Trump wants to meet whistleblower in Ukraine scandal

Washington: President Donald Trump said Sunday he wants to meet the anonymous whistleblower at the center of the scandal threatening his presidency.

Trump has been relatively quiet this weekend but in a series of evening tweets he also blasted Democratic lawmakers and the media as he railed against the impeachment inquiry launched last week.

That probe was triggered by the release of a rough transcript of a July phone call in which Trump asked the president of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, a potential Democratic candidate in the 2020 US election.

He also enlisted his attorney general and personal lawyer to help in that effort.

The whistleblower filed a complaint over the contents of the conversation back in August, saying Trump had tried to get a foreign power to interfere in a US election for his own gain.

"Like every American, I deserve to meet my accuser, especially when this accuser, the so-called 'Whistleblower,' represented a perfect conversation with a foreign leader in a totally inaccurate and fraudulent way," Trump tweeted.

He also said the de facto leader of the congressional inquiry, Adam Schiff, lied to Congress last week about what Trump said to the president of Ukraine and should be punished.

"His lies were made in perhaps the most blatant and sinister manner ever seen in the great Chamber," Trump tweeted.

"He wrote down and read terrible things, then said it was from the mouth of the President of the United States. I want Schiff questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason," he wrote.