Ever since allegations emerged that President Donald Trump contacted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in July to get the Ukrainian government to investigate 2020 Democratic candidate Joe Biden, the President has insisted that the call was “perfectly fine and routine conversation.”
Yet his top administration officials spent Sunday morning telling journalists that releasing transcripts of Trump’s calls with Zelensky to back up the President’s account was off the table.
“You know, Martha, we don’t release transcripts very often,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told ABC’s “This Week” host Martha Raddatz. “It’s the–it’s the rare case. Those are private conversations between world leaders and it wouldn’t be appropriate to do so except in the most extreme circumstances.”
“There’s no evidence that that would be appropriate here at this point,” he added.
Pompeo: There's "no evidence" that releasing transcript of Trump's call with Ukrainian president "would be appropriate" pic.twitter.com/RSbylNvRRP
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) September 22, 2019
Treasury Secretary Mnuchin had the same talking point.
“I think it would be highly inappropriate to release a transcript of a call between two world leaders,” Treasury Secretary Mnuchin said during an interview on “Meet the Press” with NBC News host Chuck Todd.
Mnuchin says released Trump-Ukraine transcript would be "highly inappropriate" pic.twitter.com/JNW2NzPyLQ
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) September 22, 2019
He repeated his argument against allowing Congress to see the transcripts later in the interview, saying that Trump’s calls to foreign leaders “are confidential discussions and that’s a difficult precedent.”
“[Trump] says he said nothing inappropriate. So why not release the transcript?” Todd asked.
“Because again, I think these are confidential discussions between world leaders, and world leaders expect that they are kept confidential,” Mnuchin responded.
Mnuchin shoots down suggestion to release Trump-Ukraine call transcripts: These are "confidential" conversations between world leaders pic.twitter.com/7iXbGAvpfa
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) September 22, 2019
