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Trump Says He Would ‘Love’ To Release A Transcript Of His Call With Ukraine


President Donald Trump said on Sunday afternoon that he’d “love” to release a transcript of his call in July with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, during which Trump reportedly tried to pressure Zelensky into investigating Joe Biden.

“I’m going to talk about it,” Trump said, according to a press pool report. “I would love to do it but you have to be a little bit shy about doing it.”

Another pool report quoted Trump as promising to “make a determination about how to release it.”

“It was an absolutely perfect conversation,” he reportedly said. “The problem is when you’re speaking to foreign leader, you don’t want foreign leaders to feel they shouldn’t be speaking openly and good.”

Earlier in the day, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin outright rejected suggestions to release the transcript, saying it would be “inappropriate” to do so.

A whistleblower’s complaint reportedly details how Trump pushed Zelensky to investigate his 2020 Democratic rival. However, the President claimed that “nothing was said that was in any way wrong” during the call.
 

Giuliani: Can’t Say ‘100%’ Trump Didn’t Use Aid As Leverage For Ukraine Biden Probe


President Trump’s lawyer wouldn’t say for sure Monday that Trump didn’t threaten to cut off aid to Ukraine if the country didn’t investigate Joe Biden’s son.



In an interview with Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo, Rudy Giuliani said he couldn’t say “100%” whether Trump used $250 million in military aid to Ukraine as leverage over the country’s government because “I don’t have our version” of what happened on a July phone call that’s now at the center of an emerging scandal.

Trump has confirmed that he spoke on the phone on July 25 with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. That call is the subject of a whistleblower’s complaint because Trump reportedly pressured Zelensky repeatedly to re-open an investigation into Hunter Biden that could damage his father’s presidential campaign.

After that call — and while Giuliani met in Spain last month with an adviser to Zelensky — the Trump administration was withholding $250 million in security assistance from Ukraine that had been appropriated by Congress, raising questions of whether Trump attempted to use it as leverage.

“Did the President threaten to cut off aid to the Ukraine?” Bartiromo asked Giuliani Monday morning.

“No, that was a false story,” Giuliani replied.

“One hundred percent?” Bartiromo pressed.

“Well I can’t tell you it’s 100 percent, I don’t have our version,” Giuliani said.

Giuliani pivoted to Ukraine’s foreign minister, who denied on Saturday that Trump had pressured Zelensky during the call.

Rather than passing on the whistleblower’s complaint to Congress from the intelligence community’s inspector general, the Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire has withheld the complaint. And while the Ukrainian government released a brief readout of the call in July, the White House did not.

Trump has acknowledged that “corruption” came up during the call, and Giuliani said Monday that even if the President did withhold military aid in order to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political adversary’s son, “what Biden did is much worse.”

Giuliani, in his capacity as Trump’s attorney, has pushed the story for weeks, and promised in light of the recent coverage that there was more to come.

The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, both reported last week that the aid did not come up during Trump and Zelensky’s phone call.
 

Ukrainian Government To The US: Please Leave Us Out Of Your Mess


Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his administration don’t want anything to do with the scandal currently roiling in Washington, Reutersreported on Monday.

Zelenskiy and President Donald Trump are scheduled to meet during the U.N. General Assembly this week amid reports that Trump attempted to pressure Zelenskiy to open an investigation into 2020 Democratic candidate Joe Biden. The scandal has galvanized Democrats’ calls for further investigation and even impeachment, while Republicans have mostly remained silent.

Ukraine’s top national security coordinator, Oleksandr Danylyuk, told Reuters that the country wants to maintain good relations with the U.S., rather than become the center of partisan tug-of-war.

“Understanding the importance of Ukraine’s support in the context of everything that’s going on in our region, any attempts to use Ukraine by one party or the other is clearly detrimental to our relations,” Danylyuk told Reuters.
 

Trump Denies Withholding Ukraine Aid In Exchange For Biden Probe, Undermining Giuliani


President Donald Trump denied Monday that he withheld $250 million in aid for Ukraine as leverage to force Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to churn up dirt on Hunter Biden and, by extension, former Vice President Joe Biden.

“I did not make a statement that you have to do this or I won’t give you aid,” Trump said, according to pool reports. “I didn’t put any pressure on them whatsoever … Joe Biden and his son are corrupt.”

It has been confirmed that Trump spoke on the phone with Zelensky about Biden, and that the aid was held up around the same time, but not yet that the two are connected. Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said Monday that he couldn’t say “100 percent” that Trump didn’t threaten to withhold the money on a phone call between the two leaders in late July.

Trump has been giving lip service to wanting the transcript from the call released. But he told the assembled reporters Monday that it wouldn’t set a “great precedent” to release the transcript.

 

House Threatens To Subpoena State Over Giuliani’s Ukraine Escapades


Three House panels investigating Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani’s attempts to push the Ukrainian government to fabricate damaging information about Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden threatened to subpoena the State Department if it refused to comply with an earlier request for information, a Monday letter shows.



The letter, addressed to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, accuses the State Department of withholding documents and other information that the committees sent as part of a wide-ranging investigation into Giuliani’s role in pressuring Kyiv for information on the business dealings of Biden’s son.

Giuliani has admitted to asking the Ukrainian government for damaging information on Bidens elder and younger, and for documents that would help discredit the prosecution of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

“If press reports are accurate, such corrupt use of presidential power for the President’s personal political interest—and not for the national interest—is a betrayal of the President’s oath of office and cannot go unchecked,” the letter reads.

The House Foreign Affairs, Oversight, and Intelligence Committees opened the investigation into Giuliani’s attempts to get information from Kyiv on Sept. 9. The same day, the Intelligence Community Inspector General approached Congress with information that a whistleblower from within the intelligence community had filed a complaint, and that the Trump administration had blocked the IG from forwarding it to Congress.

The original letters sought records relating to any potential investigations of Hunter Biden and of the Ukraine-based corruption allegations that played a role in bringing down Manafort, as well as information about a July 25 phone call between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Trump.

The panels sent a similar request to White House counsel Pat Cipollone. The Monday letter does not address the status of that request.

The State Department may have played a key role in the scandal, after U.S. envoy for the Ukraine crisis Kurt Volker reportedly helped arrange a meeting between Giuliani and a top aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Giuliani reportedly debriefed State Department officials about the contents of his meetings.

“Seeking to enlist a foreign actor to interfere with an American election undermines our sovereignty, democracy, and the Constitution, which the President is sworn to preserve, protect, and defend,” the Monday letter reads. “Yet the President and his personal attorney now appear to be openly engaging in precisely this type of abuse of power involving the Ukrainian government ahead of the 2020 election.”
 
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