Ukraine Transcript: Trump Repeatedly Pushed President To Investigate Joe Biden And His Son

President Donald Trump repeatedly pushed the president of Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Bide and his son, Hunter. According to the transcript of a call released by the White House, Trump offered aid in exchange for an investigation into the Democratic presidential candidate.

“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 so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great,” Trump said according to the transcript.

“Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it. … It sounds horrible to me.”

“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,” Trump said.

It appears that Trump was referencing Yuriy Lutsenko, the Ukrainian prosecutor general who Zelensky asked the Ukrainian parliament to remove this summer. Trump and Giuliani had been pushing Lutsenko to open investigations into the Bidens and the DNC matter.

Trump also discussed the Democratic National Committee’s server that was hacked by Russia during the 2016 election, according to US intelligence agencies.

“The server, they say Ukraine has it,” Trump said. “I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it.”

Trump praised his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and asked the Ukrainian president to speak with him.

“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,” Trump said.

“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 also suggested he would get Attorney General William Barr to call the Ukrainian president. It would be highly unusual for the U.S. AG to involve himself with foreign leaders in this way. Trump mentioned Barr repeatedly.

“I will have Mr. Giuliani give you a call and I am also going to have Attorney General Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it,” Trump said.

At one point, Trump brings up Special Counsel Robert Mueller, saying: “As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine.”

Trump was referring to Mueller’s congressional testimony, which had taken place the day before the phone call. Mueller had been investigating potential Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The call does not show an explicit quid pro quo but Trump brought up aid to Ukraine and then pivoted to Biden.

The transcript is not a verbatim record of the conversation, as the document makes clear. It is common practice for the White House to prepare summaries of conversations based on notes and recollections due to communications issues and other factors.

This is a developing story and more information may be added as it becomes available.