On Saturday, the Democratic lead House Intelligence Committee released parts of the transcript of National Security Council official Tim Morrison and purposely left out key information to continue their anti-Trump witch hunt.
The House Democrats purposely waited until Saturday to release the transcript because they knew it made President Trump look good and even when they did release it, they purposely left out key information.
It was reported:
First, the committee withheld the transcript since October 31, only releasing it after the first public hearings began last week. Morrison’s testimony was rumored to be very good for President Donald Trump’s defense — Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) had described Democrats in the room during the closed-door hearing as “sucking lemons” — and Republicans would have made good use of it, had they had the transcript available. But it was not provided.In the interim, Democrats had sole possession of the document. Schiff does not allow copies of the transcripts to be released to Republicans, either in paper or electronic form. If they want to read transcripts, they must do so one by one, in the presence of a Democrat committee staffer. Not only is that rule humiliating, but it also allows Democrats to control the flow of information and to prepare their public arguments with no fear of timely Republican rebuttal.In the Morrison case, Democrats released “key excerpts” that highlighted the few facts in his testimony that, they believe, help push the case for impeachment. Chief among these is that Morrison confirmed that he heard U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland claim that he told a Ukrainian official, in a private “sidebar” meeting, that aid would be released if the Ukrainian prosecutor general would publicly announce an investigation into Burisma.But that is just hearsay evidence, as is Morisson’s confirmation of Charge d’affairs William Taylor’s testimony (repeated in public last week) that Sondland, after speaking to President Trump, “there was no quid pro quo, but President Zelensky must announce the opening of the investigations and he should want to do it.”
Schiff purposely left out key quotes from Morrison that made President Trump look good.
“I was not concerned that anything illegal was discussed” Morrison said while talking about the July 25 phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. This quote doesn't even show up in the Democrats' “key excerpts” document.
Check out the transcript below:
THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. I just wanted to follow up a bit on this.One of the concerns, and there may be an overlap between the first two concerns you mentioned about the caII, and if the call became public. First, you said you were concerned how it would play out in Washington’s polarized environment and, second, how a leak would affect bipartisan support for our Ukrainian partners.Were those concerns related to the fact that the President asked his Ukrainian counterpart to look into on investigate the Bidens?MR. MORRISON: No, not specifically.THE CHAIRMAN: So you didn’t think that the President of the United States asking his counterpart to conduct an investigation into a potential opponent in the 2020 election might influence bipartisan support in Congress?MR. MORRISON: No.THE CHAIRMAN: And you weren’t concerned that the President bringing up one of his political opponents in the Presidential election and asking a favor with respect to the DNC server or 2016 theory, you weren’t concerned that those things would cause people to believe that the President was asking his counterpart to conduct an investigation that might influence his reelection campaign?MR. MORRISON: No.THE CHAIRMAN: That never occurred to you?MR. MORRISON: No.THE CHAIRMAN: Did you recognize during the — as you listened to the call that if Ukraine were to conduct these investigations, that it would inure to the President’s political interests?MR. MORRISON: No.
Check out some more highlighted facts:
- Morrison contradicted Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the Democrats’ star witness in the closed-door hearings, who reported to Morrison directly. Morrison testified that while he admired his subordinate’s patriotism, he was irritated that Vindman failed to report concerns about the call directly to him. He said Vindman never raised concerns that something illegal had happened. He also said he accepted all of Vindman’s proposed edits to the call record, contrary to Vindman’s testimony. And while he did not think that Vindman was a leaker, he testified: “I had concerns that he did not exercise appropriate judgment as to whom he would say what.” He said that Vindman’s sloppy practices were partly the result of his own predecessor at the NSC, Dr. Fiona Hill — another one of the Democrats’ star witnesses, who, like Morrison, is due to testify publicly this week.
- Morrison testified that other foreign aid being offered by the U.S. at the time was reportedly under review — not just to Ukraine. And he confirmed earlier testimony that the aid being held up did not include the essential Javelin anti-tank missiles, which were being delivered to Ukraine through a separate procurement process.
- Morrison testified that he had no concerns that President Trump asked President Zelensky, during the July 25 phone call, to meet with his personal attorney, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
- Morrison kept NSC lawyers informed about what was going on — not because he was concerned Trump had done anything wrong, but because he wanted “to protect the president” from whatever Sondland was doing.