CNN News:白宫公布美乌总统通话录音文本 特朗普的确要求调查拜登
CARL AZUZ, cnn 10 ANCHOR: First topic today on cnn 10, a down-the-middle explanation of the impeachment inquiry in the U.S. House of Representatives. I'm Carl Azuz. Thank you for watching. The controversy started with a phone call. In late July, U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. That conversation factored into a complaint made later by an anonymous whistle blower, someone who aims to expose potential wrong doing. In the call, President Trump spoke of former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and his son. Between 2014 and 2016, Vice-President Biden was a regular visitor to Ukraine. It had a new government. The U.S. government supported it and the Obama Administration had offered Ukraine $1 billion in assistance.
In recounting one of his trips there, Vice-President Biden said he told the Ukrainian government to fire one of its top attorneys if it wanted the American aid money. Several countries blamed the prosecutor for not doing enough to investigate corruption in Ukraine. The Ukrainian government fired the prosecutor and got the U.S. aid. But in his phone call this summer with Ukraine's new leader, President Trump said it was unfair that the Ukrainian prosecutor was fired in 2016. He added quote, "there's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that" and he asked the Ukrainian president to look into it.
Democrats in the House of Representatives say in doing that, President Trump abused his power to pressure a foreign government to dig up dirt on Biden because he's a political rival in next year's election. They also accuse the Trump Administration of illegally preventing Congress from getting more info from the whistle blower who made the original complaint. President Trump has suggested that any wrong doing has to do with former Vice-President Biden because the Ukrainian prosecutor he wanted to be fired was investigating a Ukrainian gas company that Biden's son was working for. There's been no evidence of wrong doing by Joe or Hunter Biden.
On Wednesday, the White House released a summary of the phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky. It also released the original complaint made by the whistle blower. The reaction in the U.S. Congress to the call summary was mostly along party lines with Democrats saying it confirms the need for an impeachment inquiry, an investigation into President Trump actions, and Republicans saying it shows that President Trump did nothing wrong.