Pompeo says Trump-Zelensky call was ‘consistent’ with administration policy

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said that President Trump’s infamous July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was “consistent” with the administration’s policies. 

The phone call in which Trump pressed Zelensky to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is at the center of House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into the president. 

“The call was consistent with what I had a long set of conversations with President Trump on our policy for an awfully long time,” Pompeo said in an interview with Fox News. “Our policy has been very clear all along with respect to Ukraine.”

Asked whether any parts of the call were not included in the rough transcript released by the White House, Pompeo doubled down on the fact that it was “consistent” with the administration’s Ukraine policy.{mosads}

“I heard the president very clearly on that call talking about making sure that corruption — whether that corruption took place in the 2016 election, whether that corruption was continuing to take place, that the moneys that were being provided would be used appropriately,” Pompeo said. 

“It was very consistent with what I’d understood President Trump and our administration to be doing all along,” he added. 

In the Fox interview Pompeo also lamented the fact that State Department lawyers are not permitted to be part of closed-door witness testimonies in the impeachment inquiry, calling it “deeply troubling.”

“We’re not allowed to have State Department lawyers in the room. That’s deeply troubling,” he said. “But my understanding is that every one of these individuals had the same Ukrainian policy that President Trump had.”

White House official Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman testified this week that the rough transcript released by the White House did not include key words and phrases from the call, according to The New York Times.

Trump has sought to dismiss Vindman, calling him a “Never Trumper” in a tweet.