More than once, President Donald Trump brought up how much the U.S. has done for Ukraine.
Time and again, he asked Ukraine’s president for help.
There was no explicit quid pro quo in Trump’s half-hour phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskiy last July. But it wouldn’t have been a stretch to make a connection between Trump’s pleas for help and his mentions of U.S. assistance.
“We do a lot for Ukraine,” Trump said at one point.
“Do us a favor,” he asked at another.
The White House released a rough transcript of the two leaders’ phone call Wednesday, and it showed that Trump repeatedly prodded Zelenskiy to work with the U.S. attorney general and lawyer Rudy Giuliani to investigate Democratic political rival Joe Biden.
Trump raised allegations, without citing any evidence, that the former vice president sought to interfere with a Ukrainian prosecutor in regard to son Hunter.
“Whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great,” Trump told Zelenskiy, asking for help in investigating Biden. He referred to Giuliani, his personal attorney and trusted adviser, as a “highly respected man” and said, “I will ask him to call you along with the attorney general.”
After saying Giuliani and Barr would be in touch, Trump referenced Ukraine’s economy, saying: “Your economy is going to get better and better I predict. You have a lot of assets. It’s a great country.”
Zelenskiy had earlier brought up his desire to purchase more Javelin anti-tank missiles from the U.S.
The July 25 conversation between the two leaders is part of a whistleblower’s complaint that is central to the formal impeachment inquiry. launched Tuesday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The White House account reveals that Trump was willing to engage a foreign leader to dig up dirt on a political foe and that he went so far as to volunteer his attorney general to help.
Days before the call, Trump froze nearly $400 million in aid to Ukraine. It was not clear from the summary whether Zelenskiy was aware of that, and the White House did not respond to requests to clarify. The president has insisted he did nothing wrong and has denied that any request for help was tied to the aid freeze.
During a meeting with Trump Wednesday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, Zelenskiy said he felt no pressure to act on his call with Trump.
“Nobody pushed me,” he said.
It’s illegal under federal law to seek foreign government assistance for U.S. elections.
The release of the rough transcript sets the framework of the political debate to come. Trump, at the U.N. on Wednesday, dismissed it and said as he often does that’s he’s the victim of “the single greatest witch hunt in American history.” Democrats say it lays the groundwork for the congressional impeachment inquiry.
Trump aides believed that his oblique, message-by-suggestion style of speaking would not lend itself to the discovery of a “smoking gun” in Wednesday’s summary. His previous messages to his staff were at the center of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into obstruction of justice in the Trump-Russia case.
Trump’s “favor” for Zelenskiy was seeking his help looking into a cybersecurity firm that investigated the 2016 hack of the Democratic National Committee and determined it was carried out by Russia. Trump has falsely suggested Crowdstrike was owned by a Ukrainian.
Then Trump moved to “the other thing” — raising the subject of one of his leading Democratic rivals and a Ukrainian prosecutor: “There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that.”
In the conversation, Trump doesn’t distinguish between the roles of Giuliani, his personal attorney and political ally, and Barr, who as the nation’s top law enforcement officer is meant to be above the political fray. Barr has been a staunch defender of Trump, most notably during the Mueller investigation.
It’s not the first time Trump has sought foreign assistance to undermine a political rival. He publicly asked Russia to find missing Hillary Clinton emails in 2016, but this is his first documented time doing so while president with the weight of the U.S. government at his disposal.
The White House did not say whether there are any records of Giuliani’s communications with Zelenskiy, nor did it address whether the president’s personal attorney learned anything from them. The White House has also not commented on whether Trump discussed Biden on an April 21 call with the Ukrainian leader or with any other foreign power.
The president took the call from the White House residence, while officials in the Situation Room listened in and worked to keep a record of the conversation, as is standard practice. They used voice recognition software, but the call was not recorded. Trump ordered the document declassified Tuesday.
