The whistleblower complaint imploded big time yesterday when part of it was specifically called out as false by a senior government official, according to Christina Ruffini, the State Department and Foreign Affairs Reporter for CBS News.
Another problem in the story also emerged, according to Fox.
[A]ccording to the whistleblower complaint, by mid-May, U.S. diplomat Kurt Volker sought to “contain the damage” from Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani’s outreach to Ukraine.But a July 19 text message conversation from Volker to Giuliani, provided to Fox News on Thursday, showed that Volker had in fact encouraged Giuliani to reach out to Ukraine — even sending Giuliani a message reading, “connecting you here with Andrey Yermak, who is very close to President Zelensky.”Additionally, the complaint said Trump “suggested that Mr. Zelensky might want to keep” his current prosecutor general, a claim not supported by the transcript.
There were of course other things wrong with the claim to begin with, such as the claim that there was a quid pro quo offered when there was none, as the transcript shows. Ukraine has also made it clear that they did not in any way feel pressured in the phone call, despite the whistleblower saying differently. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said it was a “normal call” and “no one pushed me.”
But now there’s even more.
The whistleblower complained that there was nothing at all sensitive in the call. So that there was no justification for thereafter secure storage system in the NSC. The argument was that Trump just didn’t want people to hear the conversation.
As it turns out, that’s also wrong, as Undercover Huber notes in a great Twitter thread.
The administration also had another very legitimate reason for wanting to secure the information. Earlier in the administration, there were a lot of leaks they were trying to stop. According to ABC, more things were thus put in secure storage than previously.
So either someone in the chain of unreliable hearsay on the whistleblower memo was mistaken or someone along the way wasn’t telling the truth.
Again.
So when are Democrats going to throw in the towel on this?