Sep 25, 2019

Memo: Trump asked Ukraine to work with Giuliani, Barr to investigate Biden

Photo: Alex Ellinghausen/The Sydney Morning Herald via Getty Images

The White House on Wednesday released a memorandum of a July 25 call in which President Trump pressed the president of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden. The memo notes that it is not a verbatim transcript.

The big picture: After discussing the Ukrainian election, Trump told President Volodymyr Zelensky he should work with his lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General Bill Barr to look into allegations that Joe Biden fired a Ukrainian prosecutor investigating his son. Trump has previously confirmed that he discussed these allegations against Biden — for which there is no evidence — with Zelensky. It was not previously known that Trump asked Zelensky to work with Barr.

"The other thing, 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. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it ... It sounds horrible to me."

The Justice Department said in a statement that Trump has not spoken with Barr about having Ukraine investigate Biden and that Barr has never discussed this matter with Giuliani. Sometime in August, the director of national intelligence referred a whistleblower complaint involving a conversation between Trump and Zelensky to the Justice Department to investigate as a possible campaign finance violation.

  • DOJ declined to further investigate, stating after a review that "there was no campaign finance violation and that no further action was warranted."

Read the memo:

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