Donald Trump Taunts Impeachment Democrats: ‘Got Them by Surprise’ with Transcript Release

U.S. President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel laugh during a bilateral m
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
Charlie Spiering

President Donald Trump previewed the release of a transcript of his phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday, questioning whether Democrats would “apologize” for launching an impeachment inquiry into the situation.

“Will the Democrats apologize after seeing what was said on the call with the Ukrainian President?” he asked on Twitter. “They should, a perfect call – got them by surprise!”

The president released the transcript shortly after his message on Twitter, which revealed that Trump spoke to Zelensky about the investigation of meddling in the 2016 election and former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden’s possible corrupt behavior in the country.

Below is the relevant portion of the transcript

Trump: … I just want to let you know that’s 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.

President Zelensky: I wanted to tell you about the prosecutor. First of all, I understand and I’m knowledgeable about the situation. Since we have won the absolute majority in our Parliament; the next prosecutor general will be 100% my person, my candidate, who will be approved, by the parliament and will start as a new prosecutor in September. He or she will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue. The issue of the investigation of the case is actually the issue of making sure to restore the honesty so we will take care of that and will work on the investigation of the case.

The president asked Zelensky to coordinate with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani to discuss the investigations.

“Rudy very much knows what’s happening and he is a very capable guy,” he said. “If you could speak to him that would be great.”

The president also pointed to a Breitbart News report that Democrats also reached out to Ukraine to ask officials to cooperate with an investigation.

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