Trump called into the meeting from New York and talked to the Republicans by speaker phone as they reviewed the dialogue from the call.

“In it’s totality, we all kind of looked at it and said, ‘There’s nothing here,’” Johnson said.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, typically a Trump ally, said the transcript shows nothing that would convince Republicans to convict Trump if the House impeaches him.

“If this is going to be an impeachment article,” Graham said. “Not guilty. Don’t waste your time.”

House Democrats took the opposite view.

They have labeled the call transcript “damning” and say his behavior in the call is even worse than they predicted and it undermines national security and the integrity of U.S. elections.

According to the call notes, Trump sought help from Zelensky regarding allegations former Vice President Joe Biden worked to help son Hunter Biden by threatening to withhold money from Ukraine if it did not fire a prosecutor targeting a gas company paying his son a hefty salary.

Trump asked Zelensky to work with Attorney General William Barr and his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, on the matter.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-California, a top Trump political foe, compared Trump’s request of Zelensky to that of a mob boss committing “a shakedown of a foreign president.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, announced Tuesday the House has formally opened an impeachment inquiry into the matter, even though she has not scheduled a vote on it.

Johnson accused Democrats of “blowing it way out of proportion,” and in interviews with the Washington Examiner, many other GOP lawmakers agreed.

“You don’t know how many other presidents have done something like that,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Alabama, said of the request Trump made of Zelensky. “I don’t see any grounds for removing someone from office for something like that.”

Johnson acknowledged that those who were invited to view the call transcript at the White House Wednesday morning were “by and large sympathetic” to Trump’s view that the allegations against him are “fake news” and part of a yearslong Democratic effort to remove him from office because they oppose his politics and agenda.

But Republicans said they also have concerns about Trump’s behavior on the call.

Some Republican lawmakers said on Wednesday that they did not believe Trump committed an impeachable offense but were troubled by the call transcript and the president’s request that Ukraine investigate the corruption claim against Biden.

“I don’t like seeing that,” Senate Majority Whip John Thune, R-South Dakota, said. “But there’s a big difference between what I don’t think I would have done and something that constitutes what the House is moving forward with.”

Senate Republican lawmakers discussed the call transcript Wednesday at a closed-door lunch and were largely in agreement that House Democrats didn’t have a case for impeachment based on what Trump said to Zelensky.

Sen. Tim Scott, R-South Carolina, said the transcript showed Zelensky raising the Biden corruption charge first, not Trump.

“The president was talking about the frustrations of corruption,” Scott said. “Trying to connect the two pieces together to leave the president in an unfavorable position is a tad bit of a stretch.”

Only one Republican senator, Mitt Romney of Utah, has offered strong criticism of Trump’s approach on the call. Romney, a frequent Trump critic and the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, called Trump’s dialogue revealed in the transcript “deeply troubling.”

Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana was among GOP lawmakers who believe the Democrats are acting politically but plan to dig further into the transcript and review the whistleblower complaint.

“Of course, I’m worried about all of this,” Kennedy said. “I’m going [to] get everything and put it all in context.”