The White House on Wednesday released the bombshell transcript of President Donald Trump’s phone call with the president of Ukraine where Trump urges his counterpart to investigate Joe Biden and tries to put him in touch with his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani – and even brings up Hillary Clinton’s email server.
In the call, the president mentions political rival Biden by name, seeks an inquiry of a company ties to Biden’s surviving son, Hunter, and predicts Ukraine’s economy will do ‘better and better.’, Mail Online reports.
He urges the president to contact his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who this summer called off a planned mission to Ukraine after bringing up a Ukrainian energy company where Hunter Biden served on the board.
‘There is a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that, so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great,’ Trump says, according to the transcript.
‘Biden went about bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it… it sounds horrible to me,’ the president told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The Ukrainian president assured Trump: ‘The next prosecutor .general will be 100 per cent my person, my candidate, who will be approved, by the parliament and will start. As a new prosecutor in September. He or she will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue. The issue of the investigation of the case is actually the issue of making sure to restore the honesty so we will take care of that and will work on the investigation.’
Ukraine president Zelensky said he wanted to ‘drain the swamp’ and called Trump a ‘great teacher for all of us,’ according to the transcript.
Trump dangled the influence of the U.S. He said ‘we do a lot for Ukraine’ and ‘spend a lot of effort and a lot of time.’
He also appeared to reference the DNC or Hillary Clinton’s server, asking Zelensky to ‘find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine.’
Trump told his counterpart: ‘I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that’s really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved.’
‘Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what’s happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great,’ Trump said.
The transcript became a political hot potato this week as Democrats clamored for its release with predictions that it would show Trump committing impeachable offenses.
They argue that Trump’s request for a new investigation into the Bidens was motivated by a desire to politically cripple the former vice president, who was then thought of as his main rival in the 2020 presidential election.
Trump released the call transcript hours after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House was conducting a formal impeachment inquiry of the president.
Democrats are searching for evidence that Trump dangled a quid pro quo by holding up military aid or offering other inducements.
Trump referenced Joe Biden’s role in pushing Ukraine to fire a previous prosecutor who the U.S. and European allies believed was not rooting out corruption.
Trump told Zelensky: ‘I heard the [previous] prosecutor was treated very badly and he was a very fair prosecutor,’ Trump said. ‘Your economy is going to get better and better I predict.’
He told him: ‘I have many Urkainian friends, they’re great people.’
Zelensky flattered Trump and told him on his last trip to New York he stayed at Trump Tower.
He assured Trump: ‘We will be very serious about the case and will work on the investigation.’
The two men talked about meeting on Trump’s then-planned trip to Poland. Zelensky suggested a joint trip to Ukraine. ‘We can either take my plane and go to Ukraine or we can take your plane, which is probably much better than mine,’ Zelensky said.
