White House Releases Memo of First Trump-Zelensky Call, Undermines ‘Root Out Corruption’ Claim
Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images.
The White House released a transcript of President Donald Trump’s first call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, which does not mention corruption as the Trump admin had said.
The transcript was released while former Amb. Marie Yovanovitch began testifying to Congress about Trump allegedly pressuring Ukraine for his political benefit.
Many commentators were quick to point out that a previous readout of the call said that Trump and Zelensky had discussed rooting out corruption in the country, but the newly-released transcript shows that Trump does not talk about corruption in any way during the call.
This seems notable. There’s no mention of combatting corruption in the first transcript of Trump’s call with Zelensky, despite the White House telling reporters in an April readout that rooting out corruption was discussed. I’ve asked the White House to explain the discrepancy.
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) November 15, 2019
As @kaitlancollins noted, the document the White House released today does not match its official “readout” of the April call.
The readout, below, said Trump talked about rooting out corruption and supporting Ukraine’s sovereignty. The document shows no mention of either. pic.twitter.com/hC4n6Cgmd4
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) November 15, 2019
great point here. furthermore, @Jim_Jordan’s point was that the aid was withheld because they were testing out Zelensky to see if he was the real deal. This doesn’t seem to indicate that there was any of that going on. If it was a driving force, why wasnt it mentioned here? https://t.co/vWPmTLNFf3
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) November 15, 2019
This is how the White House described the first call with President Zelenskyy which notes discussion to “root out corruption” which does NOT appear in call memo. The readout also doesn’t mention the president’s reference to “Miss Universe” pageant pic.twitter.com/RQPTXU2NMp
— Kelly O’Donnell (@KellyO) November 15, 2019
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