As the impeachment inquiry heats up, Donald Trump continues to urge people to ‘read the transcript’ of his call with the Ukrainian president. His assumption is that if they did they would see that he did nothing impeachable.

What the White House issued last month is not actually a verbatim transcript of the call. Instead, as the White House fully admitted, it is a summary of the call. As the White House would like to present it.

The summary was still bad enough that the Democrats started an impeachment inquiry. But based on the summary, Trump is unlikely to be convicted by the Senate.

The problem for Trump is that the verbatim transcript will eventually come out. People are going to read it. Trump’s summary is going to look like a coverup. And coverups are what sink politicians.