“White House officials ordered information about President Trump’s phone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky to be removed from the classified server typically used to store such information and placed on a hyper-secure ‘code word’ server. Such special protections are typically reserved for material of the gravest sensitivity: detailed information about covert operations, for example, where exposure can get people killed… It is difficult to overstate just how abnormal and suspicious treating the call in that manner would be. It strongly suggests White House staff knew of serious wrongdoing by the president and attempted to bury it — a profound abuse of classified systems for political, and possibly criminal, purposes.”
Kelly Magsamen, Washington Post

“As the whistleblower notes, the intent was to ‘lock down’ evidence of the conversation. This move shows us that Trump's closest advisers recognized quickly that the call posed a major problem and bucked normal protocol to try to hide it. Lawyers call this ‘consciousness of guilt’ -- meaning that when people try to hide evidence or influence witnesses or otherwise obstruct justice, they typically do so for a reason. This kind of proof can be devastating in court…

“[Moreover] Giuliani's involvement in Trump's efforts to have Ukraine gather dirt on political opponents is itself a major problem for Trump: why on earth was Giuliani -- a private citizen and not an employee of the US government -- involved in any of this at all? The answer, it seems, is that Trump's dealings with Ukraine were intended for his own personal and political benefit and not for (or perhaps at the expense of) the best interests of the United States.”
Elie Honig, CNN

“Trump has never recognized any distinction between his public and private life. Extraordinarily, he didn’t divest from his businesses even while serving as president. Even worse, he treated the government as if it were his property. The Ukraine scandal is another case of Trump treating the executive branch as though it had been acquired by the Trump Organization…

“[Representative Mark Meadows] observed in the president’s defense, ‘He didn’t see anything wrong with the conversation he had with a foreign leader.’ That is probably accurate. Trump has a finely honed antenna for assessing winner versus loser, or loyal versus disloyal. But the formulation of moral concepts is not a function he can perform… No American president has more richly deserved impeachment.”
Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine

Regarding the Bidens, “There are no indications that Hunter’s activities swayed any decision his father made as vice president. Joe Biden did pressure Ukraine’s fledgling post-Yanukovych president to remove a public prosecutor—as part of concerted U.S. policy. So did every other Western government and dozens of Ukrainian and international pro-democracy activists. The problem was not that the prosecutor was too aggressive with corrupt businessman-politicians like Hunter Biden’s boss; it was that he was too lenient…

“And Hunter Biden was hardly the only prominent American who did well for himself during Ukraine’s transition. Another Burisma director was Cofer Black, George W. Bush’s CIA counterterrorism chief. The Republican operative and future Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort worked for Yanukovych. So did Obama White House Counsel Gregory Craig… All too often, the scandal isn’t that the conduct in question is forbidden by federal law, but rather, how much scandalous conduct is perfectly legal—and broadly accepted… Impeachment alone will not end our national calamity. If we want to help our country heal, we must start holding ourselves, our friends, and our allies—and not just our enemies—to its highest standards.”
Sarah Chayes, The Atlantic

Finally, “While Trump’s ‘spy’ comments were certainly shocking, in reality, they are actually not that far off from official justice department policy when dealing with whistleblowers who go to the press with classified information. For years, many of these brave people – who have exposed CIA torture, drone strikes, unprecedented cyber attacks and mass surveillance – have been prosecuted by administrations from both parties under the Espionage Act… It’s long past time that [Congress] passed robust whistleblower protections for all intelligence community members so they don’t have to constantly worry about retaliation or worse for exposing illegal or corrupt actions.”
Trevor Timm, The Guardian