The White House this morning released a memo detailing President Trump’s first call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in which the two leaders exchanged congratulations on their respective election victories.
At one point during the May call, Trump mentioned the “great people” from Ukraine who participated in the Miss Universe pageant, which he owned from 1996 to 2015.
“When I owned Miss Universe, they always had great people,” Trump told Zelensky. “Ukraine was always well represented.”
In another instance, Trump falsely told Zelensky that a Ukrainian woman had won Miss Universe.
But no Ukrainian has ever won the competition, despite several making it into the last rounds of the pageant.
Trump timed the release of the call memo to distract from testimony delivered by Marie Yovanovitch, who served as the US ambassador to Ukraine until she was abruptly recalled in May, in today’s public impeachment hearings.
During Trump’s second official call with Zelensky on July 25, 2019, he pressured the Ukrainian leader to investigate his political opponents, a move that provoked Democrats to initiate the impeachment inquiry.