US President Donald Trump has suggested he raised former Vice President Joe Biden and Biden's son in a summer phone call with Ukraine's new leader, with Democrats pressing for investigations into whether Trump improperly used his office to try to dig up damaging information about a political rival.
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Trump told reporters that the July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky 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 was on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.
"The conversation I had was largely congratulatory, was largely corruption, all of the corruption taking place," Trump said before leaving the White House on a trip to Texas and Ohio.
"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.
"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."
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 on 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".
A person familiar with the matter has told The Associated Press that Trump urged Zelensky to investigate Hunter Biden, who was hired by the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings in April 2014.
Hunter Biden's appointment came two months after Ukraine's Russia-friendly president was ousted by protesters and as Joe Biden was heavily involved in US efforts to support the new pro-Western government and its pledge to fight corruption.
The hiring of the younger Biden immediately raised concerns that the Ukrainian firm, whose owner was a political ally of the ousted president, was seeking to gain influence with the Obama administration.
Two years later, Joe Biden pressured the Ukrainian government to fire the prosecutor general, who was accused by many in Ukraine and in the West of being soft on corruption.
Trump has claimed that the prosecutor, who had led an investigation into Burisma's owner, "was after" Hunter Biden and the vice president was trying to protect his son. There is no evidence of this.
Trump insisted he said "absolutely nothing wrong" in the call to Zelensky, but did not answer directly when asked whether he would release a transcript of the conversation to the public.
US House intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff says if an investigation shows Trump pressured his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate Joe Biden, then impeachment would be the only option.
Trump and Zelensky plan to meet on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly later this week.
Australian Associated Press
