A July 25, 2019 telephone call between Trump and Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky led in September to a whistleblower complaint and an impeachment inquiry against Trump. Two weeks after the inquiry was launched, Trump claimed in a conference call with Congressional Republican leaders that he had only made the telephone call at Perry's urging. Perry's spokesperson said that Perry had suggested Trump discuss energy security with Zelensky, but energy was not mentioned in the publicly released memo about the conversations, which instead focused on Trump asking Zelensky to launch investigations into Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, Crowdstrike, and the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Per Trump's direction earlier this year, Perry spoke with Rudy Giuliani about Ukraine, which Mick Mulvaney confirmed. Perry denied ever mentioning the Bidens in his discussions with Trump or Ukrainian officials. Mulvaney had put Gordon Sondland, Kurt Volker, and Perry in charge of managing the Ukraine–United States relations instead of diplomats at the National Security Council and the US Department of State.