Trump White House Reportedly Emails Ukraine Talking Points To House Democrats
Following the release of a transcript documenting a July 25 phone call between Donald Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, the White House likely sought to coordinate Republican response to the transcript — which as been called “damning” and “worse than expected” by some pundits, as The Inquisitr reported — by compiling a set of talking points for GOP members of Congress to repeat during media appearances.
But there was only one problem. The White House reportedly emailed the talking points to House Democrats.
Politico reporter Andrew Desiderio reported the White House flub on his Twitter account, and included an actual copy of the White House memo containing the talking points. The memo detailed how Trump and his aides planned to spin the revelations contained in the partial transcript of the call.
The talking points memo leads off by saying that the press has reported “flat-out falsehoods” about the call, and goes on to say, “the transcript clearly shows there was no quid pro quo or anything else inappropriate about the conversation between President Trump and President Zelensky,” as quoted by The Washington Examiner.
In fact, as The Inquisitr reported, the transcript shows Trump responding to Zelensky’s request to purchase new Javelin missile systems by stating, “I would like you to do us a favor though.”
That “favor” involved Ukraine opening an investigation into what Trump claims to be wrongdoing by his leading political opponent in the 2020 presidential election, former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. But the talking points instruct Republicans to downplay Trump’s request regarding Biden by noting that Trump mentioned the Democratic frontrunner in “only one exchange,” as The Inquisitr reported.
Later on Wednesday morning, someone at the White House reportedly realized the mistake in allegedly emailing the talking points to Democrats. At that point, the White House sent another email to the offices of House Democrats asking to “recall” the accidentally sent earlier email, according to Desiderio on his Twitter account.
The talking points also instruct Republicans to claim that a whistleblower report believed to refer to the phone call — and that is being withheld from Congress — has been “handled absolutely by the book.”
Trump claims in the transcript that Biden strong-armed the Ukraine government into firing a top prosecutor who was investigating Biden’s son. But as The Washington Post reported, Trump’s claims about Biden are simply false.
The prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, was widely condemned as corrupt and Biden’s campaign to oust him — which was joined by numerous other western countries — was “universally praised,” according to the Post report. Biden’s effort to have Shokin dismissed was not connected to any investigation of his son, Hunter Biden, who was never accused of any wrongdoing in Ukraine, The Post reported.
