5:55 p.m. ET, November 16, 2019
Transcript was mistakenly moved into classified server, Morrison said
From CNN's Marshall Cohen and Zachary Cohen
Tim Morrison, the former National Security Council official, testified he was told the moving of the transcript between the President and Ukraine’s leader to a highly classified server was a “mistake."
During his deposition, Morrison relayed senior NSC lawyer John Eisenberg’s explanation that Eisenberg’s executive secretary mistakenly put it in the highly classified system. Morrison acknowledged that he and Eisenberg had previously discussed that access to the transcript should be restricted.
They found out that it was in the classified server while they were “trying to gain access to it to prepare the President for the planned Warsaw meeting,” in September, Morrison said.
Upon finding the transcript in the special server, they asked themselves, “how did it get on there?”
Morrison continued, “John (Eisenberg) related that he did not ask for it to be put on there, but that the Executive Secretariat staff misunderstood his recommendation for how to restrict access.”
Morrison testified that there was nothing in the call transcript that met the requirements to be put on a highly classified system.
Morrison also said that despite Eisenberg telling him that the transcript was moved by mistake, it was not removed from the classified system after their conversation.
He said he did not know why.
“As of the third week of September, it was not—it had not been taken off,” said the former NSC official.
Morrison also testified that he was concerned the July 25 call would wind up becoming a partisan political issue if it leaked.
He asked White House legal staff to restrict access to the Trump-Zelensky call transcript because he was afraid it would leak.
He testified that he never asked for something like this to be done before for any other presidential phone call.
The whistleblower complaint said, and the White House later confirmed, that National Security Council officials moved the transcript into a highly classified server that is typically meant for top national security secrets or military intelligence.
Morrison testified that he didn’t ask for this to happen.