President Trump urged Ukraine's president to investigate the Bidens with Attorney General William Barr and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, a rough transcript of a call between the two leaders released Wednesday reveals.
After a whistleblower reported Trump had created a threat to national security, news reports quickly revealed it had to do with a call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which Trump asked Zelensky to investigate his 2020 rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. That was all confirmed in the transcript released Wednesday by the White House.
In the transcript, Trump congratulates Zelensky on his election win and eventually pivots to ask him to "do us a favor." He mentions his theory that Biden, as vice president, worked to have Ukraine's top prosecutor fired because he was investigating Hunter Biden. Trump suggests Zelensky talk to Giuliani about that matter, saying "If you could speak to him that would be great." "Whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great," Trump says, looping in Barr. He later says — multiple times — that he will have both Giuliani and Barr call Zelensky and "we will get to the bottom of it."
Read the whole transcript — which is more like a close approximation of the two leaders' conversation — here.