President Donald Trump said yesterday he will release the “fully declassified” transcript of a controversial call with Ukraine’s president which is fuelling Democratic calls for his impeachment.
“I am currently at the United Nations representing our Country, but have authorised the release tomorrow of the complete, fully declassified and unredacted transcript of my phone conversation with President Zelensky of Ukraine,” Trump tweeted yesterday.
“You will see it was a very friendly and totally appropriate call,” wrote Trump, who is accused of pressuring Zelensky to investigate his White House rival Joe Biden and his son. “No pressure and, unlike Joe Biden and his son, NO quid pro quo!”
Earlier, Trump had confirmed he had withheld nearly $400mn in US aid to Ukraine but denied he did so as leverage to get its president to initiate an investigation that would damage Biden.
In remarks to reporters at the United Nations over the intensifying political controversy, Trump sought to portray that there was nothing sinister about the withholding the aid, saying he wanted Europe and not just the United States step up and provide Ukraine assistance.
The money was later released by the Trump administration.
In Washington, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, is to meet Democratic lawmakers to consider impeaching the Republican president as more lawmakers voiced support for the action.
In addition, a senior US senator demanded an investigation of the withholding of the aid.
Trump is seeking re-election next year and Biden, the former US vice president, is the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Trump had on Sunday acknowledged that he discussed Biden and Biden’s son Hunter, who had worked for a company drilling for gas in Ukraine, with Zelenskiy.
But Trump on Monday denied trying to coerce Zelenskiy in the July 25 phone call to launch a corruption investigation into Biden and his son in return for the US military aid.
Arriving at the United Nations before his speech to the annual General Assembly, Trump confirmed that he had wanted the money for Ukraine frozen, saying European should countries provide assistance to Kyiv, but changed his mind after “people called me.”
Trump told reporters that he still felt other nations should be paying to help Ukraine.
“The money was paid, but very importantly, Germany, France, other countries should put up money,” Trump said.
Regarding aid to Ukraine, Trump said, “We’re putting up the bulk of the money, and I’m asking why is that?...What I want, and I insist on it, is that Europe has to put up money for Ukraine also.”
The controversy came to light after a whistleblower from within the US intelligence community lodged a complaint with an internal watchdog about Trump’s conversation with Zelenskiy, leading to calls from some Democrats that Trump be impeached for trying to enlist a foreign power to smear a domestic opponent.
US intelligence agencies and a special counsel previously concluded that Russia boosted Trump’s 2016 presidential election bid with a campaign of hacking and propaganda aimed at harming his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.
Senator Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Congress had not been made aware of any substantive review of security assistance to Ukraine or any policy reason the funds should have been withheld.
In a letter to Mike Mulvaney, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Menendez said “it is becoming clear that” Trump put pressure on Ukrainian officials.
Menendez, in one of three letters sent to administration officials, also said “we must immediately understand whether, and to what extent, the President and his team converted duly-appropriated United States foreign assistance funds for his personal and political benefit, and what role federal agencies may have played in it.”
Under the US Constitution, the House has the power to impeach a president for “high crimes and misdemeanours” and the Senate then holds a trial on whether to remove the president from office.
No president has ever been removed from office through impeachment.
A House committee has already launched a formal impeachment probe of Trump in light of his actions in the Russia matter but the impeachment drive never won the support of key party figures including Pelosi.
Pelosi appeared to be moving closer to favouring impeachment as Democrats demand that the Trump administration release details of a whistleblower complaint and the transcript of his call.
Democratic Representative John Lewis, speaking on the House floor, said he now believed it was time to begin impeachment proceedings.?
“I have been patient while we tried every other path and used every other tool,” Lewis said.
Trump yesterday accused Democrats of considering impeachment for purely political reasons.
“They have no idea how they stop me. The only way they can try is through impeachment,” Trump said at the United Nations.
In his letter, Menendez noted that the US State and Defense Departments recommended and prepared to distribute in late June $391.5mn in military and security assistance to boost Ukraine’s armed forces as the country dealt with Russian aggression and sought to improve maritime security in the Black Sea.
However, weeks before Trump’s call with Zelenskiy, OMB blocked the aid, Menendez said in the letter to Mulvaney.
“Ukrainian officials were reportedly ‘blindsided,’” Menendez wrote. “For months, despite repeated inquiries from my office and others, administration officials have been unable to offer any policy justification for why these funds were blocked.”
OMB did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Joseph Maguire, acting US director of national intelligence, is defying a federal law mandating that the whistleblower report be shared with Congress.
Maguire is due to testify tomorrow at a public House intelligence committee hearing.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks at a Fed Up? Rise Up!’ rally outside the US Capitol in Washington yesterday.
