US president asked Volodymyr Zelenskiy for a favor and to look into Joe Biden as Pelosi launches impeachment inquiry against Trump
Donald Trump pressed the Ukrainian president to work with the US attorney general to investigate his political rival Joe Biden, a damning White House memo revealed on Wednesday, raising the stakes in an acrimonious and polarising impeachment inquiry.
Democrats said the US presidents conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskiy detailed in the five-page rough transcript was a devastating betrayal of his country that merited their investigation, while Republicans claimed it showed no quid pro quo and offered complete vindication.
The disclosure came a day after Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, announced an official impeachment inquiry following a whistleblowers complaint regarding alleged violations by Trump, setting the stage for a long and rancorous fight in the run-up to next years presidential election. That whistleblowers complaint was handed over to the US Congress on Wednesday, but the details remained classified. Lawmakers who reviewed the document described it as deeply disturbing and very credible, and called for it to be made public.
Earlier, some observers expressed surprise that the White House had agreed to release such a damaging memo detailing the 30-minute call between Trump and Zelenskiy on 25 July. Though not a verbatim transcript, it showed that, after being congratulated on his victory in the Ukrainian election, Zelenskiy thanked the US for its military support and said he was almost ready to buy more American weapons.
Trump replied I would like you to do us a favor, though and went on discuss possible joint investigations. Later in the conversation, he told Zelenskiy he should work with Trumps lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and the US attorney general, William Barr, to look into unsubstantiated allegations that Biden, the former vice-president, helped remove a Ukrainian prosecutor investigating his son, Hunter, who was on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.
Trump said: Theres a lot of talk about Bidens son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it.
He added: It sounds horrible to me.
The previously unknown connection to Barr was a potentially grave development for Trump because it shows he sought to involve the US government with a foreign country to seek dirt on a potential election rival. There is no evidence of wrongdoing by Biden, the current frontrunner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
In a rambling press conference late on Wednesday afternoon, while wrapping up his visit to the United Nations general assembly in New York, Trump dismissed the growing Ukraine scandal as a big hoax and said he didnt threaten anybody.
The unidentified whistleblower submitted a complaint to Michael Atkinson, the US governments intelligence inspector general, in August. Joseph Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence, then blocked the release of the complaint to Congress, citing issues of presidential privilege and saying the complaint did not deal with an urgent concern. Atkinson disagreed but said his hands were tied.
Meanwhile, details of the secret whistleblowers complaint began to emerge in news reports on Wednesday evening.
The New York Times reported that the complaint also raised alarm over how White House staff handled records of Trumps conversation with the Ukrainian president and that Atkinson feared a national security risk, according to sources.
Q&A
How do you impeach the US president?
Article 1 of the United States constitution gives the House of Representatives the sole power to initiate impeachment and the Senate the sole power to try impeachments of the president. A president can be impeached if they are judged to have committed “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” although the constitution does not specify what high crimes and misdemeanors are.
The process starts with the House of Representatives passing articles of impeachment. A simple majority of members need to vote in favour of impeachment for it to pass to the next stage. Democrats currently control the house, with 235 representatives.
The chief justice of the US supreme court then presides over the proceedings in the Senate, where the president is tried, with senators acting as the jury. For the president to be found guilty two-thirds of senators must vote to convict. Republicans currently control the Senate, with 53 of the 100 senators.
Two presidents have previously been impeached, Bill Clinton in 1998, and Andrew Johnson in 1868, though neither was removed from office as a result. Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 before there was a formal vote to impeach him.
Martin Belam
The House intelligence committee chair, Adam Schiff, said he would do everything in his power to protect the whistleblower. I think that what this courageous individual has done has exposed serious wrongdoing, he said. According to the Associated Press, lawmakers have yet to learn the identity of the whistleblower.
The Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, said: Having read the whistleblower complaint, I am even more worried about what happened than when I read the memorandum of the conversation between President Trump and President Zelensky.
Trump and Zelenskiy came face to face on the sidelines of the UN general assembly on Wednesday and the awkward body language was plain. The Ukrainian president told reporters: I think you read everything. I think you read text. Im sorry, but I dont want to be involved to democratic, open elections of USA. No.
Zelenskiy added: Sure, we had, I think, good phone call. It was normal. We spoke about many things, and I so I think and you read it that nobody pushed me.
Trump commented: In other words, there was no pressure and you know there was no pressure.
Q&A
What is the Trump-Ukraine whistleblower scandal?
On 25 July, US president Donald Trump called Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy. During the course of the call he reportedly asked the Ukrainian leader eight times to investigate former US vice-president Joe Biden and Bidens son Hunter. It is additionally reported that Trump ordered his staff to withhold nearly $400m in aid to Ukraine days before the call took place.
Biden is one of the frontrunners to win the Democratic nomination and take on Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Trumpconfirmedhe discussed the Bidens with Zelenskiy, and accused the pair without offering any evidence of corruption.
A US intelligence community whistleblower filed a report after becoming alarmed at Trumps behaviour in the matter. The White House refused to release the substance of the whistleblower complaint, setting up a confrontation with Congress over the release of information. Complaints of this nature are usually reported to Congress within seven days.
Trumps personal lawyer, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, has admitted asking the Ukrainians to investigate the Bidens. It is illegal for a political campaign to accept a thing of value from a foreign government. Democrats say an investigation into a political opponent for which Trump appears to have been pushing would amount to a thing of value.
But Democrats seized on the memos contents, saying it showed Trump used his powers not for Americas national security but to hurt Biden and help his own re-election.
Biden said in a statement: It is a tragedy for this country that our president put personal politics above his sacred oath. He has put his own political interests over our national security interest, which is bolstering Ukraine against Russian pressure.
It is an affront to every single American and the founding values of our country. This is not a Republican issue or a Democratic issue. It is a national security issue. It is a test of our democratic values.
Pelosi condemned Trump for using taxpayer money to shake down other countries for the benefit of his campaign. The transcript and the justice departments acting in a rogue fashion in being complicit in the presidents lawlessness confirm the need for an impeachment inquiry, she said. Clearly, the Congress must act.
Schiff told reporters: The notes of the call reflect a conversation far more damning than I and many others had imagined.
He added: This is how a mafia boss talks. And its clear that the Ukraine president understands exactly what is expected of him.
But the alternative realities that have pervaded American politics for the past three years were still in evidence. Trump and his allies sought to paint a very different picture, insisting that the memo proved his innocence.
The Trump re-election campaign fired off emails seeking to raise funds off the smear job by soliciting donations for an Official Impeachment Defense Task Force.
Brad Parscale, Trumps 2020 campaign manager, suggested the impeachment move will boost Trumps chance of re-election. He said: Because of their pure hatred for President Trump, desperate Democrats and the salivating media already had determined their mission: take out the president.
Parscale went on: The facts prove the president did nothing wrong. This is just another hoax from Democrats and the media, contributing to the landslide re-election of President Trump in 2020.
There was little sign of Republicans breaking ranks, meaning that even if Trump is impeached by the House, he would not be convicted and removed from office by the Republican-controlled Senate. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Trump loyalist, said: Impeachment over this? What a nothing (non-quid pro quo) burger. Democrats have lost their minds when it comes to President Trump.
John Cornyn of Texas said on the Senate floor: This is a continuation of the election in 2016 where our Democratic friends cant believe that Hillary Clinton lost the election to Donald Trump.
One of the few dissenting voices was Senator and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who said: My reaction was the same as I had a few days ago, which is this remains deeply troubling and well see where it leads. But my first reaction is its troubling.
Trump had confirmed that he ordered the freezing of nearly $400m in military aid to Ukraine a few days before the call, claiming the US was paying more than its fair share rather than any threat of blackmail or quid pro quo. The aid was eventually released under pressure from Congress.
The Ukraine scandal erupted after an intelligence community whistleblower came forward. Democrats have been demanding details of the whistleblowers complaint, but the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, has refused to share that information, citing presidential privilege. He is to testify before the House on Thursday.
On Wednesday it also emerged that the intelligence communitys inspector general told the acting director of national intelligence that the call could have been a federal campaign finance violation. But the justice department determined the president did not commit a crime after prosecutors reviewed a rough transcript.
The justice department also denied that Trump had sought to involve Barr.
Agencies contributed reporting
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