Dems demand disclosures on Trump’s Ukraine talks
Lawmakers in Congress on Monday pressed for full disclosure of a whistleblower’s complaint about President Donald Trump as Democratic calls for impeachment intensified over his conversation with Ukraine’s leader. Trump insisted he did nothing wrong.
Democrats, and some Republicans, urged the White House to be forthcoming amid the reports that the president pressured Ukraine’s leader to help investigate political rival Joe Biden at the same time the administration was withholding $250 million in aid to the Eastern European nation.
Trump’s call to the foreign leader, and his subsequent comments about it Monday, raised further questions about whether the president improperly used his office to pressure another country as a way of helping his own reelection prospects. More House Democrats are calling for his impeachment ahead of a closed-door meeting Tuesday with Speaker Nancy Pelosi as Trump’s actions pose a new test for Congress’s ability to provide a check on the White House.
Trump acknowledged the phone call and said he didn’t want to give money to Ukraine — if there were corruption issues.
“It’s very important to talk about corruption,” Trump told reporters as he opened meetings at the United Nations.
Later Monday, Trump denied telling the Ukraine president that his country would only get U.S. aid if it investigated Biden’s son.
Trump has sought, without evidence, to implicate Biden and his son Hunter in the kind of corruption that has long plagued Ukraine. Hunter Biden served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company at the same time his father was leading the Obama administration’s diplomatic dealings with Kyiv. There has been no evidence of wrongdoing by either the former vice president or his son.
The matter is under new scrutiny following the whistleblower’s mid-August complaint, which followed Trump’s July 25 call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The person who filed the complaint did not have firsthand knowledge of the call, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Lawmakers are demanding details of the complaint, but the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, has refused to share that information, citing presidential privilege. He is set to testify Thursday before the House.
The chairmen of the House intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight and Government Reform committees are threatening to subpoena Secretary of State Mike Pompeo if he does not produce information about whether Trump and his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, inappropriately tried to influence the Ukraine government for political gain.