The House impeachment inquiry is zeroing in on two White House lawyers privy to a discussion about moving a memo recounting President Donald Trump’s phone call with the leader of Ukraine into a highly restricted computer system normally reserved for documents about covert action.

Deepening their reach into the West Wing, impeachment investigators have summoned former national security adviser John Bolton to testify next week. But they also are seeking testimony of two other political appointees — John Eisenberg, the lead lawyer for the National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, a senior associate counsel to the president.

Eisenberg, 52, has served as deputy White House counsel for national security issues since Trump came into office. Before this, he worked in President George W. Bush’s Justice Department and in the Washington, D.C. office of the Kirkland & Ellis law firm.

The firm’s alumni include prominent conservative legal minds including Attorney General Bill Barr, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone.

Politico described Eisenberg as a quiet and deeply private man. He kept such a low profile in the White House that the president reportedly did not know his name for some time, instead calling him “Mike.”

Politico also cited friends and former colleagues who depict Eisenberg as a “brilliant” lawyer who is extremely cautious, perhaps even paranoid. The president reportedly did not like Eisenberg’s rigorous note-taking during meetings, fearing he could use the records against him in the future.

Eisenberg is “extremely paranoid,” in the words of one of his former colleagues at the NSC, where he is responsible for providing legal advice on everything from Syria to national security leak investigations to immigration.

A national security specialist who was previously earning at least $1 million a year as a corporate attorney, Eisenberg is “a classic lawyer,” another former NSC colleague recalled: He never says anything when he can nod his approval and never puts anything in emails if he can say it to your face.

Fun fact: Both Eisenberg and Ellis were involved in the leakers of intelligence documents to Devin Nunes back in 2017.

The House impeachment inquiry is zeroing in on two White House lawyers privy to a discussion about moving a memo recounting President Donald Trump’s phone call with the leader of Ukraine into a highly restricted computer system normally reserved for documents about covert action.

Deepening their reach into the West Wing, impeachment investigators have summoned former national security adviser John Bolton to testify next week. But they also are seeking testimony of two other political appointees — John Eisenberg, the lead lawyer for the National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, a senior associate counsel to the president.

And so we’ll see what happens.

What happened yesterday? Two White House lawyers testified. Here’s what we learned:

The senior White House lawyer who placed a record of President Donald Trump’s July 25 call with Ukraine’s president in a top-secret system also instructed at least one official who heard the call not to tell anyone about it, according to testimony heard by House impeachment investigators this week.

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a decorated Army officer who served as the National Security Council’s director for Ukraine, told lawmakers that he went to the lawyer, John Eisenberg, to register his concerns about the call, in which Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the Bidens, according to a person in the room for Vindman’s deposition on Tuesday.

Eisenberg recorded Vindman’s complaints in notes on a yellow legal pad, then conferred with his deputy Michael Ellis about how to handle the conversation because it was clearly “sensitive,” Vindman testified. The lawyers then decided to move the record of the call into the NSC’s top-secret codeword system—a server normally used to store highly classified material that only a small group of officials can access.

Vindman did not consider the move itself as evidence of a cover-up, according to a person familiar with his testimony. But he said he became disturbed when, a few days later, Eisenberg instructed him not to tell anyone about the call—especially because it was Vindman’s job to coordinate the interagency process with regard to Ukraine policy.

Eisenberg’s decision to move the call record to the codeword system following his conversation with Vindman was first reported by The Washington Post. But Eisenberg’s subsequent request that Vindman not disclose the content of the call to anyone has not been previously reported.

An NSC spokesperson and Eisenberg did not return requests for comment.
Tim Morrison, the NSC’s top Russia and Europe adviser, reportedly told lawmakers in his opening statement during a deposition on Thursday that he was worried the July 25 call, which he listened in on along with Vindman, would leak. According to CNN, Morrison “was involved with discussions after the call about how to handle the transcript.”

It certainly looks like a coverup by the lawyers, but that’s not my question. I want to know if the “record” of the call put on the safe server is the same as the one that Trump released.

I found this interesting —

A big poll came out today. Guess what? Americans are divided on impeachment/removal, but it still id very high. Most notable to me — Trump’s approval rating has dropped a lot among Republicans.

Americans are split essentially even on impeaching Donald Trump and removing him from office, with criticism on both sides of the issue — toward Trump, for his response to the inquiry, and toward congressional Democrats for holding their initial hearings behind closed doors.

Against the backdrop of impeachment, Trump’s job approval rating is stable and low, at 38% in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, with one notable result: a career low in approval among Republicans, 74%, down steeply from a career-high 87% in July.

The public is divided 49% to 47% on whether Congress should impeach Trump and remove him from office. Support for impeaching and removing Bill Clinton was lower, from 27% to 41% in ABC/Washington Post polls in 1998, with consistent majorities, 57% to 71%, opposed.

By August 1974, about 30% of Republicans favored removing Nixon from office. He resigned that month. Trump is already at 18% — before the real hearings even begin. https://t.co/EOBs40ISdE

— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) November 1, 2019