The Zelensky Memo Suggests There Might Be Tapes

[babylonsister]

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/09/zelensky-memo-compiled-voice-recognition-software-might-be-tapes.html


The Zelensky Memo Suggests There Might Be Tapes
The document, which is not a transcript, was compiled with the help of voice recognition software.
By Fred Kaplan
Sept 25, 2019
3:42 PM


Reading the White House memorandum on President Donald Trump’s phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a question comes to mind: Is this it, or is there more?

Of course, there’s quite a lot, as is. The memo shows Trump asking a foreign power for dirt on a possible opponent in next year’s presidential election, recruiting the attorney general to assist in this effort, and at least suggesting (if not quite proving) a quid pro quo between this help and the granting of military assistance.

But the memo is not a comprehensive document. Though many are calling it a “transcript,” that is not at all what it is. The document is titled “Memorandum of Telephone Conversation” (emphasis added). At the bottom of the New York Times’ reproduction of the memo, a fine-print note explicitly says as much:

Note: The five-page document distributed by the White House includes a cautionary note indicating that it was “not a verbatim transcript” but instead was based on “notes and recollections of Situation Room Duty officers” and national security staff. But senior officials said voice recognition software was used in preparing the “memorandum of telephone conversation,” which included long, direct quotations.

snip//

Trump declassified this memorandum, which is why we are all reading it. Presidents have the right to declassify whatever they want. But in releasing this specific memo, Trump may have created a precedent by which other materials relating to the same inquiry might also be declassified. Or at least he’s given the House Intelligence Committee, which is authorized to see material much more highly classified than this, a good argument for why other related material ought to be released.

In other words, the Zelensky memo may have revealed the existence of a vast and previously unknown trove of information that might be used to help seal the president’s fate.

[unblock]

1. lordy i hope there are tapes!

[Laura PourMeADrink]

2. So, was the REAL transcript used to prepare the

WH version? We were talking about this yesterday. The memo had no look of a document based on notes and recollection. If it was, it would have been written in the third person, not as a "script". By the WH doing this, they are actually telling us that there really is a more accurate and real transcript. Bad move. Although now we know anyway, still odd.

[Wounded Bear]

3. An intel guy on one of the shows mentioned...

that the Russians probably have tapes of the calls, at least from the Ukrainian side.

Everybody is listening to each other these days.