President Trump releases transcript of call with Ukrainian president — ABC News SPECIAL REPORT

[0:00] This is an ABC News special report. Now reporting, George Stephanopoulos. [0:07] Good morning. We're coming in right now with breaking news related to the impeachment investigation of President Trump. [0:12] The Department of Justice and the White House have just released the transcript of the July 25th phone call between President Trump and the Ukrainian president Zelensky, [0:20] where they discussed Joe Biden and a possible investigation into former Vice President Biden. [0:25] I want to bring in our Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas, who's at the Justice Department right now. [0:29] You've seen the transcript here. You've been briefed. Tell us what you know. [0:34] George, the bottom line is that the president of the United States did, in fact, speak with the president of Ukraine [0:40] and make a direct pitch for the president of the Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son. [0:46] Here's one of the quotes that jumps out at me. [0:49] There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, quote, that Biden stopped the prosecution, [0:53] and a lot of people want to find out about that. [0:56] So whatever you can do with the attorney general, that would be great. [0:59] The attorney general he's referring to is Attorney General Barr. [1:03] The president invokes the name of Attorney General Barr and also Rudy Giuliani, [1:08] who he said would be looking into the matter. [1:11] He's sad that both men were going to reach out to the president of Ukraine [1:14] and ask him to get started on this. [1:16] And, George, the president of the Ukraine indicated that he was going to investigate the matter. [1:20] Yeah, they had a fairly extensive conversation about this. [1:24] The president of Ukraine talked about wanting to meet with Rudy Giuliani. [1:27] The president mentioned that he wanted to enlist the attorney general in this. [1:31] What has the attorney general said about the fact that the president mentioned him in this phone call? [1:36] Well, George, a rather extraordinary set of events took place [1:39] after the inspector general got word of this whistleblower complaint. [1:44] We now know that the inspector general referred this matter over to the Justice Department [1:49] for a potential criminal investigation involving possible campaign finance violations. [1:55] The Justice Department did a review, an internal review, [1:58] involving the National Security Division and the Criminal Division, [2:02] and they ultimately concluded that there was no violation, [2:05] potential violation of the campaign finance laws. [2:07] They also say that Attorney General Barr was not involved in knowing about this request [2:14] by the president of the United States, [2:16] that he never talked to the president about this particular request, [2:19] and also that he never spoke with Rudy Giuliani about this request either, George. [2:23] And, Pierre, in the course of this phone conversation, [2:25] the president does not only mention Joe Biden, the possible investigation of Joe Biden, [2:29] he also talks about this crowd strike issue, [2:32] which, of course, that was related to the hacking of the DNC emails back in 2016, [2:36] and asked the president to look into that as well. [2:40] He did, George. [2:41] He seemed interested in wanting to know what role the Ukrainian government might have played in that. [2:47] Also, George, he mentions in a very derogatory way special counsel Bob Mueller. [2:52] You'll remember that this is one day after Bob Mueller appeared on Capitol Hill. [2:56] He talked about how incompetent Bob Mueller as well, George. [2:59] And finally, Pierre, they also discuss investigating the woman, [3:03] the foreign service officer who had been the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine [3:07] up until the time that President Zelenskyy was inaugurated. [3:12] He did indeed. [3:13] He had some very negative things the president did to say about this ambassador, George. [3:18] And I think the other thing that's interesting here is we got a little bit more detail [3:22] about the whistleblower and how all of this came about. [3:26] In the Office of Legal Counsel memorandum about this whole matter, [3:30] they point out that the whistleblower supposedly heard about this conversation, [3:34] this phone call between the president and the president of Ukraine from White House officials. [3:41] Pierre, finally, before I let you go, [3:42] we do have the president saying, as you mentioned in the phone call, [3:46] that he would like to have the attorney general call the president [3:48] so he can get to the bottom of all this, saying you have a lot of assets. [3:52] The attorney general is saying he never spoke with the president about any of this? [3:57] The attorney general is saying flat out he never spoke with the president about this. [4:01] He never spoke to really Giuliani about this. [4:04] But the first time that the attorney general became aware of this [4:07] was when the inspector general and the DNI's office contacted the Justice Department [4:12] and raised these concerns. [4:14] Okay, Pierre Thomas, thanks very much. [4:15] I want to bring in our chief White House correspondent, John Carl, for more on this. [4:18] Pretty extraordinary bits of information packed into this phone call. [4:22] Of course, the top headline, [4:23] the president clearly asked for Joe Biden and his son to be investigated. [4:26] And I think this will be seen as even more damning than anticipated, George. [4:30] The president is explicitly asking for help here. [4:33] And look at the words he is using. [4:35] The White House will say there was no threat, there was no quid pro quo, [4:38] but the president first says the United States has been very good to Ukraine. [4:43] And then he says, I would like you to do us a favor. [4:46] And the first favor is to look into the crowd strike issue you mentioned. [4:50] And he says he brings up this server. [4:52] It's not clear what server he's talking about. [4:54] I can think of only one server that's been in the news regarding the Hillary Clinton server. [4:58] And he says the server, they say, Ukraine has it. [5:01] I don't know where that's coming from, but he's asking for an investigation into that. [5:06] He also says that cryptic comic, your economy will be getting better at a time when we know [5:10] he had been withholding aid. [5:11] Withholding some $400 million in aid. [5:14] So I think that this will be more explosive than even anticipated. [5:21] And it's interesting that the White House decided to put this out. [5:23] And we were being told over and over again, [5:25] this won't be so bad once people see it because this looks damning. [5:29] And it's a multi-tiered effort. [5:31] I mean, remember when Rudy Giuliani first said he was going to go to Ukraine, [5:33] and there was an uproar over that. [5:35] And he, in fact, had to pull out the trip. [5:37] But what we see here is Rudy Giuliani involved, [5:39] the president saying Bill Barr is involved, although he denies it. [5:42] And, of course, the direct request from the president. [5:44] And the president bringing up the attorney general more than once. [5:48] I mean, he is saying, you know, my attorney, I'll have my attorney general, [5:53] I'll have Rudy Giuliani contact you. [5:55] He is explicit here. [5:58] Dan Abrams. [5:59] So I think one of the critical things is what has the president said about it up to this point, right? [6:03] The president had initially talked about the possibility that this was a discussion [6:07] about trying to root out corruption, right, in Ukraine, [6:10] trying to ensure that the money was going to the right places, et cetera. [6:14] There's almost nothing about that in this letter, in this transcript. [6:19] This transcript is almost, you can say, largely about the personal agenda of the president. [6:26] I mean, when you read through it, the majority of what the president is talking about [6:30] is with regard to personal agenda items. [6:32] The crowd strike, Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, he repeats again and again. [6:38] The ambassador. [6:39] Yeah, the ambassador. [6:40] Who was on President Obama's side, according to the transcript. [6:42] Right. [6:42] Talk to my attorney general, et cetera. [6:45] And so when you're talking, again, the most important point, though, is the Biden piece, right? [6:50] I mean, you can say that the Hillary Clinton piece is inappropriate, shouldn't have done it. [6:55] But when you're talking about trying to get information about your potential 2020 rival, [7:01] you're now crossing into the potential legal issues, right? [7:04] You're now talking about the possibility of influencing an election. [7:08] And that's different than just looking back. [7:11] Let's break that down a little bit, of course. [7:13] And we should remind everybody, this is the day after Robert Mueller testifies on Capitol Hill. [7:17] And there's a difference between what is illegal and what is impeachable. [7:20] To begin with the legal, first of all, you, as Pierre reported, you had this criminal referral [7:23] from the intelligence inspector general sent to the Justice Department, cleared by President Trump's [7:30] Justice Department. [7:31] Yeah, I mean, you know, look, that's almost meaningless, right? [7:33] I mean, the reason you have a special counsel or an independent counsel is because you don't want [7:38] the president's appointee judging the president on something this important. [7:43] That's why when people said, well, you know, Bill Barr came to his own conclusion about the Mueller report. [7:48] Well, the whole reason that Robert Mueller was asked to come in was so the attorney general [7:52] wouldn't have to make those sorts of determinations. [7:55] And here you are seeing the attorney general apparently, or at least the Department of Justice, [8:00] making a determination on these very important questions. [8:04] And deciding to not turn over to Congress the complaint. [8:08] Because like you said, George, and this is important, there is a difference between what is illegal [8:12] and what is impeachable. [8:14] And this gets into that question. [8:16] And the president brings up himself that Mueller had just testified. [8:20] And this is a very interesting part of the transcript. [8:21] He said, as you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with the very poor performance [8:27] by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance. [8:30] I mean, first of all, extraordinary that he's bringing up Robert Mueller in a conversation [8:34] with the president of Ukraine. [8:36] But that was all about whether or not there had been conspiracy, collusion, whatever word [8:41] you want to use. [8:42] To create the Russia investigation in the first place. [8:43] Jonathan is right, I think. [8:44] This is worse than I think people expected. [8:47] Meaning, I think when we were on Chris Christie earlier this morning, the suggestion was, [8:53] they're telling us this isn't going to be that big a deal. [8:55] Or they might have been vague. [8:56] Right, right. [8:57] So maybe he asked him a little bit something about Joe Biden. [9:00] I mean, this is unambiguous. [9:02] I would like you to do us a favor. [9:03] Let's bring that to Mary Bruce on Capitol Hill. [9:05] I know they're just getting this now on Capitol Hill. [9:07] Mary, any initial reaction? [9:09] Well, George, this is likely to only add fuel to the impeachment fire here. [9:12] Democrats are now just getting out of their weekly meeting. [9:16] All of the House Democrats have been huddling with Nancy Pelosi, [9:18] and they are now walking out to a sea of cameras and reporters asking for their reaction to this. [9:23] Democrats are likely going to pounce. [9:25] Of course, not only on the fact that we now see that the president asked a foreign leader [9:30] to help investigate his political rival, which, of course, Nancy Pelosi has said was the tipping point here [9:35] that led her to finally move to impeach. [9:37] But, George, they're going to have a lot of questions about the attorney general [9:40] and the fact that you see the president offering up, essentially, his attorney general [9:44] to help investigate his 2020 rival here. [9:48] Look, Democrats here on the Hill have long questioned the attorney general [9:51] and the independence of this Justice Department. [9:54] Democrats often refer to him as the president's personal attorney [9:57] for the way that he handled the Mueller report. [9:59] I suspect they are going to want to speak to the attorney general. [10:03] And, George, I would not be surprised, also, if they have a lot of questions about the fact [10:07] that the Justice Department is now in a position of trying to adjudicate a matter [10:10] that now so clearly the attorney general was directly involved in like this. [10:14] Well, I think they will likely say that is why they're pursuing impeachment proceedings, [10:17] because it doesn't belong in the Justice Department right now. [10:19] I want to bring in Terry Moran on that. [10:21] And, Terry, as I bring you in, I want to put the letter up on the screen one more time, [10:24] those two sentences about Vice President Biden. [10:27] He says, the other thing, there's a lot of talk about Biden's son, [10:30] that Biden stopped the prosecution, and a lot of people want to find out about that. [10:34] So whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great. [10:37] Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution. [10:39] So if you can look into it, it sounds horrible to me. [10:41] Whatever you can do with the attorney general. [10:44] Well, that, those sentences will be the battleground for the coming impeachment, [10:50] because I think it is fair to say that the Democrats are going to move forward [10:53] on the basis of this alone. [10:55] And there's more to be found out as they develop the facts in committee hearings. [11:00] And the question will be, before the country, are those sentences, [11:04] are the president's actions in the national interest [11:07] or in his own personal political interest? [11:10] He will argue corruption is a huge problem in Ukraine. [11:14] It's part of the problem of giving money to Ukraine. [11:17] It ends up in the wrong hands. [11:18] President Obama was aware that the EU is aware of that. [11:21] And he will argue that Vice President Biden's son, Hunter Biden, [11:25] who was on the board of directors of a major energy company, [11:28] which is involved in some of that corruption, [11:30] was a legitimate subject of national interest. [11:35] And that's what he's talking to the president of Ukraine about. [11:37] But, Ved, I understand that'll be the defense. [11:39] Does it pass the smell test once he explicitly mentions the name Joe Biden? [11:43] Well, Joe Biden was involved in the dismissal of a prosecutor. [11:51] That prosecutor actually had dropped the investigation of the company [11:54] that Hunter Biden, Joe Biden's son, was on. [11:57] So that'll be hashed out. [11:58] But there's no question that the impeachment will be, [12:02] is the president operating cynically, corruptly, [12:06] abusing his office for his personal political gain here, [12:09] trying to pressure this leader to help him in an election? [12:12] Or is he pursuing the national interest? [12:15] That will be the question. [12:16] Terry raises a really important point about the timeline here, right? [12:19] The prosecutor in Ukraine, who was eventually dismissed, [12:23] was investigating this company, Burisma, in 2013, [12:27] for actions that happened in 2013. [12:30] Hunter Biden joins the board in 2014. [12:34] And so there's no evidence at this point [12:36] that Hunter Biden was part of the initial investigation. [12:40] Well, that's point number one. [12:41] Point number two is that the prosecutor who Joe Biden was pushing on, [12:45] this was part of an international effort that Biden was a part of, [12:48] an entire administration-wide effort to take this prosecutor out [12:51] because he wasn't going after corruption cases hard enough. [12:53] Correct. [12:54] And you go back and you read some of the media coverage from back then [12:58] of when the Ukrainian prosecutor was eventually pushed out. [13:02] And it's talking about all this international pressure, [13:05] how much pressure had been put on Ukraine to get rid of him. [13:08] Look, look, I mean, it didn't smell right. [13:11] You had the vice president's son making tens of thousands of dollars a month [13:16] with a retainer, and you have the vice president. [13:18] There's an appearance problem. [13:20] But just look at this. [13:22] Why would that be a pressing concern right now, [13:25] what would happen in 2014? [13:27] Why would this be a pressing concern to be a central part of his call [13:31] with the president of Ukraine? [13:32] And there's a very important point here, too, George, [13:34] is when the president asks him to do this investigation, [13:38] if you look, it comes right after, in this transcript, [13:41] right after President Zelenskyy brings up the issue of military help [13:45] from the United States. [13:46] And then the very next sentence from the president is, [13:50] I would, from President Trump, [13:51] I would like you to do us a favor, though. [13:55] I would like you to do... [13:56] So you're asking for something, but I've got a favor. [13:59] I've got something I want from you. [14:01] Mary Bruce, we're getting a reaction from the House Speaker. [14:04] George, our reporter, John Parkinson, [14:06] just caught up with the House Speaker [14:07] as she was leaving this meeting. [14:09] She says she has not read the transcript yet, [14:11] but she stressed that no one, not even the president, [14:14] is above the law, saying the fact is [14:16] the president of the United States, [14:17] in breach of constitutional responsibilities, [14:20] has asked a foreign government to help him [14:22] and his political campaign [14:24] at the expense of our national security, [14:26] as well as undermining the integrity of the election. [14:30] That cannot stand. [14:31] He will be held accountable, she said, George. [14:34] Okay, let's go back to our Chief Justice Correspondent, [14:35] Pierre Thomas. [14:36] And, Pierre, let's try to take a step back right here. [14:38] One of the things revealed in this letter [14:39] is, as I said, a multi-tiered effort [14:41] involving the president's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. [14:44] The president says his attorney general, William Barr, [14:47] and then he's making these direct requests [14:49] to the president of Ukraine. [14:52] I know the attorney general has said [14:53] he didn't know anything about this phone call, [14:56] didn't know the president was invoking them. [14:58] Have they said, made any judgment [15:00] about whether it was proper for the president [15:02] to be discussing this with the president of Ukraine? [15:04] They have not made any judgment about that. [15:07] So far, the Justice Department solely looked at [15:09] whether it was a campaign finance violation, George. [15:12] But one of the things that jumps out at me [15:14] when you look at the transcript [15:15] is the degree to which Giuliani is playing a role in this. [15:20] He's not a member of the Trump administration per se, [15:23] but he's clearly playing a role [15:24] where the president is invoking his name. [15:27] And get this, George, [15:27] the president of the Ukraine insists [15:30] that a member of his staff [15:32] has already been in contact with Rudy Giuliani [15:35] and that he was perfectly open [15:37] to furthering this investigation [15:39] with Rudy Giuliani, George. [15:41] John Carl, as we look at this now, [15:44] as we get this, [15:45] and we still haven't seen the whistleblower complaint, [15:47] I want to pick up on what Mary was saying. [15:48] She thinks this is going to fuel the calls for impeachment. [15:51] Hard to imagine, [15:52] and you already have 200 members of Congress, [15:54] more than 200 members of Congress for impeachment [15:55] before this transcript comes out. [15:57] What happens next? [15:58] Well, look, first of all, [15:59] you've already had the Speaker of the House come out [16:02] and basically make the argument [16:03] not for an impeachment process, [16:05] but for impeaching the president. [16:07] And Adam Schiff this morning, [16:08] the Democratic Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, [16:11] said, based on what we already know, [16:14] he should be impeached. [16:15] So I think even before this comes out, [16:17] the House was clearly moving in the direction [16:19] towards impeaching the president, [16:21] and it's hard to see how this does anything [16:22] but not add fuel to that. [16:24] One of the questions, Dan Abers, [16:25] is going to be how broadly do they define [16:27] articles of impeachment [16:28] if indeed they decide to pursue them? [16:29] Right, and it's something we talked about before, [16:31] which is that in previous recent impeachment proceedings, [16:35] Nixon and Clinton, they went broad. [16:37] They went for abuse of power. [16:39] There were numerous counts [16:40] under each of these sort of broad buckets. [16:44] And here you've got to believe [16:46] that they're likely to try and be more narrow, [16:48] that they're likely to try to be able [16:50] to want to convince the American public [16:52] that they're not overreaching. [16:54] The question becomes, [16:55] is it overreaching or is it overdue? [16:57] And I think that they're really going to have to prove [17:00] to the American people it's overdue. [17:02] And Terry Moran, [17:03] it is really setting up a classic clash. [17:05] It's going to involve constitutional principles, [17:07] political principles, national security, [17:09] the president versus the executive, [17:10] the president, the executive branch versus Congress. [17:14] Absolutely, because the next step [17:15] is the patient development of facts and evidence. [17:18] And to do that, [17:19] they will have to get the attorney general before Congress. [17:22] They will have to get the secretary of state [17:23] before Congress. [17:24] Rudy Giuliani says Mike Pompeo asked him to go to Ukraine. [17:28] And so while we have the transcript, [17:31] what the Democrats will want to do [17:32] is bolster the evidence in this transcript [17:36] with witness evidence and others. [17:38] And among the people [17:39] who would have been listening into this call [17:41] as a matter of routine, [17:43] John Bolton, the national security advisor, [17:46] the former national security advisor, [17:47] he'd be called to testify to. [17:49] It appears that we are going to be getting [17:50] the impeachment hearings [17:52] with potential public interest [17:54] that didn't materialize [17:56] after the Mueller investigation. [17:57] Again, one more time. [17:58] The White House has released the transcript [18:00] of the July 25th phone call [18:01] between President Trump and President Zelensky [18:04] where he did indeed ask the Ukrainian president [18:06] to look into Joe Biden. [18:07] We're going to have much more during the day. [18:09] The president is going to meet [18:09] with President Zelensky later this afternoon. [18:11] We'll be back for that. [18:12] I'm George Stephanopoulos in New York. [18:15] This has been a special report from ABC News.