Morrison, Volker undercut claims of 'quid pro quo,' 'bribery' and 'cover-up' [Tr]

Fox News ^ | 11/19/2019 | Gregg Re, Alex Pappas

[Sam Gamgee]

I hate to even go there, but even IF Trump said “ I will give you funding, if you do opposition research for me on the Biden’s” would that even be impeachable?

[Old Student]

Lt. Col. Vindman is not the person who makes that call. Need to know and clearance are determined by other officials. IF those officials determined that person had the clearance AND need to know, then he was authorized to talk. If not, he committed an offense against the UCMJ, and should be prosecuted for it. MInd you, it requires BOTH clearance and need to know to perform official duties.

Old Student
WRM, MSgt, USAF(Ret.)

[palmer]

Windman's testimony was that the two people he briefed about the call had both clearance and need to know. One was a guy who had testified, and that was correct. The other was presumably Ciaramella.

As you said the security officials determine clearance and need-to-know. But once they have made that determination, then the people can talk about related subjects. Windman doesn't have to go ask for a determination for each document he wants to share, or in this case, his classified notes. That's not how it works.

The salient question is whether the new conversation with Ukraine was a continuation of past classified sharing between WIndman and (presumably) Ciaramella. A related question is how the Windman to Ciaramella link was made. If they were previously sharing classified info on related topics that's fine, because that would cover the Ukraine call. But if that previous sharing was a back channel that never had an official blessing, that's a problem.