Release the Transcript: CNN's Biden-Ukraine Coverup

The American people are demanding President Biden release the transcript of his phone call with Ukraine’s President Zelensky after a CNN reporter tweeted a report that claimed the call between the two leaders “did not go well” and that Kyiv could be “sacked.” CNN’s Natasha Bertrand posted and then deleted that tweet. Only an hour later CNN’s Jim Sciutto began denying the information in her report. So now there is mixed messaging coming out of the White House, and the hashtag #releasethetranscript is back.

When Joe Biden was running for President, he demanded that former President Trump release the transcript from a phone call with President Zelensky:

I am calling for the President to release the transcript of the call, let everybody hear what it is, let the House see it, and see what he did.

So, if he can call the former President out to release transcripts and go to the lengths of an impeachment trial, then he needs to release his own transcripts as well. And when the last President was asked to release a transcript, it wasn’t on the brink of a war or when the U.S. is about to send troops into harm’s way.

ACLJ Director of Government Affairs Thann Bennett explained how this is a double standard:

We just can’t have two different sets of disclosure rules based on who is in the White House. . . . Look, in an ideal world, a President actually has a fair amount of privilege when talking with world leaders, so that they can be candid. But when a politician like President Biden . . . insists on the transcript of his predecessor being released to the public. When he’s holding the office then, he has to subscribe by that same standard, by that same requirement. We can’t have two sets of rules . . . because world leaders have to know what they are getting from the United States. We have to give them consistency and this doesn’t do that.

ACLJ Senior Advisor for National Security and Foreign Policy and former Acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell explained what position the United States is in right now:

I have been on a lot of these intense phone calls. And I have to say in defense of whoever is President, there are always some tough words. . . . I think a lot of people misinterpret when there are strong messages. The one thing that I have to say is, we wouldn’t be in this position if President Trump were the President. We wouldn’t have taken the sanctions off Nord Stream 2, which was really the green light for Putin. Yet, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is still not working. We still have time to sanction this. I don’t understand why we aren’t pushing diplomatically, sanction the pipeline, don’t let that influence and gas go into Germany. The rest of Europe will support us, it’s only the Germans. The Germans are on the outs here with the rest of Europe. We can solve this diplomatically by being tough. But the Biden Administration decided a year ago to give this pipeline and green-light to Putin just like the Obama-Biden Administration gave the green light of weakness to Putin and he grabbed Crimea. I don’t want to see boots on the ground. I don’t want to see men and women from the United States going over and fighting in Ukraine for heaven’s sake. We need to utilize our diplomatic skills.

ACLJ Senior Counsel for Global Affairs and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave his take on this mixed messaging coming out of the White House:

They are scrambling now to try and establish deterrence. . . . But it’s the months and months and months that they dawdled. It’s also the history. President Obama had refused to send weapons to the Ukrainians, so I think Vladimir Putin knows whatever that the Administration tells them, they will probably do a fraction of that. . . . I was on that famous phone call with President Zelensky. I found what was discussed that day to be consistent with our policy to push back against Russia. So, to hear this confusion from this call where we didn’t speak with absolute singular voice with real clarity in a way that the Ukrainian people could come to see that Europe and the United States was going to do everything to deter Vladimir Putin is an actual way you can deliver on the minor incursion statement that President Biden made a few weeks back now.

This puts America in a dangerous position. We will continue to monitor this escalating situation and provide you with updates as they come.

Today’s full Sekulow broadcast is complete with even more analysis of the recent phone call between President Biden and Ukrainian President Zelensky.

Watch the full broadcast below.