After a week-long build-up by the media and Democrats, the release of the transcript of President Trump’s July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has turned out to yet another over-hyped nothingburger that —like the Russia hoax— appears to have been orchestrated by Resistance−minded deep-staters desperate to take out the president and avoid exposure.
The transcript of the phone call shows great rapport between the two leaders and reveals that they were both interested in getting to the bottom of Ukraine’s past corruption and its involvement in the Russia collusion hoax.
After Zelensky talked about steps he’d already taken to clean up the corruption in his country, Trump did request a review of corruption involving Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, although not “repeatedly” as the Washington Post, AP and Wall Street Journal previously reported. And at no point did the president make a “promise” or “quid pro quo” as Wapo’s sources previously alleged.
The Post reported on Monday that Trump had ordered his staff to freeze nearly $400 million in aid to Ukraine a few days before the phone call with Zelensky to use as a bargaining chip, but the call transcript does not show Trump explicitly mentioning the aid.
The transcript proves the #FakeNews got it WRONG!
❌ No quid pro quo
❌ No mention of Biden 8 times
❌ No evidence of wrongdoing pic.twitter.com/g6wd1lfUEa— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) September 25, 2019
The conversation begins with the president congratulating Zelensky on his election victory and the Ukrainian president telling Trump that he intends to “drain the swamp here in our country.”
During the call, Trump noted that the United States has been “very very good to Ukraine” and the rest of Europe should pitch in more. Zelensky said he agreed with the president “1000 percent.”
The president went on to request Zelensky’s cooperation with the DOJ’s probe of Ukraine’s interference in the 2016 election, mentioning “Crowdstrike” as a specific concern because its server is reportedly stored in Ukraine.
In 2016, after a Democratic National Committee network was breached and its politically damaging emails published on Wikileaks, rather than allowing the FBI to investigate, the DNC hired the cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike to do a technical review.
A court filing in June in the United States v. Stone case revealed that the FBI and DOJ were only allowed to see Crowdstrike’s “draft” report on the alleged hacking and that report was redacted.
When asked about the comment Wednesday, a CrowdStrike spokeswoman provided the following statement:
“With regards to our investigation of the DNC hack in 2016, we provided all forensic evidence and analysis to the FBI. As we’ve stated before, we stand by our findings and conclusions that have been fully supported by the U.S. Intelligence community.”
According to NY Post reporter Paul Sperry, U.S. Attorney John Durham is zeroing in on a Ukrainian DNC operative who was allegedly heavily involved with the election meddling.
BREAKING: In prosecutor Durham's crosshairs is Alexandra Chalupa, a Ukrainian-American and DNC operative who worked w Biden's hand-picked Ukrainian prosecutor Sytnyk to leak the fake "black ledger" on Manafort to help Hillary. Soon after, the FBI subjected Manafort to FISA spying pic.twitter.com/VYBayVZ1Hj
— Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_) September 25, 2019
During the phone call, Zelinsky detailed steps that he has already taken to combat corruption in his country and vowed to conduct an open and thorough investigation into the issues surrounding Ukraine’s 2016 election interference.
At this point, Trump mentioned the prosecutor whose investigation was shut down, saying it was “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,” the president said, adding that he would like Zelinsky to talk to his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who had been conducting his own investigation into these issues.
“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 continued. “Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it…It sounds horrible to me.”
Biden has openly acknowledged that while vice president he demanded that Ukraine fire its top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who was investigating corruption at the natural gas firm Burisma Holdings while his son Hunter Biden was on the board. The younger Biden had no experience in the natural gas industry and has admitted to being addicted to cocaine and alcohol, as well as frequenting prostitutes.
https://twitter.com/SohrabAhmari/status/1176938566385131520?s=20
“Joe Biden’s family had pulled in well over $1.5 billion while he was the vice president of the United States — complete sale of the office,” Giuliani said Wednesday morning on “Fox & Friends.”
“I did this for a living, investigate corruption — Democrats and Republicans. I’ve never seen something that stinks as much as this, with a president of the United States who was on notice of all of this and let this guy run wild… selling the presidency.”
“Part of the place it was created is in Ukraine. And [do] you want to know why I started investigating Ukraine back in November of last year? Because a very significant, distinguished investigator came to me and said the Ukrainians, for year-and-a-half, have been trying to get to your FBI, information much more significant.”
“There was actually real collusion that involved Ukrainians,” Giuliani continued. “But the FBI did everything they could to keep this information away… Because at the core of this is an FBI agent… She put all this together. The suspicion was, at the time, she was working for George Soros. The reality is she is now employed by George Soros.”
As explosive as Giuliani’s claims may be, The Washington Post was more interested flogging the “whistleblower” scandal Wednesday, reporting that Trump’s Acting Director of National Security Joseph Maguire had threatened to resign unless he was allowed to speak freely to Congress.
Trump's intelligence chief threatened to quit if White House forced him to stonewall Congress on whistleblower, officials say https://t.co/fwdIo5VIT1
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) September 25, 2019
The Director of National Intelligence however quickly rebuked the Post’s story, saying he has never considered “quitting” his post regarding the President’s personal phone call with Ukraine.
“At no time have I considered resigning my position since assuming this role on Aug. 16, 2019. I have never quit anything in my life, and I am not going to start now,” said Maguire.
.@WashingtonPost got it wrong again.
From the statement by Acting DNI Joseph Maguire:
“At no time have I considered resigning my position since assuming this role on Aug. 16, 2019. I have never quit anything in my life, and I am not going to start now." https://t.co/hq8Irsv1Dr— The White House 45 Archived (@WhiteHouse45) September 25, 2019
During a bilateral meeting with Trump at the United Nations in New York, Zelensky told reporters that he was not pressured to investigate the Biden family during the phone call.
“Nobody pushed me,” the Ukrainian president said. “We had a great phone call,” he added. “It was normal.”
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky: "We had, I think, a good phone call. It was normal. We spoke about many things. I think and you read it that nobody pushed me."
President Trump: "In other words, no pressure." pic.twitter.com/TZVPFS3VMz
— The Hill (@thehill) September 25, 2019