Biden tells Trump to release Ukraine call transcript as demands grow for president's impeachment

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Joe Biden has called on Donald Trump to release the transcript of a controversial conversation with the leader of Ukraine, as pressure mounted on Democrats to move forward with impeachment.

As Mr Trump said he was not taking seriously the threat of such a censure, and defended his request to Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky to push ahead with an investigation into Mr Biden and his son, the former vice president urged the White House to come clean.

“I’m calling on the president to release the transcript of the call to let everybody hear what it is,” Mr Biden said while campaigning in Iowa. “Let the House see it, and see what he did.”

Last week reports that a member of the US intelligence services had blown the whistle on a conversation the president had with a world leader sparked a furore.

It quickly emerged the call was to Mr Zelensky, and reports said Mr Trump had asked the newly elected Ukraine leader eight times during their conversation to push ahead with an investigation into claims Mr Biden misused his position as vice president to lobby for the ousting of an allegedly corrupt prosecutor. The prosecutor was said to be looking into an energy company that employed Mr Biden’s son, Hunter.

While Mr Biden has previously been cleared of wrongdoing, Mr Trump and his supporters have seized on the episode, seeking to undermine the campaign of the frontrunner among Democrats seeking to challenge him in 2020. On Monday, as he met foreign leaders on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, Mr Trump insisted he had done nothing wrong. He sought to turn the focus onto Mr Biden.

“Joe Biden and his son are corrupt. If a Republican ever did what Joe Biden did, if a Republican ever said what Joe Biden said, they’d be getting the electric chair right now,” he said.

He added: “I did not make a statement that ‘you have to do this or I’m not going to give you aid’. I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t do that.

“There was no pressure put on them whatsoever. I put no pressure on them whatsoever. I could have. I think it probably, possibly would have been OK if I did,” he said.

Mr Trump suggested the White House might release a transcript of the conversation, though he said he worried that it might set a precedent. Later, he wrote on Twitter that Fox News had "bombshell information" that suggested the whistleblower did not have firsthand knowledge of that phone conversation.

Critics of the president claim the episode underscores how Mr Trump considers himself above the law.

They claim the alleged request during a 25 July phone conversation Mr Zelensky was especially brazen as it came just two days after special counsel Robert Mueller had testified to congress about his investigation into Russia’s alleged interference in 2016, and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.

On Capitol Hill, a number of Democrats said the developments crossed a new line. Politico reported that congressman Dean Phillips of Minnesota became the first centrist Democrat to announce support for Mr Trump’s ouster if he had urged the Ukrainian government to investigate his political rival.

“If the reports are corroborated, we must pursue articles of impeachment and report them to the full House of Representatives for immediate consideration,” Mr Phillips said.

In a letter to her colleagues on Sunday, House speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote: “If the administration persists in blocking this whistleblower from disclosing to congress a serious possible breach of constitutional duties by the president, they will be entering a grave new chapter of lawlessness which will take us into a whole new stage of investigation.”

A number of Democrats, among them Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, believe Ms Pelosi, 79, is being too timid and have called for the party to move forward with Mr Trump’s impeachment. Ms Pelosi is calculating the move could backfire and hurt Democrats’ fortunes in 2020 as there is little support among the public.

Meanwhile, congressional Democrats demanded documents from the White House about the Mr Trump team’s contacts with Ukraine.

Three House committees – intelligence, foreign affairs and oversight – called on secretary of state Mike Pompeo to produce documents related to contacts between Mr Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Ukrainian officials.

The Democratic-led committees said in a letter that they “jointly request documents related to reported efforts by President Trump and his associates to improperly pressure the Ukrainian government to assist the president’s bid for re-election”. They warned they wanted to hear from Mr Pompeo by Thursday to know to whether to obtain subpoenas.

Hunter Biden was hired by the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings in April 2014, two months after Ukraine’s Russia-friendly former president was ousted by protesters, and as the US vice president was heavily involved in US efforts to support the new pro-western government.

Additional reporting by agencies