President Donald Trump asked his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate former vice-president Joe Biden and his son, according to a White House memorandum of a call between the leaders.
Mr Trump had said a transcript of the call, which has sparked an impeachment inquiry, would prove he did not try to pressure Volodymyr Zelensky by threatening to withhold nearly $400m in military aid.
While the memorandum provided by note takers in the White House Situation Room contained no direct evidence that Mr Trump said he would withhold the money, it revealed that he asked the Ukrainian president to talk to William Barr, his attorney-general, and Rudy Giuliani, his personal lawyer, about Hunter Biden and his father.
“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 attorneygeneral would be great,” Mr Trump said, according to the notes, which continued: “Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it . . . It sounds horrible to me.”
In the call, Mr Trump asked Mr Zelensky to speak with Mr Giuliani, saying his personal lawyer was a “very capable guy”.
“Rudy very much knows what’s happening, and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great,” Mr Trump said.
Mr Zelensky acknowledged the request by Mr Trump — which the US president described as a “favour” — and said that one of his assistants had already spoken with Mr Giuliani.
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“We are hoping very much that Mr Giuliani will be able to travel to Ukraine and we will meet once he comes to Ukraine,” Mr Zelensky said.
Mr Trump has repeatedly alleged that Joe Biden improperly pressured the Ukrainian government in 2016 to fire a top prosecutor who was investigating Burisma, a company where Hunter Biden was on the board. While the then US vice-president called for the prosecutor’s dismissal and threatened to withhold $1bn in US loan guarantees if he was not fired, his calls were part of a wider effort involving US officials in Kiev, Western allies and organisations such as the IMF and the World Bank to crack down on corruption in the country.
Mr Trump had pledged on Tuesday to release a transcript of the call at the heart of a scandal that has rapidly engulfed his presidency. But his effort to blunt the growing uproar from Democrats did not stop Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House speaker, from announcing that she would launch an impeachment inquiry because his actions had amounted to a “betrayal of his oath of office [and] betrayal of our national security”.
Mr Trump fired a barrage of tweets on Wednesday morning lambasting the Democrats for pursuing a “witch hunt”, in language echoing his response to the now-concluded Russia investigation overseen by Robert Mueller.
“There has been no President in the history of our Country who has been treated so badly as I have. The Democrats are frozen with hatred and fear. They get nothing done. This should never be allowed to happen to another President. Witch Hunt!” Mr Trump tweeted from New York. “Will the Democrats apologise after seeing what was said on the call with the Ukrainian President? They should, a perfect call — got them by surprise!”
