Trump's July 25 Phone Call With Zelensky May Have Been Taped

October 22, 2019

(Photo: Gage Skidmore)

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH

Near the end of his “quid pro quo/get over it” bombshell news conference last Thursday, acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney asked a question that appeared to be an attempt to exonerate Trump of any wrongdoing based on the edited phone conversation summary of Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky:

“Let me ask you this — if we wanted to cover this up, would we have called the Department of Justice almost immediately and have them look at the transcript of the tape. Which we did, by the way.”

That, at first blush, appeared to be a toady attempt to back up his boss. However, one highly curious word raised an astonishing possibility that Trump has had his conversations with foreign leaders secretly recorded. The word is tape, included in the phrase “transcript of the tape.”

In all likelihood the mention of a possible tape existing — and the logical implication of other tapes of phone calls existing — was tantalizing, but probably another “unforced error” on Mulvaney’s part. Nonetheless, it would have behooved the DC press corps to further probe the possibility with Mulvaney, which they didn’t.

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As BuzzFlash has noted in several commentaries, the national reporting on what is a summarized version of the call has been all over the map. BuzzFlash pointed out when the “readout” was released that it appeared to 1/3 the length of the approximately 30-minute phone call.

Furthermore, the national press appears to accept the rough summary at face value, although a Washington Post article cautioned on September 25,

Former White House staffers said that the Trump administration, in a departure from prior presidencies, has been more willing to edit the telephone conversation memos to remove errors or insensitive remarks Trump has made, apparently in an effort to avoid political heat or embarrassment.

Even the White House, despite Trump claiming that the “summary” of the phone call is verbatim, stated on the readout that it was not a verbatim transcript. As explained by The New York Times in its footnote to the summary:

Note: The words released by the White House recounting Mr. Trump’s conversation with Mr. Zelensky look like a transcript, but the document is marked, Memorandum of Telephone Conversation, and it warns that it is not a verbatim account. Instead, it was “developed with assistance from voice recognition software along with experts and note takers listening.” [quoting from unnamed White House sources.]

The Associated Press also refers to the use of voice recognition software, although this is not mentioned in the disclaimer on the actual document released by the White House:

The transcript was prepared using voice recognition software, along with note takers and experts listening in, according to senior White House officials. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss White House document preparation.

Given that 2/3’s of the conversation is missing, BuzzFlash, upon its release in September, asked “that begs the question, what was left out?” Following up on that notion, we compared the missing material from the conversation with the infamous 18 1/2 minute gap in a Nixon phone call relating to the Watergate break in. As with Nixon, we speculated that it might be the cover-up that will be Trump’s downfall.

There are many reasons to believe that Mulvaney just had a slip of the tongue when he referred to a tape of the transcript. After all, Trump regularly tears up documents and transcriptions, because he doesn’t want incriminating evidence, so why would he tape phone calls that could be used against him?

A September 25 CBS News article explained:

The White House has not said if there is a longer transcript of the Ukraine call or a recording of it. Mr. Trump said in a press conference late Wednesday that he would release a record of a previous call he had with Zelensky. [He has never released it.]

Trump has seemed to imply that he recorded some of his White House conversations, though this has never been proven. Days after Mr. Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in May 2017, he tweeted that Comey "better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!" But no Comey tapes ever emerged, and the existence of such tapes was never confirmed.

The mainstream media has, in general, been remarkably negligent in not pointing out that the White House, tape or no tape, is likely hiding a fuller transcript of the July 25 phone call. The still unidentified whistleblower claimed that the full account of the call was stored on a server for classified information.

Why isn’t the media, or Congress for that matter, asking if there is a more complete account, an actual transcript of the phone call? That is a good question indeed, but for now most of the media is still considering the edited rough summary as the only account of the call that the White House has.

Once again, Trump is controlling the narrative that the rough summary is the White House’s complete transcript of the call, which appears highly unlikely. BuzzFlash detailed on October 7 that if such a full transcript exists, it may have already been deleted.

A September 25 Slate article suggests that there may be tapes, or at least a full transcript based on a recording of the conversation using artificial intelligence:

Finally, take a close look at the last sentence of the [New York] Times’ footnote: “Voice recognition software was used” in preparing the document, allowing for “long, direct quotations.” This might explain the extraordinary detail. But it also suggests something else: There might be White House tapes. Are we witnessing this scandal’s Alexander Butterfield moment?

Butterfield was the White House staffer who revealed that President Richard Nixon was secretly recording conversations. The revelation came about entirely by chance: Butterfield was called to testify before the Senate Watergate Committee’s staff on July 13, 1973. Staff members asked him about memos of conversations that the White House had turned over. The quotations seemed far too detailed to be based on notes. One staffer recalled that John Dean, the White House counsel-turned-informer, had speculated that Nixon might have bugged the Oval Office, so he asked Butterfield if there was a tape-recording system. “I was wondering if someone would ask that,” Butterfield replied. It turned out that he had installed the system, and he proceeded to explain how it worked.

Yes, maybe there is a Trump White House taping system of calls, but the more likely scenario is that there is, or was before being deleted, a full artificial intelligence digital transcript of the July 25 Zelensky call. This could also be the case for innumerable other official Trump calls with foreign leaders that have been hidden away on the classified server, including calls with Putin.

If Trump tapes of official phone calls do not exist, artificial intelligence voice recognition software now has 95% and above accuracy rates.

That means, that taping system or not, a digital transcript of the July 25 call exists, or existed, and would provide a fuller knowledge of what Trump said to Zelensky, as well as open up the floodgates for full transcripts of Trump talking with other foreign leaders.

But first the media has to stop accepting the false narrative that the released rough summary is the only “transcript” available. Either the artificial intelligence transcript, or in the less likely scenario case an audio tape, would provide an unedited version of what is not included in the readout that is only 1/3 the length of the actual July 25 call.

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