WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump suggested Sunday that he raised former Vice President Joe Biden and Biden’s son in a summer phone call with Ukraine’s new leader, as Democrats pressed for investigations into whether Trump improperly used his office to try to dig up damaging information about a political rival.

Trump told reporters that the July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was “congratulatory” and focused on corruption in the East European nation. In his remarks to reporters, he then raised Biden as an example, although there is no evidence of wrongdoing by Biden or his son Hunter, who worked for a Ukrainian gas company.

Trump, looking very red, basically admits he asked Ukrainian President Zelensky to look into Biden during call that's part of whistleblower complaint: "It was largely [about] fact that we don't want our people like VP Biden & his son creating to the corruption largely in Ukraine" pic.twitter.com/2hvkTbHSJl

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 22, 2019

“It was largely the fact that we don’t want our people, like Vice President Biden and his son, creating to the corruption already in the Ukraine,” Trump said as he left the White House for a trip to Texas.

Biden, who is among the front-runners for the Democratic presidential nomination, accused Trump of making a baseless political smear.

The matter has sparked a fierce debate over whether Trump misused his office for political gain and whether his administration is withholding from Congress critical information about his actions. The incident is part of a whistleblower complaint, but the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, has refused to share details with lawmakers, citing presidential privilege.

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has resisted calls for impeachment for other alleged Trump transgressions, said Sunday that unless Maguire provides information to Congress, administration officials “will be entering a grave new chapter of lawlessness which will take us into a whole new stage of investigation.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned of a "new stage of investigation" if President Trump refused to hand over a whistle-blower complaint reportedly related to whether he pressured Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden's son. She didn't use the word “impeachment." https://t.co/dPjcCTszbS

— The New York Times (@nytimes) September 22, 2019

Another impeachment holdout so far, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that “we may very well have crossed the Rubicon here.”

A person familiar with the matter has told The Associated Press that Trump urged Zelenskiy to investigate Hunter Biden. The person wasn’t authorized to discuss the issue publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Rep. Adam Schiff on President Trump's call with the Ukraine president: “This would be, I think, the most profound violation of the presidential oath of office certainly during this presidency, which says a lot, but perhaps during just about any presidency” #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/06cGtIOYlI

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) September 22, 2019

“Ukraine’s got a lot of problems,” Trump said at the White House. “The new president is saying that he’s going to be able to rid the country of corruption and I said that would be a great thing. We had a great conversation. We had a conversation on many things.”

Trump insisted he said “absolutely nothing wrong” to Zelenskiy. He did not answer directly when asked whether he would release a transcript of the conversation to the public.

Why not let Congress see the whistleblower’s complaint if Trump’s call with Ukraine was above board? “I think that would be a terrible precedent,” Mnuchin says.

This whole interview is worth watching. https://t.co/CWnWUeagWx

— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) September 22, 2019

After arriving in Texas , Trump told reporters he will look into releasing details or a transcript of the call, but stressed that foreign leaders should feel free to speak frankly with an American president without fear that the details of their conversations will later be disclosed. Trump said if Ukraine released its own transcript it would be same as his version of the call.

Trump and Zelenskiy plan to meet on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly later this week.

The president has described the whistleblower as “partisan” but has acknowledged not knowing the identity of the intelligence official who lodged a formal complaint against him with the inspector general for the intelligence community.

The complaint was based on a series of events, including the July 25 call between Trump and Zelenskiy, according to two people familiar with the matter. They were not authorized to discuss the issue by name and were granted anonymity.

Biden said in Iowa on Saturday that “Trump deserves to be investigated” for “trying to intimidate a foreign leader, if that’s what happened.” Biden said Trump was motivated by politics “because he knows I’ll beat him like a drum.”

A leading Republican senator urged the Justice Department to investigate the “Biden-Ukraine connection.”

“We have looked at all things Russia and Trump, his family, everything about his family, every transaction between the Trump campaign and Russia,” Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”

Now is the time, he said, to know “what relationships, if any, did Biden world have to the Ukraine.”

Michael Atkinson, the U.S. government’s intelligence inspector general, has described the whistleblower’s Aug. 12 complaint as “serious” and “urgent,” but he has not been allowed to turn over the complaint to Congress.

Maguire, the acting intelligence director, has been subpoenaed by Schiff’s committee and is expected to testify publicly on Thursday. Maguire and Atkinson also are expected to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee this week.

---

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)

---