President Donald Trump, in a midsummer phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, asked him to look into why that country’s top prosecutor apparently had ended an investigation of the business dealings of Joe Biden’s son, who served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.
“(Then-Vice President Joe) Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution, so if you can look into it, It sounds horrible to me,” Trump told Zelenskiy during the 30-minute July 25 phone call.
A transcript of the call was made public Wednesday by the Trump administration under pressure from Democrats who have launched a formal impeachment inquiry to determine whether the president sought the help of a foreign leader to boost his campaign.
The president's phone call — made from the White House residence to Zelenskiy — began with Trump congratulating Zelenskiy on his election victory.
Later, Trump veers into the Biden issue.
"I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down, which is really unfair,” Trump says on the call, according to the transcript.
Trump then says, "There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, what 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.”
“Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution, so if you can look into it, It sounds horrible to me,” Trump said on the call, according to the transcript.
Zelenskiy replies that he’s appointing a new prosecutor who will “look into the situation.”
That is the only mention about Biden in the transcript of the call. The call transcript is five pages.
