White House Admits Lawyers Directed Moving Ukraine Transcript to Highly Secure System

The White House said Friday that National Security Council attorneys did direct officials to file the transcript of President Trump’s now-infamous call with Ukraine in a separate classified system, lending credibility to the whistleblower complaint’s description of how the transcript was kept out of wider circulation via a system for highly sensitive documents, CNN reported. The complaint, which was released on Thursday, alleges that Trump pressured Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election and that White House officials tried to cover it up afterward.

“NSC lawyers directed that the classified document be handled appropriately,” the White House told CNN. The statement, however, does not explain who in the West Wing was ultimately responsible for the decision to put the transcript in that system. The complaint also noted that the Ukraine call was “not the first time under this administration that a presidential transcript was placed into this codeword-level system solely for the purpose of protecting politically sensitive—rather than national security sensitive—information.”