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Today before the hearing (and read out loud by Nunes during the hearing), the Trump administration released notes about an April call between Trump and Zelenskyy

The April call is pretty mundane and seems unrelated to the July call, other than it had the same participants.

I'm trying to understand:

  • Why the Trump administration says this April call is important (the entire call seemed like pleasantries)
  • What the political/strategic value is of releasing the April call notes?

Is the April call being cited among certain audiences as being evidence of something? Was there alleged wrongdoing during the April call that is suggested to be false by the release of the April call notes?

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    You're assuming there is actual strategy coming out of the White House. Other than "here is another call where I didn't break several federal laws", I agree that this call doesn't seem useful.
    – BradC
    Commented Nov 15, 2019 at 18:08
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    It seems obvious to me that it is a distraction meant to confuse people into looking at the transcript assuming it is THE call and saying "there's nothing here, the Dems are crazy", but the trick is finding enough corroborating evidence for my assumption to make a valid answer. It is unlikely, outside of Trump's usual propensity to shoot himself in the foot on Twitter, that such evidence exists as it would require a participant actually admitting that as their intent.
    – cpcodes
    Commented Nov 15, 2019 at 19:37
  • @cpcodes I actually didn't consider that (that if I search for "ukraine call transcript") I might accidentally get the April call. If I were not following this, I might not know there were two.
    – Scribblemacher
    Commented Nov 15, 2019 at 20:17

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According to Trump's logic, the April call is "the first, and therefore more important":

I will be releasing the transcript of the first, and therefore more important, phone call with the Ukrainian President before week’s end! — Trump's Twitter

I'm not aware about another rationale published so far.

When Trump has just announced the release of the transcript of "another call", analysts in Ukraine suggested that the call would demonstrate Zelenskyy actively offering the Burisma probe as a "personal favor", thus rendering Trump only a receiver of the bribe. Which, in turn, may be seen as a smaller crime committed by Trump.

Apparently, the released notes do not confirm anything like that.

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