Whistleblower Complaint Released, Detailing Concerns About Trump-Ukraine Call

Maj Kevin "Mac" McLaughlin - Classifying information that is politically troubling but not protecting national security or foreign policy would seem to fly in the face of the FOIA, would it not? In fact, was this sort of thing exactly what the FOIA was at least in part designed to stop?

But the troubling part is that it was given a much higher classification level that normal phone calls with foreign officials with no apparent national security or foreign policy reasons to do so. It seems that the administration was trying to hide this particular call from people within the government and that indicates they knew the troubling nature of what had transpired on the call. Trump's faithful may be blowing this off but at very least it appears the Trump administration knew what they did was wrong and actively took steps to cover it up.

SPC Kevin Ford FOIA does not override Executive Priviledge. With all the shenanigans of leaks and such, who can blame the WH for protecting his conversations.

It’s not like he took the official records and moved them to a private server. But that’s not a big deal right?

Maj Kevin "Mac" McLaughlin - You might have a case if he similarly protected all his conversations with foreign leaders. But that does not appear to be the case from the complaint. This particular conversation was handled differently than the others. The question becomes, why?

I don't care about what other people may or may not have done.

We don't know if that is the case. Even though, what does it matter? It was retained, on a government server, which meets the criteria of the law and the management of official records. I point out the other example, because it highlights what you absolutely cannot do. This is like telling me you're mad if I were to take a secret document from SIPR and upload it to JWICS, despite the fact that it's necessary (unless I have a need to do so). You have no idea why the WH chose to do it and honestly nothing has surfaced which prompts me to be concerned about it. However, on the other side of the coin, we do have examples of leaks and folks repeating presidential conversations to the media which they percieve to be bad, in an effort to discredit or embarrass the President. That would definitely prompt me to better protect such conversations.

Lt Col Charlie Brown It doesn't appear to be all that relevant that he didn't hear the call. Now that we have at least a partial transcript, what was in the call turns out to be exactly as alleged.

It also doesn't have to have any quid pro quo for someone to abuse their office for personal political gain.

President states he’s willing to take damaging information against political rivals from foreign government.
Presidents lawyer states that it’s time for a foreign government to start investigating the Presidents political rival.
President suspends military aid to foreign government.
Folks taking notes of phone call between Presidents recall the President reminding how good the US has been to particular foreign government, and also that corrupt political rival should be looked into.

Will he be tarred and feathered? Probably not. But c’mon. Don’t confuse the point that just because he didn’t state, ‘let’s do some quid pro quo...’ that maybe he didn’t cross a line here. Additionally, our aid in Ukraine is supporting a pretty nasty proxy war with Russia right now. They kinda sorta need the money.

What’s a more logical way to explain why those events happened?

Quid pro quo is not a requirement but it does add to more evidence should there be any quid pro quo .

SPC Kevin Ford he doesn’t have to come out and say it. It’s implied in the conversation. He withheld aide and then casually mentions aide then brings up favor. Quid pro joe!

SGT (Join to see) I think it is fair to say when it comes to security clearances what applies to the rank and file does not apply to those in high government positions (fair or not). This isn't just for Trump either. If the rank and file were to send around classified information on a private email server, they'd at least lost their clearance over it.