After Hearing Concerns About Trump Ukraine Call, White House Lawyer Rushed to Hide Transcript on Top Secret Server: Report

White House lawyer John Eisenberg reportedly rushed to hide the transcript of President Donald Trump’s July phone call with Ukraine’s leader on a highly classified server shortly after National Security Council official Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman—who testified before House impeachment investigators Wednesday—raised alarm about the conversation.

Citing anonymous officials familiar with Vindman’s account, the Washington Post reported late Wednesday that “Vindman told Eisenberg, the White House’s legal adviser on national security issues, that what the president did was wrong.”

After “scribbling notes on a yellow legal pad,” according to the Post, “Eisenberg proposed a step that other officials have said is at odds with long-standing White House protocol: moving a transcript of the call to a highly classified server and restricting access to it.”

“The White House lawyer later directed the transcript’s removal to a system known as NICE, for NSC Intelligence Collaboration Environment, which is normally reserved for code-word-level ­intelligence programs and top-secret sources and methods,” the Post reported. “Former Trump national security officials said it was unheard of to store presidential calls with foreign leaders on the NICE system but that Eisenberg had moved at least one other transcript of a Trump phone call there.”

House impeachment investigators have asked Eisenberg to testify Monday. It is not yet clear whether the White House will attempt to bar him from participating.

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