US Justice Department on Wednesday (local time) declined to pursue an investigation into whether President Donald Trump's call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky violates campaign finance law.
"Relying on established procedures set forth in the Justice Manual, the Department's Criminal Division reviewed the official record of the call and determined, based on the facts and applicable law, that there was no campaign finance violation and that no further action was warranted," The Hill quoted the statement of Justice spokesperson Kerri Kupec.
"All relevant components of the Department agreed with this legal conclusion, and the Department has concluded the matter," she added.
This comes after 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 his 2020 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.
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"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.
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