U.S. President Donald Trump told a then-top aide in August he wanted to freeze security aid to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats, including former Vice President Joe Biden, the New York Times reported on Sunday.
Trump's statement was described in an unpublished manuscript by former White House national security adviser John Bolton, the Times said in a report that could raise pressure on Republicans to call Bolton as a witness in Trump's Senate impeachment trial.
The report, which did not quote the manuscript but cited multiple people describing Bolton's account, may undercut a key element of Trump's defense: that there was no quid pro quo when he asked Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy to investigate Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, in a July phone call.