Trump’s impeachment probe begins

WASHINGTON: Democrats in Congress launched a formal impeachment inquiry, accusing President Donald Trump of betraying the country to get dirt from Ukraine on political rival Joe Biden.Trump hit Twitter on Wednesday with a declaration that Democrats are acting on sheer hatred and treating him worse than any other US leader.

But he was also expected to turn over to Congress the record of his July phone call with Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky in which he allegedly pressed for Kiev to open a corruption probe into Biden, the leading candidate to challenge Trump in the 2020 election.

The White House was stunned on Tuesday when top House Democrat Nancy Pelosi suddenly abandoned months of resistance and announced the impeachment investigation.

Only two presidents in US history have been impeached, Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998, deeply tarring both of their historical legacies. Outside of Twitter, Trump has yet to publically address the threat of impeachment.

In New York for the annual UN General Assembly, he was to meet with Zelensky on Wednesday afternoon and then give a solo press conference in the evening.

Pelosi declared the formal investigation Tuesday 11 days after the news that an anonymous US intelligence official had filed a formal whistleblower complaint on Trump’s alleged double-dealing with Ukraine, tying aid to the country for dirt on Biden.

Until Tuesday, the White House had blocked the legally required release of the whistleblower complaint to Congress’ intelligence committees, as well as the transcript of Trump’s July 25 call with Zelensky.

Pelosi had resisted pressure from the party rank and file for impeachment, preferring to focus their energies on the presidential and congressional election next year as the public has shown little taste for a full-blown probe in Congress of Trump.

A Quinnipiac poll released on Wednesday said that only 37 percent of voters support impeaching Trump while 57 percent oppose, even if more than half disapprove of the US leader’s performance. But Pelosi said there was now strong evidence of Trump’s wrongdoing. "The actions of the Trump presidency revealed the dishonorable facts of the president’s betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security, and betrayal of the integrity of our elections," she said. The first focus in the investigation will be on the "transcript" of the Trump-Zelensky call to be released Wednesday. Trump has already admitted he spoke with the Ukraine leader about Biden, whose son had been involved with a controversial Ukraine businessman, though the son has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, Trump pressed the Biden issue as many as eight times in the call. Trump denies impropriety, and claims he made a link between hundreds of millions of dollars of frozen aid for Ukraine and a Biden probe by Kiev.

Early Wednesday, Trump suggested the transcript will support him. "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!" he tweeted. But experts say the White House "transcript" of a call might not be complete or verbatim.

President Donald Trump maintained on Wednesday that he had exerted "no pressure" on Ukraine, as the White House released a call transcript confirming he had asked Kiev to probe his political rival Joe Biden.

"There was no pressure whatsoever," Trump told reporters on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, a day after Democrats seized on the call to launch an impeachment process. "It was a friendly letter, there was no pressure," Trump said -- referring to the rough transcript of his July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The US leader said Democrats had built up the exchange as the "call from hell" but that "it turned out to be a nothing call."

"Part of the problem you have is you have the fake news, you have a lot of corrupt reporting," Trump said, once more denouncing "the single greatest witch-hunt in American history."

The official memorandum on the call to Zelensky shows Trump saying his attorney general Bill Barr and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani would be in touch about probing Biden and his son’s activities related to Ukraine.

Former vice president Biden is the leading Democratic candidate to challenge Trump in the November 2020 presidential election.

A White House transcript released Wednesday confirmed that President Donald Trump asked his Ukrainian counterpart to probe political rival Joe Biden -- a day after Democrats seized on the explosive allegation to launch an impeachment process.

The official memorandum of a July 25 phone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky shows Trump saying US Attorney General Bill Barr and the president’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani would be in touch about probing Biden and his son’s activities related to Ukraine.

"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 attorney general would be great," Trump said.

As Barack Obama’s vice president, Biden and other Western leaders pressured Ukraine to get rid of the country’s top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, because he was seen as not tough enough on corruption.

"Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it... It sounds horrible to me," Trump told Zelensky in the call.

The memo also shows Trump asking Zelensky for a "favor" on an issue unconnected to Biden -- just after noting that the US had been "very, very good to Ukraine."