Sen. Rob Portman readily acknowledged today that President Donald Trump should not have asked the Ukraine or China for help investigating former Vice President Joe Biden.

The Ohio Republican also disputed Trump’s characterization of an ousted Ukrainian as an aggressive battler of corruption, whom the president asserts was fired because he was digging into Biden and his son Hunter’s business dealings. Portman was part of a bipartisan group of senators who wrote a letter to the Ukraine president in 2016 seeking reforms in the prosecutor’s office; today, Portman said the senators believed the prosecutor wasn’t doing nearly enough to root out corruption — not because he was doing too much.

And although Portman confirmed that Trump cited a lack of help from European nations as a reason for holding up aid authorized by Congress for Ukraine, the senator said he never heard that assertion until he spoke to the president personally Sept. 11. Earlier conversations with Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper and other Trump administration officials turned up no reason for the hold-up, Portman said.


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