One of America’s top intelligence chiefs consider President Donald Trump may have illegally solicited help with his re-election campaign and that his possible misconduct could lead to a national security risk.
The irony is Trump ‘s actions have been disclosed by intelligence community watchdog Michael Atkinson, who he appointed to make sure those working behind closed doors did not take advantage of their positions.
Atkinson, a former justice Department official, has taken a whistle-blower complaint to Congress, about Trump’s dealings with the Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The accusation is Trump allegedly pressured Zelensky to open an investigation into Joe Biden, a rival in Trump’s bid for re-election in 2020.
The White House has released a memo of the conversation in which Trump said: “I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that’s really unfair.
What that memo says
“A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved.”
“The other thing, there’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution [of Mr Biden’s son] and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the [US] 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.”
Zelenski replied: “We will take care of that and we will work on the investigation of the case.”
Zelenski also thanked Trump for a stay in Trump Tower, New York, during a visit to the US.
On the call, the US president also asks Zelensky to work with US Attorney General William Barr and Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, over the matter. The incident Trump is asking Zelensky to investigate involves Biden, as US vice-president in 2016, lobbying Ukraine to fire the Ukraine’s chief prosecutor Viktor Shokin, alleging corruption.
What did Biden do?
Shokin’s office had opened an investigation into Burisma, a natural gas company on which Biden’s sat on the board.
Biden senior last year told a foreign policy event how he threatened to withhold $1 billion in aid to Ukraine unless Shokin was removed.
No evidence suggests wrongdoing by the Bidens.
Trump claims the call for his impeachment over the call is a witch hunt.
“The way you had that built up that call, it was going to be the call from hell,” said Trump. “It turned out to be a nothing call.”
Zelensky said: “You heard that we had a, I think, good phone call. “It was normal. We spoke about many things, so I think you read it that nobody pushed me.”