A6 EZ SU THE WASHINGTON POST.SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2 , 2019
moved to a classified system,
known as NICE, by mistake after
subordinates were instructed to
restrict access to the file, accord-
ing to two people familiar with
Morrison’s account, who spoke on
the condition of anonymity to dis-
cuss closed-door testimony.
Morrison’s account was that
“nobody actually intended” for
those aides to put the file in NICE
and that “the decision to do so was
widely seen as a mistake” inside
the White House, said an official
familiar with Morrison’s testimo-
ny. Presidential call records are
customarily handled in a separate
computer system that also has
mechanisms for restricting ac-
cess.
The official said that investiga-
tors have not ruled out Morrison’s
version of events, but that it
wouldn’t alter the overriding im-
pression from witnesses that
White House officials “recognized
that [the call] was problematic for
a variety of reasons and that it
would therefore not be good for
the details to leak.”
Vindman’s interactions with
Eisenberg about the presidential
call continued to be of keen inter-
est to House investigators. On
Wednesday, the day after Vind-
man’s testimony, the House im-
peachment committees an-
nounced they had asked Eisen-
berg, the legal adviser to the Na-
tional Security Council, and his
fellow White House lawyer, Mike
Ellis, to testify.
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]Rosalind S. Helderman contributed to
this report.record: “Burisma,” the Ukrainian
company that employed Biden’s
son Hunter. In its place, the offi-
cial transcript used this instead:
“the company that you mentioned
in this issue.”
The reason for the insertion of a
potentially fabricated phrase,
which has not been previously
reported, is unknown. Some argue
that the transcribers simply mis-
understood or missed the word
but used a generic description.
But it could be helpful to the presi-
dent’s claim that he did not engage
in a quid pro quo.
Zelensky mentioning Burisma
by name holds significance, Vind-
man told lawmakers. It suggested
the Ukrainian leader knew in ad-
vance of the call that the American
president was seeking an investi-
gation of his Democratic rival be-
fore Trump would agree to meet
with Zelensky.
Vindman testified that he tried
to get the rough transcript cor-
rected to add the word “Burisma”
and to match his notes of the call,
but learned later that he was un-
successful. He told lawmakers he
doesn’t know the reason, nor does
he assume there were nefarious
motives. Moving the record of the
call to a separate secure server
interrupted the normal process
for handling a review of the tran-
script for a president’s calls with a
head of state.
A senior White House official
sought to persuade impeachment
investigators this week that there
was a more benign explanation for
the transfer of the call transcript
to the highly classified server.
Timothy Morrison, a senior
NSC official responsible for policy
on Russia and Ukraine, testified
that the call record had beenHouse, people familiar with the
testimony said.
Eisenberg asked Vindman
whether Vindman had spoken to
other officials about his concerns,
and then instructed him not to
have any further conversations
about the matter, the people said.
But by that point, Vindman had
already done so, according to his
testimony, in which he disclosed
that he had spoken to at least two
“interagency peers,” meaning offi-
cials in other positions beyond the
White House who also closely fol-
lowed Ukraine issues.
Vindman did not reveal in his
testimony who those other offi-
cials were.
The CIA employee who went on
to file a whistleblower complaint
also supplied a memo he had
made for his own records com-
memorating a July 26 conversa-
tion with a White House official
about the Trump-Zelensky call.
The White House official had
“listened to the entirety of the
phone call” and was “visibly shak-
en by what had transpired,” the
CIA employee wrote. The official
described the call as “crazy,”
“frightening” and “completely
lacking in substance related to
national security.”
In his statement to lawmakers
this week, Vindman said, “I do not
know who the whistleblower is
and I would not feel comfortable
to speculate.”
Vindman also testified this
week that the official record and
rough transcript of the call includ-
ed an inexplicable change. A
vague eight-word phrase was add-
ed and attributed to Zelensky that
the foreign leader never said. The
specific word that Zelensky did
say was omitted from the officialTrump-Zelensky call from the
White House situation room.
He told lawmakers that he was
deeply troubled by what he inter-
preted as an attempt by the presi-
dent to subvert U.S. foreign policy
and an improper attempt to co-
erce a foreign government into
investigating a U.S. citizen. Vind-
man said he relayed these con-
cerns to Eisenberg within hours of
the phone call, according to the
people familiar with Vindman’s
testimony who spoke on the con-
dition of anonymity to discuss
closed-door testimony.
While meeting with Eisenberg,
Vindman said he heard the legal
adviser turn to another attorney
in the room and propose steps to
restrict access to the rough tran-
script — a move described in the
whistleblower report as an at-
tempt to “lock down” what law-
makers now consider the most
damaging piece of evidence about
Trump’s intent and conduct.
Vindman also testified that the
transcript failed to capture sev-
eral potentially important words
or phrases, including a reference
by Zelensky to a Ukrainian energy
company, Burisma, that had em-
ployed Biden’s son and that
Trump wanted investigated. Vind-
man said he sought to correct the
transcript but that his suggestions
were not incorporated.
New details from Vindman’s
testimony also shed light on other
aspects of the tense aftermath of
the call inside the White House.
The NSC aide said that Eisenberg
approached him several days after
the call and said that a CIA em-
ployee had raised internal con-
cerns about the call, and that the
agency’s top lawyer had relayed
those concerns to the Whiterough transcript of the call into a
highly classified computer server,
and the instruction was delivered
by Eisenberg, who would later be
involved in the administration’s
battle to keep an explosive whis-
tleblower complaint about the call
from being shared with Congress.
The interaction between Eisen-
berg and Vindman suggests there
was a sense among some in the
White House that Trump’s call
with Zelensky was not, as the pres-
ident has repeatedly claimed,
“perfect.” And it threatens to un-
dercut Trump’s argument that the
expanding impeachment inquiry
is politically driven.
“If this is such a perfect call,
why is everybody going to these
extraordinary lengths?” said a U.S.
official familiar with Vindman’s
testimony this week. “Why are
people running immediately to
the White House counsel? Why is
the White House counsel telling
people not to talk about it?”
The revelation, first reported
Friday afternoon by Politico,
comes as the impeachment inqui-
ry is entering a new, public phase
after the House voted along party
lines this week to proceed with
open hearings for the first time
while investigating committees
begin to map out articles expected
to accuse Trump of abusing his
power and potentially obstructing
justice.
Vindman’s testimony Tuesday
pointed to several actions by
White House officials that could
be interpreted as attempts to cov-
er up Trump’s conduct. The top
Ukraine expert at the White
House, Vindman was one of sev-
eral officials who listened to the
TESTIMONY FROM A
BY ANNE GEARAN
AND DAVE WEIGELtupelo, miss. — President
Trump’s rescue mission Friday for
a struggling Mississippi guberna-
torial candidate may offer a clue to
whether the impeachment inqui-
ry against him will serve as a boost
or drag for red-state Republicans
who are seeking to rally support-
ers behind their criticism of Dem-
ocrats’ effort to remove the presi-
dent from office.
Trump won Mississippi with
about 58 percent of the vote in
2016, and the state is considered
far from in play for 2020. But as in
Kentucky, where Trump will cam-
paign Monday in another off-year
election, a GOP loss at the state
level on Tuesday would be seen as
a hairline crack in the president’s
popularity among Republicans.
Trump will also hold a rally in
Louisiana on Wednesday, ahead of
a runoff election there Nov. 16 that
will determine who will be the
state’s next governor.
Mississippi Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves
remains in a tight contest with
Democrat Jim Hood, according to
the latest Mason-Dixon poll, re-
leased Oct. 23, despite spending
more than twice as much as the
longtime attorney general.
Reeves’s three-point advan-
tage, within the poll’s margin of
error, is a reason that Trump’s rally
here will be followed Monday by a
campaign visit from Vice Presi-
dent Pence. Donald Trump Jr., a
frequent political surrogate for his
father, appeared with Reeves in
October and promised a crowd
that the candidate “will fight for
the MAGA agenda.”
Asked Friday whether the fire-
power suggests that national Re-
publicans are worried about his
performance, Reeves had a ready
answer.
“I think what it suggests is that
they understand how important
this election is to the future of
Mississippi and how important
this election is to future of Ameri-
ca,” Reeves told reporters outside
the 10,000 seat BancorpSouth
Arena.
“The national liberals don’t
care about Mississippi, and the
outcome of this race,” Reeves said.
“What they do care about is throw-
ing up a roadblock to President
Trump getting reelected in 2020.”
Trump called Reeves the “next
governor,” and Hood, a “far-left
Democrat.”
“I can’t believe this is a competi-
tive race!” Trump exclaimed. “I’m
talking Mississippi!”
Trump brought Reeves onstage
partway into a speech that lasted
well more than an hour. Reeves
told the crowd he would be “an
ally to President Donald J. Trump.”
The few off-year elections this
year come as Trump faces the
likelihood of a vote in the majori-
ty-Democratic House to impeach
him for alleged abuse of office.
Impeachment would be a political
stain, despite the likelihood that a
Republican majority in the Senate
would prevent Trump’s removal
from office.
But Republicans are also hop-
ing the impeachment process will
rally the president’s supporters
behind him in red states, and
Trump rallygoer Brad Deckard
said that is “absolutely” what is
happening.
“I think the phone call [with
Ukraine’s president] is inappro-
priate, but I don’t think it meets
the level of impeachment,” said
Deckard, who lives 90 miles away
and across the state line in Mem-
phis and so cannot vote in this
election.
Another rallygoer, Mike Mc-
Cullough, had no qualms about
Trump’s conduct.
“It sucks,” he said of the start of
impeachment proceedings. “It’s a
waste of time.”
The crowd booed on cue Friday
when Trump decried the “de-
ranged impeachment witch hunt.”
“This is one I never thought I’d
be involved in,” Trump said, call-
ing impeachment a “dirty word.”
“That’s why we’ve never had
greater support than we have
now; it’s the truth,” he said to loud
cheers and applause.
Republicans, he said are “the
most unified I’ve ever seen them.”
Trump complained of the
“Greatest Witch Hunt In Ameri-
can History” in a tweet Thursday,
moments after the House passed a
resolution largely along party
lines that lays out parameters for
the next phase of the impeach-
ment inquiry.
Trump lost no Republican votes
in Thursday’s procedural exercise,
despite the discomfort of some
GOP lawmakers over the presi-
dent’s conduct and his attacks on
government employees who have
testified against him.
Trump’s overall approval rating
among Republicans remains high
— between 85 and 90 percent in
most polls — and preserving that
standing is key to his firewall of
congressional Republican sup-port.
A new poll from the AP-NORC
Center for Public Affairs Research
contained mixed news for Trump.
Despite an 85 percent approval
rating among Republicans,
33 percent of Republicans said
Trump doesn’t make them feel
“proud,” and 41 percent of Repub-
licans said Trump doesn’t make
them feel “excited.”
The poll released Thursday
found that 61 percent of Ameri-
cans, including 26 percent of Re-
publicans, say Trump has little to
no respect for the country’s demo-
cratic institutions and traditions.
That is an issue at the heart of the
impeachment inquiry into wheth-
er Trump improperly pressured
the leader of Ukraine for political
favors.
Impeachment aside, Trump has
good reasons for campaigning for
Republicans in Louisiana, Ken-
tucky and Mississippi this year,
said GOP strategist John Feehery.
“What the president is trying to
do is remake the party in his own
image” and build loyalty deep into
state party operations, Feehery
said. “If you can help somebody
out who is in a little bit of trouble
and they win, then they owe you.”
Feehery said problems specific
to the candidates and races this
year are chiefly to blame for Re-
publican struggles, and he sees
little direct connection to Trump’s
future. Still, Trump can help him-
self by putting points on the board
in far-flung races, according to
Feehery.
“Plus, he gets lots of energy
from going to these rallies, and
there is no better home team kind
of advantage than going to Missis-
sippi and Kentucky,” he said.
In Kentucky, as in the other
states holding gubernatorial elec-
tions this month, Republicans
have latched their campaigns tothe president. Kentucky Gov. Matt
Bevin (R) is trying to use the im-
peachment issue as a rallying cry
for rural, mostly white support.
Days after the impeachment in-
quiry began, Bevin held a news
conference outside the governor’s
mansion, demanding that his
challenger Andy Beshear, the
state’s attorney general, answer
the “yes or no question” of wheth-
er he’d support removing Trump
from office.
In campaign stops and debates
since then, Beshear has punted on
the question, dismissing it as a
distraction tactic employed by an
unpopular incumbent.
“Listen, I’m the state’s top pros-
ecutor,” Beshear told reporters af-
ter one debate. “I could only sup-
port impeachment if I saw evi-
dence, [but] all I’ve done is read
stories. What I can say is that any
proceeding moving forward has
to be fair, it has to be impartial,
and it can’t be about scoring politi-
cal points.”
In Louisiana, which votes nine
days after Kentucky and Missis-
sippi, Republican Eddie Rispone
has pitched himself as a local ver-
sion of Trump — a businessman
and donor who has never held
public office. On Wednesday, in
his sole debate against Democrat-
ic Gov. John Bel Edwards, Rispone
began his first statement with a
defense of the president.
“We have a Democratic Party
that’s going after impeachment,”
Rispone said.
Edwards, who has evaded the
impeachment saga and empha-
sized his ability to work with
Trump, was ready for that.
“You’re always looking to Wash-
ington, D.C.,” Edwards said.
“There’s not much inspiration to
be had there.”
In Mississippi, Reeves has in-
voked impeachment as he cam-paigns to succeed Republican Gov.
Phil Bryant, who is term-limited.
At a political gathering in Ox-
ford, Miss., last week, Reeves com-
pared Hood’s investigations as at-
torney general to those that have
bedeviled Trump.
“Jim Hood has done things that
would embarrass even Jim Comey
and Hillary Clinton,” Reeves said.
And in a new ad running
throughout the state, Reeves has
linked Hood to the impeachment
effort by reminding voters that he
frequently refused to join other
states in lawsuits against the
Obama administration.
“Liberals are impeaching
Trump,” the ad’s narrators warns.
“Do you stand with our president
and Tate Reeves or with the liber-
als and Jim Hood? Mississippi, it’s
time to choose.”
Democrats have never been
weaker in the state, reduced to a
super-minority in the legislature
and losing power in rural counties
with every election this century.
Hood campaigned as an easygo-
ing moderate who loves a good
dove hunt, and he has mostly
shrugged off Reeves’s efforts to
paint him as a radical.
“He’s a liberal Democrat, he has
been for 16 years, he continues to
be, and that’s okay,” Reeves told
The Washington Post in Septem-
ber. “There are some people in
Mississippi that are looking for a
liberal Democrat to represent
them in the governor’s office. But
if you are a conservative, I think
that you only have one option.”
At the time, Hood joked that
Reeves was limping so badly that
“I don’t know if the pope could
help him.”
[email protected]
[email protected]Gus Carrington contributed to this
report.To banish his Washington woes, Trump takes to the road
Aide on Trump’s call with Ukraine leader testified he was told to keep quiet
RORY DOYLE FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Attendees make their way into BancorpSouth Arena in Tupelo, Miss., on Friday ahead of President Trump’s rally there to support the
Republican candidate, Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, in Mississippi’s gubernatorial election, which will be held Tuesday.BY MICHAEL SCHERERThe presidential campaign of
Sen. Kamala D. Harris laid off
more than a dozen field organiz-
ers and shuttered three of its four
offices in New Hampshire, cam-
paign officials said Friday, amid a
dramatic reorganization forced
by slow fundraising and declin-
ing public support.
In another highly symbolic
move, the senator from Califor-
nia will skip the ceremonial in-
person filing of paperwork for
ballot access in New Hampshire,
a traditional milestone that gets
heavy media coverage for presi-
dential candidates.
She will still arrange for her
name to be placed on the ballot,
her advisers said.
“Sen. Harris and this team set
out with one goal — to win the
nomination and defeat Donald
Trump in 2020,” campaign
spokesman Nate Evans said Fri-
day. “To do so, the campaign has
made a strategic decision to
realign resources to go all-in on
Iowa, resulting in office closures
and staff realignments and re-
ductions in New Hampshire.”
The campaign will continue to
have a presence in the first
primary state, with an office
open in Manchester, campaign
officials said.
The announcement marks yet
another setback for Harris, who
launched her campaign with sig-
nificant early fundraising suc-
cess and a rally in Oakland,
Calif., that drew more than
20,000 people. As recently as
July, after the second set of
presidential debates, Harris de-
scribed herself as someone who
was “perceived to be the front-
runner.”
But she struggled early on
with her plans for health care,
first embracing a Medicare-for-
all plan that would eliminate
private health insurance and
then proposing an alternative
approach that would preserve a
role for the current marketplace.
She also struggled to convey a
clear message about what her
presidency would mean for the
country, alternating between
pitches that emphasized her
prosecutorial background or lib-
eral bona fides, and ones that
focused on the economic frustra-
tions of working people.
Since then, her standing has
fallen and her rate of fundraising
has slowed. She continued to
boast more than $10 million in
cash on hand at the end of
September, the fourth-most in
the field.
A mid-July New Hampshire
poll by Saint Anselm College
found her in second place in the
state, with 18 percent support
among likely Democratic pri-
mary voters. By the end of Sep-
tember, the same poll found she
had fallen to fifth place, with
5 percent support.
Similar drops have registered
in national and Iowa polls, where
she has recently been registering
in the mid- to low single digits.
Harris campaign manager
Juan Rodriguez announced the
“organizational realignment”
Wednesday, citing “an incredibly
competitive resource environ-
ment.” In a memo to supporters,
he wrote that staffers would be
moved from headquarters in Bal-
timore, New Hampshire, Nevada
and California to support the
Iowa operation.
The campaign still plans a
media campaign in Iowa that
would cost more than $10 mil-
lion, Rodriguez wrote. The cam-
paign also plans to keep its South
Carolina operation in “full force”
in the hopes that Harris can
make inroads among black vot-
ers who have so far given most of
their support to former vice pres-
ident Joe Biden.
A Harris campaign official
said Friday that there was noth-
ing yet to report about plans for
the Harris Nevada staff.
“Plenty of winning primary
campaigns, like John Kerry’s in
2004 and John McCain’s in 2008,
have had to make tough choices
on their way to the nomination,
and this is no different,” Rodri-
guez wrote in a memo.
Harris appeared Monday on
“Late Night With Seth Meyers” to
double down on her focus on the
first-in-the-nation caucus state.
“I really love being in Iowa. I
have to tell you. I really do,” she
said. “I love people who are just
practical, and who are no-non-
sense.”
[email protected]Harris cuts
presence in
N.H., focuses
on Iowa
Campaign reorganization
spurred by declines in
polls, fundraising