Pompeo and Mnuchin reportedly urged Trump not to release the Ukraine call transcript
The decision to release the transcript of President Trump's Ukraine call certainly wasn't unanimous among administration officials.
White House aides, The Washington Post reports, were "divided" about whether Trump should put out the rough transcript of his July call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which sparked a whistleblower complaint.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
But according to the Post, at least two Cabinet officials thought releasing it was a terrible idea: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin "vociferously argued against it." Both, as the Post notes, had expressed reluctance about releasing private conversations with foreign leaders in Sunday show appearances. Some of Trump's senior advisers also reportedly warned him that sharing the conversation "might not be exculpatory" like he seemed to think.
On the other hand, despite being mentioned on the call, Barr was reportedly among those recommending Trump release the notes, an argument also made some of Trump's lawyers. In the end, Trump sided with Barr, probably in part because privately, the Post writes, he "did not believe his conversation with the Ukrainian president was problematic." Needless to say, when the memorandum dropped Wednesday and Democrats began to read it over, he was in for a surprise.
