White House releases memo of Trump's April call with Ukraine's Zelenskiy - CNBC

President Donald Trump speaks on the phone in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC.

Alex Wong | Getty Images News | Getty Images

The White House on Friday released a memorandum of an April 21 phone call between President Donald Trump and then-Ukrainian President-elect Volodimyr Zelenskiy.

Trump in the call extended an invitation to bring Zelenskiy to the White House, according to the four-page memo, which notes in a footnote that it is "not a verbatim transcript of a discussion."

"I'd like to invite you to the White House. We'll have a lot of things to talk about, but we're with you all the way," Trump said.

The U.S. president also told Zelenskiy, "When I owned Miss Universe, they always had great people. Ukraine was always very well represented." Trump owned the beauty pageant from 1996 to 2015.

The conversation lasted 16 minutes, according to the memo.

Trump himself opted to release the memo of his first call with Zelenskiy. He described it as "more important" than their second conversation three months later, in which Trump asked Zelenskiy to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, as well as a conspiracy theory about Ukrainian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

That July 25 call, which was flagged in a whistleblower complaint, spurred dozens of Democrats to support an impeachment inquiry into Trump.

The House Democrats conducting the probe are currently holding public hearings with witnesses, who have testified about the Trump administration's efforts toward Ukraine, including the shadow foreign policy efforts pursued by Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.

"The President took the unprecedented steps to declassify and release the transcripts of both of his phone calls with President Zelensky so that every American can see he did nothing wrong," White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement.

In a previous readout of the call, the White House claimed that Trump had expressed a commitment to work with Ukraine to "implement reforms that strengthen democracy, increase prosperity, and root out corruption."

But the description at the time from the White House is not matched by memorandum. Trump also did not underscore the "unwavering support of the United States for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity – within its internationally recognized borders," as the White House claimed.

Trump has recently claimed that a crucial military aid package to Ukraine had been delayed for months because of concerns about corruption. The delay in aid, which was eventually received by Ukraine in September, is a key piece of the allegation that Trump pressured Zelenskiy to dig up dirt on his political rivals.

The White House shared the memo Friday morning, just as former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch began her opening statement before the House Intelligence Committee.

The congratulatory phone call adds yet another layer to the record of communications between the White House and the government of Ukraine.

According to U.S. diplomats who have testified to House investigators about the call, it was arranged so that Trump could congratulate the newly elected Zelenskiy on his victory, a fairly standard practice among leaders of allied countries.

Yovanovitch testified behind closed doors last month that she heard the call was largely uneventful. "It was a good call," it was brief, and Trump and Zelenskiy "hit it off," Yovanovitch said she was told.

Read the memorandum of the first call between Trump and Zelenskiy.

This is a developing story, please check back for updates.

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