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Posted: 2019-11-15 14:32:18

Zelensky invited Trump to his inauguration during the call.

"I'll look into that," Trump said.

Trump invited his Ukraine counterpart to the White House. "We'll have a lot of things to talk about, but we're with you all the way," Trump said.

"Well, thank you for the invitation and look forward to the visit," Zelensky said. "The whole team and I are looking forward to that visit."

Important meeting

Testimony in the impeachment inquiry has shown that the Ukrainians considered it imperative to secure a White House meeting for Zelensky, an important show of support from a key ally for a new President establishing his government.

But one issue the House is examining is whether Trump later withheld that meeting as part of a scheme to pressure Zelensky into conducting investigations that would politically benefit the US President. Trump wanted probes of discredited allegations that the Ukrainians interfered in the 2016 election and that former vice president Joe Biden, one of Trump's 2020 presidential rivals, squelched a criminal probe into a company, Burisma Holdings, which employed Hunter Biden as a board member.

The US House inquiry focuses on whether Trump abused his power by trying to pressure the Ukrainian leader.

An earlier memorandum the White House released documenting a July 25 call with Zelensky showed that Trump asked him to "do us a favour" after Zelensky inquired about obtaining more US military equipment, including anti-tank missiles.

Trump then asked for investigations of Ukrainian election interference and, later, of the Bidens and Burisma.

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Trump has repeatedly said the July 25 call was "perfect" and has denied any wrongdoing. He said earlier this week he would release what he called a "transcript" of his April call with Zelensky.

While the memorandum of the July 25 call was marked classified and entered into a secure electronic storage system at the White House, the memo documenting the April call was not considered sensitive. The document is marked "unclassified."

The White House released the memorandum of the earlier call just as the House began its second public hearing in the impeachment inquiry. Representative Devin Nunes, the senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, read aloud the entire memorandum of the April call, apparently to reinforce Republican arguments that Trump did nothing wrong.

White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said Trump watched Nunes' opening statement.

Bloomberg

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