try to solicit bribes from Mr. Zlochevsky and his team, and that left the oligarch’s team leery of dealing with the prosecutor. In addition, the US was not the only government seeking his removal: > His dismissal had been sought not just by Mr. Biden, but also by others in the Obama administration, as well other Western governments and international lenders. Mr. Shokin had been repeatedly accused of turning a blind eye to corruption in his office and among the Ukrainian political elite, and criticized for failing to bring corruption cases. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/22/us/politics/biden-ukraine-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/22/us/politics/biden-ukraine...

lazide 7y ago

No transcript was released. A memorandum of the 'recollections of the staff involved' written by the whitehouse describing the call (and widely referred to as the transcript) was released. The actual word for word transcript is still stored in the top secret security system it was moved to when it was obvious there was a problem. No one outside the whitehouse has seen that yet. If you read the actual released document, it has a huge disclaimer on the first page which states this. You can see it yourself here https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/25/politics/donald-trump-ukraine-transcript-call/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/25/politics/donald-trump-ukraine...

mortehu 7y ago
> The actual word for word transcript is still stored in the top secret security system it was moved to when it was obvious there was a problem Is it really? Are you sure you're not confused by articles referring to the same document by different names?
- ethanbond 7y ago
  Yes. If you look at the PDF of the "transcript" that was released, there is a note on the document itself that it is in fact not a verbatim transcription, but instead an incomplete reconstruction. It also happens to have ellipsis surrounding Crowdstrike/Biden/server topics.
maxlybbert 7y ago
You are correct that the “transcript” is not a verbatim transcript. However, according to Reuters, it’s likely all that exists at this point ( https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-whistleblower-transcript/trumps-transcript-of-ukraine-call-unlikely-to-be-verbatim-idUSKBN1W935S https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-whistleblower-t... ): “[S]tandard practice when a president is talking to a foreign leader is not to make a recording but to have at least two and sometimes more note-takers from the National Security Council (NSC) on the call, a former senior NSC official told Reuters. ... “Their notes serve as the principal record of such calls, the former official said. He was not aware of any electronic recordings made by the U.S. government on calls between Trump and other world leaders. “Evelyn Farkas, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense during the Obama presidency, said not only would any so-called transcript be based on notes, but it would also likely be incomplete because the note-takers usually do not include issues that could be controversial if they became public. ... “A former White House senior official concurred there was unlikely to be a recording. “‘There’s no physical recording but there are a lot of people listening and taking contemporaneous notes of these calls,’ the official said. ‘When you read it, it looks almost like a transcript.’”

wwweston 7y ago

This point of view contributes just as much to the corruption of politics as people who may actually be acting it out, because it implicitly asserts that there are no values in play beyond power. There may be no way of knowing for sure if anyone involved genuinely holds principles above power. But there are absolutely issues of principle in play, and in a well-functioning representative society, everyone has the privilege of lining up behind principles to give them currency. Personally, I'm behind the idea that our head of state should be determining benefits offered to foreign nations by recognizable general national interest, not by personal interest, or partisan interest, certainly including tying foreign participation in investigation theater to aid. Hell, I'm behind the idea that our head of state should have a coherent concept of what the national interest is. But then again, that'd require voters who have some idea of this. And citizens who have a vision of society that's more than a struggle for status and privilege for those who achieve it.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
povertyworld 7y ago
So, shouldn't you be in favor of the investigation into Biden? Since that is exactly what he did. "This plane's leaving in about 6 hours. If the prosecutor [investigating his son's firm] isn't fired, you're not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch, got fired!" 52 minutes in: https://youtu.be/Q0_AqpdwqK4?t=3140 https://youtu.be/Q0_AqpdwqK4?t=3140
- jakelazaroff 7y ago
  The prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, was not investigating Burisma, the firm that employed Hunter Biden [1]: > Mr. Shokin was not aggressively pursuing investigations into Mr. Zlochevsky or Burisma. But the oligarch’s allies say Mr. Shokin was using the threat of prosecution to try to solicit bribes from Mr. Zlochevsky and his team, and that left the oligarch’s team leery of dealing with the prosecutor. In addition, the US was not the only government seeking his removal: > His dismissal had been sought not just by Mr. Biden, but also by others in the Obama administration, as well other Western governments and international lenders. Mr. Shokin had been repeatedly accused of turning a blind eye to corruption in his office and among the Ukrainian political elite, and criticized for failing to bring corruption cases. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/22/us/politics/biden-ukraine-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/22/us/politics/biden-ukraine...