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It is now becoming clear that transcript of the July 25 Trump-Zelensky telephone conversation released yesterday was edited. According to Charlie Savage, Michael Schmidt and Julian Barnes in "Whistle-Blower Is Said to Allege Concerns About White House Handling of Ukraine Call":
[T]he whistle-blower complaint went beyond Mr. Trump’s comments to Mr. Zelensky. It also dealt in part with the unusual manner in which White House officials handled internal records describing the call. The atypical proceeding heightened internal concerns about the content of the call, the two people said.
Bowing to pressure, the Trump administration permitted members of the intelligence committees and congressional leaders to read a copy of the complaint, which remains classified, late on Wednesday.
Its allegations were “deeply disturbing” and “very credible,” Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said after emerging from reviewing the complaint.
After reading it, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee told reporters that it contained far more information that reinforced their mounting concerns. They could disclose very little, but several of the lawmakers said it discussed other witnesses.Granted that the on-the-record quotes are from odious Russiagater Adam Schiff, this is not Russiagate. It's too bad to see outlets like RT and blogs like Moon of Alabama dismiss the impeachment drive as more of the same. What the whistle-blower complaint appears to allege is White House records were altered to remove or obscure portions of the call. It also appears that
the whistle-blower complaint Justice Department memo, signed by Steven A. Engel, the head of its Office of Legal Counsel, was edited:
Mr. Engel’s memo, dated Sept. 24, said in a footnote that it was a revision of an original from Sept. 3, and that the department had “changed the prior version to avoid references to certain details that remain classified.”
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