"Ukraine Gate" .. New details of Congressional investigations and summoning the chief of staff of the White House

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Committees in the US House of Representatives have released testimony obtained as part of their investigation into the trial of President Donald Trump, who has summoned acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvani to testify in the case involving the president's contacts with his Ukrainian counterpart.

According to documents released by parliamentary committees on Tuesday, former US envoy to Ukraine Ambassador Curt Volcker said in his testimony that he had warned President Trump's lawyer that the rumors about Joe Biden, Trump's likely Democratic rival in the upcoming election, and his son in Ukraine were unreliable.

Volcker said US aid to Ukraine had been unusually suspended and he had no explanation.

The House of Representatives, which is controlled by the Democrats, is conducting a formal investigation that could lead to the trial of the President of Parliament and then dismissed him on the accusation of pressuring his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelinsky to urge him to investigate the activities of Joe Biden and his son in Ukraine, a case that some media have called it. Ukraine Gate, "similar to the Watergate scandal that forced President Richard Nixon to resign in 1974.

Trump is accused of withholding US aid from Kiev for use as a lever to investigate Biden's activities. But the president denies the accusations and calls the House inquiry the biggest political hunt for the president in American history.

Confession of ally
The documents published by parliamentary committees also included Gordon Sundland, a former US ambassador to the European Union - an ally of President Trump - that he told Ukrainian officials that US military aid to his country depended on Kiev opening an investigation into Joe Biden.

Sundland said he had told a senior adviser to Ukrainian President Zelinsky that Kiev was unlikely to give US military aid until it made clear it would investigate Biden and his son's ties with Ukraine's energy company Borissma.

Meanwhile, the House's three investigative committees summoned Mike Mulvani, the acting White House chief of staff, to testify in the case.

"Based on the evidence gathered in the investigation, we believe you have preliminary knowledge and important information relevant to this investigation," the heads of the intelligence, foreign affairs and government oversight committees wrote in a letter to Mulvani.

Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee Elliot Engel, and acting head of the government's oversight committee, Caroline Maloney, said Mulvani "may have been directly involved in efforts that would be in Trump's personal political interests."

Commission chiefs have asked Mulvani to come to testify next Friday, but the White House has repeatedly said it will not cooperate in that investigation.

Citing a press conference at the White House on October 17, the three parliamentarians said he "publicly admitted that Trump had stopped security assistance to put pressure on Ukraine, for his own personal and political interests rather than national interests."