WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump's release of a a five-page summary of his phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky failed to satisfy House Democrats, who announced an impeachment inquiry into his actions just a day before.

The Trump administration on Wednesday released the summary of the controversial call, in which the president is accused of seeking help from a foreign leader to damage his political rival Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 election.

Such records are typically a rough transcript as a president's phone calls with world leaders are not recorded, according to Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. The formal draft instead relies on National Security Council (NSC) staff who are listening in and taking notes.

So what did the Ukraine phone summary say and what's behind the process of keeping a record of presidential calls with world leaders?

What's in the Trump-Zelensky summary?

The 30-minute call was in fact reduced to a five-page summary released by the Trump administration. Throughout the call, Trump repeatedly urges Zelensky to re-open an investigation into an energy firm for which Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, sat on the board of directors. He references Biden when inquiring about a renewed probe.

A footnote at the bottom of the released document on Wednesday cautioned the transcript was not verbatim and instead includes "the notes and recollections of Situation Room Duty Officers and [National Security Council] staff assigned to listen and memorialize the conversation in written form as the conversation takes place."

A number of factors, the document warns, can affect the transcript's accuracy including a poor connection, accents of those participating in the call or interpretation of their comments.

Call summary: Trump releases details of call with Zelensky amid impeachment inquiry

What they said: Read the summary of Trump's controversial call

Throughout the document, the word "inaudible" is used to indicate a notetaker had difficulty recording exact wording.

At one point, Trump again asks Zelensky to do a "favor" for the U.S.: "If you can look into it ... it sounds horrible to me."

Officials could not explain the ellipsis, saying only that they are used when the conversation is inaudible and not picked up by voice recognition software.

How is a presidential call made?

Mikes Green, a former senior NSC official under former president George W. Bush, said the so-called transcripts are not a stenographer's detailed notes which are legally valid and can be used in court.

"It's meant to be a record of conversation going forward for policy purposes," Green said.

He said the process begins with NSC staff, who prepare a briefing memo for the president that includes biographical information about the leader and talking points, organized by subject, to mention in conversation.

Under Bush, whom Green served, as well his father George H.W. Bush, these memos typically consisted of 2½ pages of notes. Bush tended to read the memo the night before, taking a Sharpie to sections he wanted to remove and adding in his own thoughts.

Evan Medeiros, a former senior NSC official for Obama, said the former president read the talking points in about 90% of the phone calls he sat in on.

"It's a stylistic thing but Obama would just take the points and read them near verbatim," said Medeiros, who focused on Asian countries. "But that's in the context of the countries I dealt with where you always had sequential interpretation. You always had his interpreter and, for instance, a Chinese interpreter on the line, so that structured environment lends itself to just reading the talking points."

But with native English-speaking leaders like the prime minister of Australia, Medeiros added, he could be a bit more "freewheeling."

These memos were usually prepared by the senior director of the region where the foreign leader was located, according to Green, who was in charge of Asian countries under Bush. The senior director would clear these memos internally with other offices that had a "functional issue on the agenda," which could range from trade and proliferation to human rights and democracy, before sending to the national security adviser for approval, according to Green.

The calls are typically made in the Oval Office, where at least two members of the NSC are usually present. But sometimes a president could make the call from the secure presidential limousine, known as the Beast, or from Air Force One, in which case the national security adviser is usually also present.

President Obama would take calls in evening with Asian foreign leaders at his residence after having dinner with his family, according to Medeiros. In those instances, members of the NSC would sit in on the call from their office.

"He would go home at 6 p.m., have dinner with his kids," Medeiros said. "He always had a big stack of papers, and he would do calls and read through the papers in the evening from his study."

How many people are involved in a call with a world leader?

According to former NSC officials, around three or four people are typically present for phone calls with foreign leaders. Under Bush, either the national security adviser or deputy national security adviser and the senior director for the country's region participated.

During the Obama administration, the national security adviser, the NSC aide in charge of the region in question, and possibly the member of staff in charge of the country would show up, according to a former senior NSC official under Obama.

"There is a certain level of ambiguity, it's not verbatim," the official recalled of sharing notes with other aides involved.

But there are also one to two individuals in the Situation Room, a highly secure area in the basement of the West Wing where sensitive communications are monitored and discussed, also listening in and taking notes. The official record tends to be heavily reliant on the designated notetaker.

The individual would draft the notes into a transcript within an hour of the phone call before passing it to the senior regional director, who could also edit or revise the record of conversation.

"The edits would be around 10 to 20% altered of what the original transcript said because the scribe in the Situation Room may not know certain names or places or confuse an acronym," Green said.

"In my experience a transcript was never changed for political reasons but it is entirely possible that sensitive information could be dropped or cut by staff," Green said. "There's no check and balance in the system that prevents that."

But Medeiros maintains that while it's not a perfect transcript, call records tended to be pretty close. The NSC regional director, he said, was responsible for producing the call memo, which became a formal classified document. He would compare his own notes against the Situation Room transcript and fill in holes to produce the final memo.

The senior director adds his or her notes before sending it to the national security adviser's office, which signs off on the final version. The final version is distributed by the Executive Secretariat, an organization that exists within all government agencies to assist with coordination. The document is then sent to a list of key national security principles, which could include the secretaries of State, Defense or sometimes Homeland Security.

"It's a tiny, tiny circle of people involved," Medeiros said.

How unusual are transcript releases?

The White House typically releases "readouts," or summaries of phone calls the president has with foreign leaders that do not include precise quotes. Sometimes NSC officials would liaise with members of the foreign government to ensure both "readouts" were in line with what the two leaders discussed. However, under Bush, officials would release more detailed summaries to counter foreign accounts that mischaracterized phone conversations.

Trump was reportedly angered by the leaked release of transcripts of his phone calls with then-Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto in 2017. Trump cut short the planned hour-long call with Turnbull as the conversation turned contentious over asylum seekers. The episode prompted administration officials to curb the access to readouts summarizing calls.

Most former NSC staff agree it's pretty unusual for an official transcript to be released to the public. None of the former NSC officials interviewed could recall working for an administration that released a transcript of a phone call with a foreign leader.

"A presidential phone conversation is a highly protected document to preserve the privacy of the president in negotiating and dealing with foreign leaders," Medeiros said.

He pointed out the phone call records were not leaked but made public by the Trump administration.

"This is one more instance of President Trump eroding the guardrails around American power and influence around the world," he said.

Green said the unusual move is more likely to complicate American foreign policy than help the Trump administration.

"If these leaders think that the transcripts of their calls might be released, it will limit what they are willing to say on the phone call and that will hurt coordination with friends and allies."