What Mr. Trump Said
“He knew long before, and he helped write it, too.”
False.
Mr. Trump was referring to a New York Times report about how Mr. Schiff learned about the whistle-blower’s concerns days before the complaint was filed. The Times did not report that Mr. Schiff “helped write it.” A spokesman for Mr. Schiff said he had seen no part of the complaint before it was filed.
What Mr. Trump Said
“Well, the whistle-blower was very inaccurate.”
“The whistle-blower said terrible things about the call, but he then — I then found out he was secondhand and thirdhand. In other words, he didn’t know what was on the call.”
False.
The whistle-blower did, in fact, have firsthand information, according to a statement from the Office of the Inspector General of the intelligence agencies.
“The whistle-blower stated on the form that he or she possessed both firsthand and other information,” the office said on Monday. It also noted that the inspector general “did not find that the complainant could ‘provide nothing more than secondhand or unsubstantiated assertions.’”
In the complaint, the whistle-blower also wrote that “I was not a direct witness to most of the events described” — suggesting he or she did witness at least one of the events described.
And contrary to Mr. Trump’s claim, the whistle-blower’s account of the conversation between Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky is quite accurate, based on the reconstructed transcript released by the White House.
The complaint reports that White House officials said Mr. Trump pressured Mr. Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter Biden; to assist in “uncovering that allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election originated in Ukraine”; and to meet with Attorney General William P. Barr and Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer.
All of this is supported by the transcript.
What Mr. Trump Said
“I heard Rick Scott today say: ‘That was a perfect conversation. How can they impeach him on that conversation?’”
This is exaggerated.
“Perfect” is how Mr. Trump himself has repeatedly described his phone call with Mr. Zelensky, but The Times was unable to find any instance of Senator Scott, Republican of Florida, using the same word.