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Donald Trump Urged Ukraine To Investigate Rival

The US President Donald Trump urged Ukraine's leader to work with his lawyer Rudy Giuliani and the U...
Newsroom
Newsroom

8:38 PM - 25 Sep 2019



Donald Trump Urged Ukraine To...

News

Donald Trump Urged Ukraine To Investigate Rival

Newsroom
Newsroom

8:38 PM - 25 Sep 2019



The US President Donald Trump urged Ukraine's leader to work with his lawyer Rudy Giuliani and the US attorney-general to investigate Joe Biden, a White House memorandum shows.

In the call, Mr. Trump raised unsubstantiated allegations that Mr. Biden, the former US vice president and Democrat candidate in the 2020 election, sought to interfere with a Ukrainian prosecutor's investigation of his son Hunter.

"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 so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great," Mr. Trump said to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

"Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it ... It sounds horrible to me."

The 30-minute conversation between the two leaders partly is one piece of a whistleblower's complaint that followed the July 25th call.

Top US Democrat, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, announced on Tuesday that the House of Representatives will examine whether Mr. Trump sought Ukraine's help to smear Mr. Biden - the frontrunner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

Ms. Pelosi said such actions would mark a "betrayal of his oath of office". She declared: "No one is above the law."

Mr. Trump describes former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, as a "highly respected man" in the phone call.

He continued: "I will ask him to call you along with the attorney general. Rudy very much knows what's happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great."

The US president also said there was "a lot of talk about Biden's son", lawyer and lobbyist Hunter Biden.

Earlier this year, Mr. Trump claimed the former vice president wielded his influence to benefit his son private-sector work in Ukraine.

Mr. Trump has dismissed the release of the rough transcript as routine, but Democrats claim it laid the ground for an impeachment inquiry.

Ahead of the memorandum's release on Wednesday, Mr. Trump tweeted: "Will the Democrats apologize after seeing what was said on the call with the Ukrainian President? They should, a perfect call - got them by surprise!"

He also said Ms.Pelosi was wrong to start impeachment proceedings.



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Donald Trump Impeachment Nancy Pelosi US Ukraine

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