Donald Trump dismissed impeachment threats on Monday as Democrats clamoured for the US president to be investigated over claims he pushed the Ukrainian government to help damage a political opponent.
Senior figures within the Democratic Party have suggested Mr Trump abused his power after he appeared to admit he had raised corruption accusations against Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden, during a phone call with Ukraine’s president.
The July 25 call was reportedly the trigger for an intelligence services whistleblower complaint which the White House is refusing to release to Congress.
Mr Trump has suggested that Mr Biden, while serving as Barack Obama’s Vice President, pressured the Ukrainian government to fire its top prosecutor because he had been investigating a company that employed Mr Biden’s son, Hunter.
In fact several western governments, including the US, and the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund supported the prosecutor’s ousting.
Mr Trump defended his phone call with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as he arrived at the UN General Assembly on Monday, telling reporters: "what Biden did is a disgrace. What his son did is a disgrace".
Asked how he viewed the threat of impeachment, he replied: "Not at all seriously".
AP /Nick Wass
Leading Democrats have so far resisted calling for impeachment, but said Mr Trump’s latest actions may amount to an attempt to involve a foreign government in US presidential elections.
Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat House Speaker, warned the White House it had until Thursday to release the whistleblower complaint, or risk severe consequences.
Mrs Pelosi has opposed previous calls for impeachment attempts but in her strongest language on the matter yet, she told Democrats: “If the Administration persists in blocking this whistleblower from disclosing to Congress a serious possible breach of constitutional duties by the President, they will be entering a grave new chapter of lawlessness which will take us into a whole new stage of investigation”.
Let’s be clear, Donald Trump pressured a foreign government to interfere in our elections. It goes against everything the United States stands for.
We must make him a one-term president.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 22, 2019
Another senior Democrat, Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, suggested that impeachment “may be the only remedy” if Mr Trump refuses to release the whistleblower complaint.
"I have been very reluctant to go down the path of impeachment (but)… we may very well have crossed the Rubicon here," Mr Schiff told CNN.
Several Republicans have called for Mr Trump to release more information about the call and the whistleblower’s complaint.
"I would just urge the president – you know, he’s talking openly about the conversation – to release as much as possible," said Senator Lindsey Graham, an ally of Mr Trump.
Another Republican senator, Mitt Romney, a vocal critic of Mr Trump, said any evidence the president had asked his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate Mr Biden "would be troubling in the extreme."
Mr Trump later suggested he may release a transcript of his controversial phone call with Mr Zelenskiy, but said he was concerned about the precedent it would set.
"I could do it very easily, but I’d rather not do it from the standpoint of all the other conversations I have," he told a press conference on Monday.
The Democratic leadership have been reluctant to pursue impeachment proceedings ahead of an election year but face significant pressure to act from the party’s progressive wing.
One of the liberal base’s most vocal members, congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, made this evident in a scathing attack over the weekend.
"At this point, the bigger national scandal isn’t the president’s lawbreaking behavior – it is the Democratic Party’s refusal to impeach him for it," she said in a tweet.
All eyes will be on Washington Thursday, when the administration official who blocked release to Congress of the whistleblower complaint, acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, is scheduled to testify publicly on the issue before a House panel.
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