Trump Releases Rough Transcript Of 1st Ukraine Call On 2nd Day Of Public Impeachment Hearing

President Trump on Friday released the rough transcript of his first phone call with the president of Ukraine shortly after the latter’s election in April.

Trump and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky exchanged pleasantries and compliments, and Trump invited the comedian-turned-politician for a White House visit and said Vice President Michael Pence would attend Zelensky’s inauguration. Pence later was instructed not to attend.

Like the transcript of the July 25 phone call that triggered the House impeachment inquiry, the document was reconstructed from notes and is not a verbatim accounting.

During the July 25 call, Trump asked Zelensky for a “favor,” an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden, his son, Hunter, and a debunked conspiracy theory involving Ukraine’s role in trying to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. U.S. intelligence agencies and a special prosecutor's report linked election interference to Russia, a conclusion Trump has refused to accept.

At the start of Friday’s impeachment hearing, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, read the transcript of the first call into the record. Committee Chairman Schiff, D-Calif., then thanked the president for releasing the transcript and called on him to release the thousands of documents the committee has subpoenaed but withheld by the administration.

During the weekend, Trump offered to release the transcript to prove he had no animosity toward Ukraine despite testimony indicating he had his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, orchestrate a shadow foreign policy that undermined official diplomatic efforts.

The release came just minutes ahead of an appearance by former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who said Giuliani conducted a smear campaign that led to her ouster.

The public phase of the impeachment inquiry got underway Wednesday with testimony by veteran diplomats William Taylor, the acting ambassador to Ukraine, and George Kent, the State Department’s top Ukraine expert. The two described Giuliani’s machinations and their understanding that military aid to Ukraine and a White House visit by Zelensky were dependent on a declaration of a Biden investigation.