Trump has committed 'an impeachable offence': Joe Biden

Washington: Joe Biden on Wednesday said that US President Donald Trump has committed "an impeachable offence" by asking Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to initiate an investigation against the former US vice president.

"The idea that someone would call ahead of a foreign state, ahead of time withhold significant military aid that's badly needed in order to prevent the Russian separatists who are in Ukraine, from taking over Ukraine, and then ask basically can you cooperate with Rudy Giuliani -- he's coming over," CNN quoted Biden as saying during a Jimmy Kimmel show.

He also criticised Trump for "getting the Justice Department engaged in this."

"Based on the material they acknowledged today, it seems to me it's awful hard to avoid the conclusion that it is an impeachable offence. And a violation of constitutional responsibility," Biden said.

Earlier in the day, a transcript of the conversation of Trump and Zelensky was released by the White House which shows that Trump repeatedly urged his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate political rival, Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter, during a phone call.

The release of the transcript that shows the US President repeatedly pressing his counterpart to investigate the issue comes a day after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared that Trump had betrayed his oath of office and announced opening a formal impeachment inquiry.

"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 so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it ... It sounds horrible to me," Trump said, as mentioned in the document.

The transcript, which a senior White House official said was developed with assistance from voice recognition software along with note-takers and experts listening, will likely amplify the Democratic impeachment effort, CNN reported.

The recent development comes as a whistleblowers complaint to the intelligence community's inspector general that Trump pressured Zelensky during the July phone call to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Biden's son Hunter.

Trump has termed Democrats' investigation of his conversation as a political witch hunt.