Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman is the first to testify who actually was among those listening to Trump’s July 25th call with Zelenskyy. In his publicized opening statement the respected war hero and Purple Heart recipient states that call prompted his second complaint to the National Security Council legal counsel because it was undermining American foreign policy.
However, the real bombshell may be in the closed door deposition. According to reporter Olivia Beavers of The Hill, Vindman claims the publicly released transcript of Trump’s July 25th call with Zelenskyy has been sanitized.
In the transcript the word “Burisma” is never used so the word “company” must have been substituted for it. The word “company” is used but once. In that use Zelenskyy is promising Trump that his investigator will look into “specifically” the company that Trump mentioned. Here’s how it reads:
my candidate, who will be approved, by the parliament and will start as a new prosecutor in September. He or she will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned, in this issue.If you think about that, it does read awkward. Why wouldn’t Zelenskyy just say the name of the company? So apparently the public transcript was changed and what was actually said was something like this:
my candidate, who will be approved, by the parliament and will start as a new prosecutor in September. He or she will look into the situation, specifically Burisma.
A much more direct, natural and sensible way of speaking. It’s also one far more indicting of Trump as it is a much more clear statement of Zelenskyy’s understanding of the expectations Trump placed on him. In context, Zelenskyy was responding to Trump just talking about investigating Biden’s son and Biden. Trump said:
There's a lot of talk about Biden's son. That Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that, so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it ... It sounds horrible to me.It’s not just the crime. It’s the cover up.
