Iran Press/ America: US President Donald Trump pushed the Australian prime minister during a recent telephone call to help the US Attorney General William P. Barr gather information for a Justice Department inquiry that Trump hopes will discredit the Mueller investigation, reported The New York Times citing two American officials with knowledge of the call.
The White House restricted access to the call’s transcript to a small group of the President’s aides, one of the officials said, an unusual decision that is similar to the handling of a July call with the Ukrainian president that is at the heart of House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into Trump. Like that call, the discussion with Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia shows the extent to which Trump sees the attorney general as a critical partner in his goal to show that the Mueller investigation had corrupt and partisan origins and the extent that Trump sees the Justice Department inquiry as a potential way to gain leverage over America’s closest allies.
And like the call with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, the discussion with Morrison shows the US President using high-level diplomacy to advance his personal political interests.
Trump initiated the discussion in recent weeks with Morrison explicitly for the purpose of requesting Australia’s help in the Justice Department review of the Russia investigation, according to the two people with knowledge of the discussion.
Barr requested that Trump speaks to Morrison, one of the people said. It came only weeks after Trump seemed to make military aid to Ukraine contingent on Zelensky doing him the “favor” of helping Barr with his work.
On July 25 a telephone call between Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky was made, the US President asked his counterpart to launch an investigation of Democratic presidential hopeful, Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who had served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.
The decision to launch a formal impeachment inquiry was triggered by allegations that Trump sought help from a foreign government in his reelection bid for the 2020 election.
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