Transcript: Donald Trump asked for Biden probe
A released phone transcript has confirmed Donald Trump asked his Ukrainian counterpart for a “favour” regarding Joe Biden, as the US president defends it as a “perfect call”.
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The White House has released a phone transcript confirming Donald Trump asked his Ukrainian counterpart to probe the son of his political rival Joe Biden — a day after Democrats launched the first presidential impeachment process since the 1990s.
But the transcript, recreated through a combination of voice recognition software and the recollections of notetakers in the White House situation room, who listened in to the July 25 call, does not appear to deliver the smoking gun that Democrats had promised.
While Mr Trump asks Volodymyr Zelensky to “look into” Hunter Biden’s actions in the lead up to the 2016 election, he does not threaten to withhold US aid if the investigation were not to go ahead.
That claim had been levelled repeatedly by Mr Trump’s opposition in recent days.
Speaking briefly to reporters between meetings with world leaders at the United Nations in New York, Mr Trump said the transcript confirmed he had done nothing wrong, slamming Democrats for launching a “political war”.
“There was no pressure, the way you had that built up, that call, it was going to be the call from hell,” Mr Trump said.
“It turned out to be a nothing call other than a lot of people said, I never knew you could be so nice.”
“It was a perfect call ... there was no quid pro quo,” he said at a news conference.
The president of the United States has betrayed our country.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 25, 2019
That’s not a political statement—it’s a harsh reality, and we must act.
He is a clear and present danger to the things that keep us strong and free.
I support impeachment.
Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky said as he sat alongside Mr Trump at a press conference that he did not feel pressured during his phone call with the US president.
“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,” he said.
However, Republican Senator Mitt Romney said he was concerned about the president’s conversation.
“This remains deeply troubling and we’ll see where it leads. But the first reaction is troubling,” said Sen. Romney, his party’s 2012 presidential nominee and one of the only Republicans on Capitol Hill to publicly express major concerns about Mr Trump’s actions during the call.
“Clearly if there were a quid pro quo that would take it to an entirely more extreme level,” he added.
Top Democrat Adam Schiff said the notes of the call “reflect a classic mafia-type shakedown of a foreign leader.”
“This is how a mafia boss talks: ‘What have you done for us? We’ve done so much for you but there’s not much reciprocity. I have a favor to ask you,’” Mr Schiff said.
“And what is that favour? Of course, the favour is to investigate his political rival, to investigate the Bidens.”
“Ukraine knew what it needed to do if it wanted to get military assistance.” “The notes of the call reflect a conversation far more damning than I or many others had imagined,”
The five-page transcript of the 30-minute call was released with the approval of Ukraine’s leader, who is due to meet Mr Trump on Wednesday (local time) at the UN.
During the call, the pair trade pleasantries and congratulations for recent political victories, agreeing with each other that Europe should do more to financially support Ukraine.
Mr Trump asks Mr Zelensky to discuss some of the findings of the probe by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Russian efforts to sway the 2016 election with his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani and US Attorney-General Robert Barr. Mr Mueller had the day before testified about his findings.
“I would like you to do us a favour, though, because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it,” Mr Trump says, going on to refer to a Ukraine based software company retained by the Democrat leadership which the US President said was involved with Russian hackers.
“Whatever you can do with the attorney-general would be great,” Mr Trump says, in a reference to US Attorney-General William Barr.
The discussion then moved to the Biden family, with Mr Trump raising unproven allegations that Joe Biden, as Barack Obama’s vice president and charged with heading diplomatic relations with Ukraine, had tried to interfere with a Ukrainian prosecutor’s investigation of the business dealings of his son, Hunter Biden.
“There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that,” Mr Trump said.
“Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it.”
Mr Zelensky, whose government had just won a majority, promises his new prosecutor general will “look into the situation”.
Mr Trump on Tuesday had slammed as “a total witch hunt scam” the start of formal impeachment proceedings by Democrats.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Tuesday that Mr Trump had violated the law and the constitution by asking the Ukrainian President to probe the actions of a political rival.
But Mr Trump shrugged off the controversy, admitting that while he discussed Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, he had done nothing wrong.
Ms Pelosi said that by asking a foreign government to help him politically, and by refusing to release information about a whistleblower complaint involving the controversy, Mr Trump had “betrayed the constitution”.
“Therefore today, I am announcing the House of Representatives is moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry,” Ms Pelosi said.
“The President must be held accountable, no one is above the law.”
Mr Trump slammed the move as “just a continuation of the witch hunt”.
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Impeachment is the rarely used process through which the US president can be removed from office if convicted of “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanours”.
It has only occurred twice, to presidents Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson. Neither were removed from office. Disgraced leader Richard Nixon resigned before he could be impeached over the Watergate scandal.
While some Democrats have repeatedly called for impeachment, Ms Pelosi has until now resisted pressure, saying she would prefer to defeat Mr Trump at the ballot in November 2020.
Ms Pelosi’s announcement of a formal inquiry doesn’t necessarily mean an impeachment will follow, but it establishes the path needed for it to occur.
Half the House of Representatives would need to vote for impeachment, which would then move to the Senate, where a two-thirds vote would be needed for a trial to commence.
Former Vice-President Joe Biden on Tuesday also declared Mr Trump would leave Congress “no choice” but to seek impeachment, should the President refuse to comply with its requests.
“Pressuring the leader of another nation to investigate a political opponent — to help win his election is not the conduct of an American President,” he said.
“The allegation that he blocked hundreds of millions of dollars in Congressionally approved aid to another country unless it agreed to smear his political opponent is not the conduct of an American President.”
Mr Biden has been dogged by his son’s connections to Ukraine, which Mr Trump has long criticised. Hunter Biden was on the board of a Ukrainian gas company at the same time that the then Vice-President was in charge of the Obama administration’s diplomatic relationship with Kiev.
There has been no evidence shown of corruption.
While impeachment proceedings have the potential to strip the presidency from Mr Trump, they are a huge political risk for Democrats. An unsuccessful trial would almost certainly help propel the Republican leader back into a second term at next year’s election, further energising his supporters who are frustrated by constant investigations and allegations of impropriety from his opponent.
Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale described the impeachment strategy as “misguided”.
“Democrats can’t beat President Trump on his policies or his stellar record of accomplishment, so they’re trying to turn a Joe Biden scandal into a Trump problem,” Mr Parscale said.
“The misguided Democrat impeachment strategy is meant to appease their rabid, extreme, leftist base, but will only serve to embolden and energise President Trump’s supporters and create a landslide victory for the President.”