In the wake of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s announcement that the House of Representatives is now engaged in a formal impeachment inquiry, Donald Trump is putting on a sudden show of apparent cooperation. Not only has Trump offered up a “transcript” of his conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but he’s also proposing to turn over the whistleblower report. That’s an astounding turnaround for someone who instigated this final-straw event by explicitly blocking the release of that same document.
Just two weeks ago, it was learned that acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire had violated the whistleblower law by informing the White House about the contents of a report to the inspector general rather than passing that report on to Congress. Congress did not even learn of the report until a note from the inspector general made Rep. Adam Schiff aware of the report’s existence a week after Maguire was required to turn it over. And then both the White House and the Department of Justice swooped in to declare that the report was actually out of bounds for the intelligence community, and that they were asserting privilege over the report—even though the whistleblower law contains absolutely no provision for making such an assertion.
That Trump would move now to release the report suggests that he either realizes, or has been told, that the move to an impeachment inquiry threatens something absolutely critical to this White House—his longstanding assertion of privilege in a way that goes miles beyond that of any past administration. The announcement of the inquiry appears to have punched Trump directly in the ego. His morning call to Nancy Pelosi in advance of the announcement and his attempt to convince her that they could “work something out” if she only skipped the I-word are likely related to knowing that, come impeachment day, all those “I’m not answering, but also not actually claiming privilege” responses from White House staffers would no longer fly.
Welcome to that day. This is the first full day of the official impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump. With that long-overdue gut check finally in the rear view, investigations that were already underway in the House will now continue, but with some added force, meaning mostly that Republicans will no longer be able to use the “Well, if this were an impeachment inquiry...” dodge when arguing that witnesses or documents cannot be subpoenaed. And neither will witnesses.
What Trump will actually release concerning the phone call remains an open question. Though Trump has referred to a “transcript” and even an “unredacted transcript,” most calls between the White House and foreign leaders in the past have come in the form of a “readout” that provides more of a summary than a word-by-word recitation. Trump ended the practice of producing readouts in 2018, and he ended the practice of preannouncing calls to foreign leaders in 2017. It’s unclear if an actual recording of the call exists. If not, it’s equally unclear whether there is anything approaching an accurate transcript.
Whether it comes from the White House or Kiev, there are good reasons to be skeptical of the completeness of any document purporting to be a transcript of Trump’s call to Zelensky. With Russian forces actively on the move in the Donbass, Ukrainian forces pulling back, and a casualty count that’s still growing, Zelensky has a real honest-to-goodness war to fight on his own soil, and he needs that military aid package at this moment more than ever before.
In short, Trump calling Zelensky now to tell him to provide his version of the call made back then is simply a continuation of the pressure that Trump is applying. There is no way to ensure an accurate transcript, not even with a recording. Because there’s no way to ensure an accurate recording.
It’s also unclear what Trump means to do when it comes to the whistleblower report. In response to Trump’s entreaties on Tuesday morning, Nancy Pelosi apparently replied that Trump should simply tell his people to “follow the law,” meaning to turn over that report as they were required to do in the first place. That may happen, because at this point it seems inevitable that the House will get its hands on that report. Unlike Trump’s phone call, the whistleblower report is a physical document that has been seen in full by the intelligence community inspector general, the acting DNI, and, according to Trump, “everyone at the White House.” Now it’s time that an accurate and complete version of the report land on the desk where it was supposed to go in the first place.
And it’s time to get that version of Trump’s taxes that Steven Mnuchin has been holding illegally.
And it’s time for Trump to drop the lawsuit that is standing in the way of releasing information about the loans he received through Deutsche Bank.
And it’s time for over a dozen witnesses who have refused to appear, on White House orders, to appear.
And it’s time for everyone who cut short their testimony on the basis of mock privilege claims from Trump to be reinterviewed without that fig leaf.
And it’s time for the House to make it clear that inherent contempt is a real thing that it will really deploy against anyone who doesn’t realize that, while this may seem like just another day, it’s not.
It’s impeachment day.