2020 White House hopeful Joe Biden on Wednesday accused President Donald Trump of attempting to “smear” him and claimed it was “a tragedy for this country” that the president suggested Ukraine’s leader look into Hunter Biden’s business dealings.
“It is a tragedy for this country that our president put personal politics above his sacred oath,” Biden said in a lengthy statement following the White House’s release of the July 25th conversation between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“The 2,000-word summation of a 30-minute phone call released by the White House makes clear that days after the President ordered the delay of Congressionally-appropriated military assistance to Ukraine, he implored the President of Ukraine to work with his personal attorney to manufacture a smear against a domestic political opponent, using a malicious conspiracy theory that has been universally debunked by every independent outlet that has looked at it,” he continued.
According to the transcript, President Trump asked Zelensky to look into Biden’s role in the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Burisma Holdings, an energy firm where his son Hunter was a board member. The former vice president bragged about the prosecutor’s ouster before the Council of Foreign Relations last year, saying that he had threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid unless the investigator was removed.
Numerous congressional Democrats expressed support for impeachment after the call between President Trump and Zelensky came to light, prompting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to formally launch an impeachment inquiry.
Though Biden did not mention impeachment in his statement, the presidential candidate said he supports Democrats’ efforts to help the president “accountable.”
“Congress must pursue the facts and quickly take prompt action to hold Donald Trump accountable,” he said. “In the meantime, I will continue to focus my campaign not on how Donald Trump abused his power to come after my family, but on how he has turned his back on America’s families.”
During a joint press conference at the United Nations Wednesday, Zelensky denied that President Trump pressed him to probe Hunter Biden.
“I think you read everything. I think you read text. I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be involved to democratic open elections, elections of USA. No, sure, we had I think good phone call. It was normal. We spoke about many things, and I — so I think and you read it that nobody pushed me,” he said.
When it was President Trump’s time to speak, he maintained that he applied “no pressure whatsoever” on Ukraine.
“Part of the problem you have is you have the fake news, you have a lot of corrupt reporting,” Trump added, once again denouncing the Ukraine call as “the single greatest witch hunt in American history.”