Ukraine Pressure Campaign: The July 25, 2019 Phone Call with President Zelensky
Tier 3Documented2019-07-25 to 2019-09-25
Factual Summary
On July 25, 2019, President Donald Trump placed a phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The White House released a memorandum of the call on September 25, 2019, after a whistleblower complaint and congressional demands for transparency. The memorandum, which the White House noted was "not a verbatim transcript" but was based on notes and recollections of Situation Room staff, documented Trump pressing Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden in connection with a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma Holdings.
The critical exchange occurred after Zelensky mentioned Ukraine's interest in purchasing Javelin anti-tank missiles from the United States. Trump responded: "I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it." Trump then asked Zelensky to look into a debunked theory about a Democratic National Committee server supposedly located in Ukraine, and separately to investigate the Bidens. Trump stated: "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 also asked Zelensky to work with his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and U.S. Attorney General William Barr on the matter. Zelensky agreed to cooperate, stating that Ukraine's next prosecutor general "will look into the situation."
The call took place against a backdrop of withheld military aid. On July 18, 2019, one week before the call, the Office of Management and Budget had placed a hold on $391 million in congressionally appropriated security assistance to Ukraine. Multiple administration officials later testified that they understood the aid freeze to be connected to Trump's desire for the investigations. The aid was released on September 11, 2019, after the existence of the whistleblower complaint became known to congressional committees.
A whistleblower within the intelligence community filed a formal complaint on August 12, 2019, stating that the president had used "the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election." The Intelligence Community Inspector General found the complaint "credible" and a matter of "urgent concern."
Primary Sources
1. White House Memorandum of Telephone Conversation, July 25, 2019 (released September 25, 2019): https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Unclassified09.2019.pdf
2. Intelligence Community Inspector General letter to Acting Director of National Intelligence, August 26, 2019
3. Whistleblower complaint (declassified and released September 26, 2019)
4. Office of Management and Budget records documenting the hold on Ukraine security assistance, July 18, 2019
Corroborating Sources
1. NPR: "Read the Transcript of President Trump's Call with Ukraine's Leader," September 25, 2019
2. CNN: "Trump pushed Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, transcript shows," September 25, 2019
3. FactCheck.org: "Security Assistance and the July 25 Phone Call," January 2020
4. CREW: "Trump's Ukraine Call Was Damning, and the Context Makes It Even Worse," 2019
Counterarguments and Context
Trump characterized the call as "perfect" and stated that he was raising legitimate concerns about corruption in Ukraine. His defenders argued that the president has the authority and the obligation to address corruption with foreign leaders, particularly when U.S. taxpayer funds are involved, and that the Bidens' activities in Ukraine warranted scrutiny. Trump denied that there was any quid pro quo connecting the military aid to the investigations. Republicans on congressional committees noted that Zelensky publicly stated he did not feel pressured during the call and that the aid was ultimately released without Ukraine announcing any investigation. Trump's allies also argued that the call memorandum itself demonstrated that no explicit threat or demand was made. Critics responded that the structure of the conversation, in which Trump's request for a "favor" immediately followed Zelensky's mention of Javelin missiles, constituted an implicit linkage between military support and personal political assistance.
Author's Note
This entry is classified as Tier 3 because the primary evidence is the White House's own memorandum of the call, supplemented by the declassified whistleblower complaint and the Inspector General's determination that the complaint was credible. The call memorandum was released by the White House itself and its contents are not in factual dispute. This entry documents the call and its immediate context. The subsequent impeachment proceedings and the retaliatory removals of witnesses are documented in separate entries.