On Tuesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “All In,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) stated that he doesn’t trust the White House’s transcript of the Trump-Ukraine call to be an accurate representation of events and stated that an explicit or implicit quid pro quo isn’t needed.
Host Chris Hayes asked, “Do you trust the White House enough to take that transcript and believe that that is an actual representation of what transpired?”
Schiff responded, “No. I think, sadly…we cannot trust the administration with respect to anything that it produces. And so, there are a couple of issues here. There’s the issue of whether whatever transcript they provide is the only transcript of this conversation, whether there are other readouts of that conversation and whether they cherry-picked and picked the best readout of that conversation. But there are also issues about whether this is just one piece, for example, of what the whistleblower may be complaining of.”
He later added, “You don’t need an explicit quid pro quo. You don’t need an implicit quid pro quo. Ukraine understands how it is entirely dependent on the United States, how it is entirely dependent on the goodwill of the president of the United States for military support, for financial support, for support among the international community. And when the president of the United States tells that country, this is what I want you to do for me, much like James Comey said when the president said, I’d like you to see if you can make this Flynn matter go away, that foreign country understands that, not as a request, but as, this will be done or there are repercussions. He doesn’t have to make it explicit. It’s enough that he withheld this military support even as he is browbeating this president and his personal lawyer is browbeating Ukraine for help in their political campaign.”
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