- President Donald Trump pressed Ukraine’s new president to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden’s son at least eight times in a July phone call, according to a new Wall Street Journal report.
- This report came as Washington’s focus is glued on a mysterious conversation between Trump and a foreign leader that’s reportedly the focus of a whistleblower complaint from a member of the US intelligence community.
- Reports from the The Washington Post and The New York Times on Thursday said the whistleblower complaint centered around Ukraine.
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President Donald Trump during a July phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky repeatedly pushed the recently elected Ukrainian president to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, according to a Wall Street Journal report released Friday.
The report alleges Trump urged the Ukrainian president to work with his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, on the probe and pressed him about it at least eight times during the call.
“He told him that he should work with [Mr. Giuliani] on Biden, and that people in Washington wanted to know” whether there was any basis to allegations the former vice president worked to protect a Ukraine-based gas company with ties to his son, Hunter Biden, a person familiar with the matter told the Journal. The person also said they didn’t believe Trump offered any “quid-pro-quo” for the Ukrainian president’s cooperation.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.
After Trump's phone conversation with Zelensky in July, the Ukrainian government released a statement that said: "Donald Trump is convinced that the new Ukrainian government will be able to quickly improve the image of Ukraine, and complete investigation of corruption cases, which inhibited the interaction between Ukraine and the USA."
Giuliani met with top Ukrainian officials in June and August to discuss a potential investigation into Biden, according to the Journal's report, which said at least one of the meetings - with a top aide to Zelensky - was set up by the State Department and that Giuliani later briefed the department on the conversation.
The aide, Andriy Yermak, met with Giuliani in Madrid. Their conversation took place before the Trump administration began reviewing $250 million in security aid to Ukraine that had been approved by Congress. Trump released that military aid on September 12.
The Journal's report comes as Washington's focus is glued on a whistleblower complaint from a member of the intelligence community that allegedly accuses Trump of making a promise to a foreign leader. Reports from The Washington Post and The New York Times on Thursday said the complaint centered around Ukraine.
Meanwhile, House Democrats have been looking into whether Trump and Giuliani have sought to persuade Ukraine to aid Trump's 2020 re-election bid by coercing "the Ukrainian government into pursuing two politically-motivated investigations under the guise of anti-corruption activity."
Details surrounding the whistleblower complaint are still murky as Trump and Giuliani get defensive
Giuliani on Thursday had a heated exchange with CNN's Chris Cuomo over the complaint as well as his communications with Ukraine, offering contradictory statements on whether he'd urged the Ukrainian government to investigate Biden.
After the interview, Giuliani tweeted, "A President telling a Pres-elect of a well known corrupt country he better investigate corruption that affects US is doing his job. Maybe if Obama did that the Biden Family wouldn't have bilked millions from Ukraine and billions from China; being covered up by a Corrupt Media."
The acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Robert Maguire has blocked Intelligence Community Inspector General (IC IG) Michael Atkinson from releasing the whistleblower complaint to Congress. This has once again placed House Democrats at odds with the Trump administration when it comes to congressional oversight.
Trump on Friday claimed the whistleblower was " highly partisan," but provided no evidence to support the assertion and later said he doesn't know who the whistleblower is.
"I don't know the identity of the whistleblower, I just hear its a partisan person meaning it comes out from another party," Trump said.
Trump also defended the nature of his conversation with the foreign leader linked to the whistleblower report, but did not name any particular leader. "It was a totally appropriate conversation. It was actually a beautiful conversation," he said.