Pres­i­dent Trump in a July phone call re­peat­edly pres­sured the pres­i­dent of Ukraine to in­ves­ti­gate De­mo­c­ra­tic pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Joe Biden's son, urg­ing Volodymyr Ze­len­sky about eight times to work with Rudy Giu­liani, his per­sonal lawyer, on a probe, ac­cord­ing to peo­ple fa­mil­iar with the mat­ter.

"He told him that he should work with [Mr. Giu­liani] on Biden, and that peo­ple in Wash­ing­ton wanted to know" whether al­le­ga-tions were true or not, one of the peo­ple said. Mr. Trump didn't men­tion a pro­vi­sion of for­eign aid to Ukraine on the call, said this per­son, who didn't be­lieve Mr. Trump of­fered the Ukrain­ian pres­i­dent any quid-pro-quo for his co­op­er­a­tion on an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Mr. Giu­liani in June and Au­gust met with top Ukrain­ian of­fi­cials about the prospect of an in­ves­ti­ga-tion, he said in an in­ter­view. The Trump lawyer has sug­gested Mr. Biden as vice pres­i­dent worked to shield from in­ves­ti­ga­tion a Ukrain-ian gas com­pany with ties to his son, Hunter Biden. A Ukrain­ian of­fi­cial ear­lier this year said he had no ev­i­dence of wrong­do­ing by Mr. Biden or his son.

Af­ter the July call be­tween the two pres­i­dents, the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment said Mr. Trump had con­grat­u­lated the new pres­i­dent on his elec­tion and ex­pressed hope that his gov­ern­ment would push ahead with in­ves­ti­ga­tions and cor­rup­tion probes that had stymied re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries.

The White House de­clined to com­ment. The Biden cam­paign didn't re­spond to a re­quest for com­ment. Last week, a Biden cam­paign spokesman said of Mr. Giu­liani's ef­forts to pres­sure Ukraine: "This is be­neath us as Amer­i­cans."

Mr. Trump on Fri­day de­fended his July call with Mr. Ze­len­sky as "to­tally ap­pro­pri­ate" but de­clined to say whether he had asked the Ukrain­ian leader to in­ves­ti­gate Mr. Biden, a for­mer U.S. vice pres­i­dent. "It doesn't mat­ter what I dis­cussed," he said.

At the same time, he re­it­er­ated his call for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion into Mr. Biden's ef­fort as vice pres­i­dent to oust Ukraine's pros­e­cu­tor gen­eral. "Some­body ought to look into that," he told re­porters.

In re­cent months, Mr. Giu­liani has mounted an ex­ten­sive ef­fort to pres­sure Ukraine to do so. He told The Wall Street Jour­nal he met with an of­fi­cial from the Ukrain­ian pros­e­cu­tor gen­er­al's of­fice in June in Paris, and met with An­driy Yer­mak, a top aide to Mr. Ze­len­sky in Madrid in Au­gust. Mr. Giu­liani told the Jour­nal ear­lier this month that Mr. Yer­mak as­sured him the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment would "get to the bot­tom" of the Biden mat­ter.

The Au­gust meet­ing came weeks be­fore the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion be­gan re­view­ing the sta­tus of $250 mil­lion in for­eign aid to Ukraine, which the ad­min­is­tra­tion re­leased ear­lier this month. Mr. Giu­liani said he wasn't aware of the is­sue with the funds to Ukraine at the time of the meet­ing.

He said his meet­ing with Mr. Yer­mak was set up by the State De­part­ment, and said he briefed the de­part­ment on their con­ver­sa­tion later. The State De­part-ment had no im­me­di­ate com­ment.

The in­ter­ac­tions be­tween the pres­i­dent, Mr. Giu­liani and Ukraine have come un­der scru­tiny in re­cent days in the wake of a whistle­blower com­plaint that a per­son fa­mil­iar with the mat­ter said in­volves the pres­i­dent's com­mu­ni­ca-tions with a for­eign leader. The com­plaint, which the Wash­ing­ton Post re­ported cen­ters on Ukraine, has prompted a new stand­off be­tween Con­gress and the ex­ec­u­tive branch.

Sep­a­rately, law­mak­ers have been in­ves­ti­gat­ing whether the pres­i­dent or his lawyer sought to pres­sure the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment to pur­sue probes in an ef­fort to ben­e­fit Mr. Trump's re-elec­tion bid.

Write to Alan Culli­son at alan.culli-son@wsj.­com, Re­becca Ball­haus at Re­bec­ca­.Ball­haus@wsj.­com and Dustin Volz at dustin.volz@wsj.­com

WSJ, September 20, 2019

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September 20, 2019

Voices4America Post Script.Trump asked a foreign power to interfere with our elections, again. Even the WSJ calls him out! #Whistleblower

An aside, Trump again has said: My Crimes Can't Be Investigated While I'm President

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/09/donald-trump-tax-returns-lawsuit