US markets sink as transcript shows Trump asked Ukraine to dig dirt on Joe Biden
President Donald Trump urged his Ukraine counterpart to contact the US attorney general about investigating unsubstantiated corruption claims concerning political rival Joe Biden, according to a transcript the White House released today.
Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that he should contact attorney general William Barr and Trump’s own lawyer Rudolph Giuliani.
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“There is a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution, and a lot of people want to find out about that,” Trump said to Zelensky during the call, according to the transcript.
“So whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great.”
Trump and Giuliani have been pressing for Ukranian officials to investigate whether there was any overlap between Biden’s dealings with Ukraine while vice-president and his son’s role on the board of a Ukranian energy firm.
Barr, through the US Justice Department, denied any knowledge that Trump had told Zelensky Barr would call him, and had not spoken with Giuliani about Ukraine.
Trump also asked Zelensky to look into an unsubstantiated theory put forward by Giuliani that Ukranians had a part in the swathe of emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee in the run up to the US election of 2016.
“I would like to have the attorney general call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of that,” Trump said.
“Whatever you can do, it’s very important that you do it, if that’s possible.”
President Trump referenced Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged links to Russia in the run up to Trump’s victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton.
US and European markets tumbled on the release of the transcript as the FTSE 100 sank 0.4 per cent to 7,261 points while the Nasdaq sank 0.37 per cent to 7,964.
The Dow gained 0.1 per cent but the S&P 500 dropped 0.16 per cent while Germany’s Fax and France’s Cac fell 1.16 per cent and 1.42 per cent respectively.
Trump tweeted that the Democrats should apologise for pushing to initiate an impeachment inquiry.
“Will the Democrats apologize after seeing what was said on the call with the Ukrainian President? They should, a perfect call – got them by surprise!” he said.
The call prompted an intelligence worker to become a whistleblower on the government and the Democrats last night opened an impeachment inquiry into Trump.
They accuse the President of betraying the US by piling pressure on a foreign leader to find dirt on a political rival.
“The actions of the Trump presidency revealed the dishonourable fact of the president’s betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security and betrayal of the integrity of our elections,” Democrat speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi said.
Days before the call, Trump instructed acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to freeze a $391m foreign aid payment.
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Neither leader made an explicit reference to the money during the call.
David Madden, market analyst at CMC Markets, said: “Stocks are in the red today as President Trump is under political at home. The Democrats are pushing to impeach Mr Trump over the admission that he applied pressure to the president of Ukraine to investigate the Biden family – Joe Biden is running against Mr Trump in the 2020 US presidential election.
“In 2017 there was talk of impeachment, which obviously didn’t happened, but there was a ripple out effect in global stock markets, as traders despise political uncertainty.”
Main image: Getty