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Transcript From 2019 Exposes More Deep State Machinations Against Trump

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (“HPSCI”) released two transcripts Monday morning from the 2019 closed-door interviews of the then-Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, Michael Atkinson. The just-released transcripts reveal new details behind the scheming that led to the first impeachment of Donald Trump.

That first impeachment trial focused on President Trump’s July 25, 2019 telephone conversation with the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky. After the call, a supposed-whistleblower — more on that shortly — filed a complaint with the inspector general’s office on August 12, 2019, charging that Trump sought Zelensky’s assistance in investigating the Bidens to interfere in the 2020 election.

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Vindman had listened to Trump’s call with Zelensky in real time from the situation room and testified about his impressions of the call. But Vindman was not the “whistleblower.” According to Real Clear Investigations, the CIA’s Eric Ciaramella was the “whistleblower.” And here’s where the just-released transcripts make things interesting.

After the House launched the impeachment inquiry and the “whistleblower’s” complaint was made public, IG Atkinson testified in a second closed-door interview. During that October 4, 2019 testimony, Atkinson explained that the “whistleblower” had provided him with a “Memorandum of Conversation” dated July 26, 2019. That memorandum purported to summarize a conversation the whistleblower had with an unnamed individual Atkinson identified as “Witness One.”

Atkinson then proceeded to explain that “Witness One,” had “listened to the telephone call in real-time,” which matches up precisely with Vindman. Yet, Atkinson testified that in assessing whether the “whistleblower” complaint was credible, they never spoke with Witness One. Instead, Atkinson testified that they interviewed two of the “whistleblower’s” supervisors to assess their perspective of the “whistleblower.” The IG office also assessed whether the whistleblower held any bias.

The IG’s office was kicking the wrong car’s tires: The so-called whistleblower had no first-hand knowledge of the call and was merely repeating Witness One’s statements. Or, as The Federalist’s editor-in-chief put it, “Vindman, Not Whistleblower, Was Driving Force Behind Impeachment.” But Atkinson didn’t speak with Vindman or assess his credibility or bias before finding the “whistleblower’s” complaint was credible.