The administration’s disclosures underscore how the president’s phone call has consumed the federal government in recent days, and how the White House is now scrambling to defuse the situation by offering more details of what the president said.

White House officials said the transcript does not show the president seeking an investigation of Biden’s son in exchange for providing aid to Ukraine. When the president reminds Zelensky of how the US helps Ukraine, Zelensky responds that he appreciates the tough sanctions the US has imposed on Russia.

On Wednesday, the administration released a White House transcript of the call and detailed behind-the-scenes discussions about how to handle the accusations.

As public reports emerged about the call and pressure mounted to impeach the president, prosecutors quietly considered whether they should again investigate whether the president committed a crime. They declined to do so.

The call begins with Trump congratulating Zelensky on his election victory, but quickly devolves into the president pressing for an investigation of his political rivals and endorsing an apparent conspiracy theory. He seems to suggest Hillary Clinton’s private email server is in Ukraine and asserts that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation started with that country.

“I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it,” Trump says, according to the transcript.

He adds later: “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.”

Zelensky replied that “my candidate” for the prosecutor job “will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue”.

At the outset of the call, Trump also asks for Ukraine’s help in finding the location of the Democratic National Committee server that US officials say was hacked by Russian intelligence in the run-up to the 2016 election.

“The server, they say Ukraine has it,” Trump says according to the transcript. “I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it.”

The transcript, in keeping with White House practice, is a memorandum of a telephone conversation and is not a verbatim account of the conversation.

The text reflects the notes and memories of officials in the Situation Room. A disclaimer in the transcript warns that a number of factors “can affect the accuracy of the record, including poor telecommunications connections and variations in accent”.

Senior Justice Department officials said the director of national intelligence referred the concerns about the call to the Justice Department, after the intelligence community inspector general found that it was a possible violation of campaign finance laws that ban people from soliciting contributions from foreign sources. The inspector general later also referred the matter to the FBI.

Career prosecutors and officials in the Justice Department’s criminal division then reviewed the transcript of the call, which they obtained voluntarily from the White House, and determined the facts “could not make out and cannot make out” the appropriate basis for an investigation, a senior Justice Department official said.

Explained: how Ukraine found itself at the heart of a Trump scandal

As part of their reasoning, Justice Department lawyers determined that help with a government investigation could not be considered “a thing of value” under the law.

In a statement, Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said that the Justice 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.”

“All relevant components of the department agreed with this legal conclusion, and the Department has concluded the matter,” Kupec said.

Kupec also said that Trump had never spoken with Barr “about having Ukraine investigate anything related to former Vice-President Joe Biden or his son,” nor had he talked about “anything related to Ukraine” with Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer.

Trump ordered the transcripts released following days of mounting pressure from Congress, and a new groundswell of support among Democrats who favour impeachment. The president’s decision followed reports that he pressed Zelensky to investigate Biden, considered a leading candidate for the Democratic nomination to challenge Trump in 2020, and his son, Hunter Biden.

The July 25 call between Trump and Zelensky has been the subject of intense scrutiny since The Washington Post reported last week that a whistle-blower had come forward with concerns about the matter.

‘Witch Hunt garbage’: Trump’s fury at impeachment inquiry

Trump has acknowledged publicly that he asked Zelensky to investigate Biden’s son, who served on the board of a Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company that came under scrutiny by authorities there.

Hunter Biden was not accused of any wrongdoing in the investigation. As vice-president, Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor, who Biden and other Western officials said was not sufficiently pursuing corruption cases. At the time, the Ukrainians’ investigation was dormant, according to former Ukrainian and US officials.

Trump has denied doing anything improper, but lawmakers have raised concerns about his directive to freeze nearly US$400 million in military assistance for Ukraine in the days leading up the phone call with Zelensky.

On Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, announced she was launching a formal impeachment inquiry, saying “the actions of the Trump presidency have revealed the dishonourable fact of the president’s betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security and betrayal of the integrity of our elections”.

The rapidly-escalating confrontation between the White House and Congress comes just months after Trump freed himself from the cloud of investigation led by Mueller. Now, he is back in the crosshairs of a resurgent impeachment effort over a fresh allegation of election season misconduct.

“You will see it was a very friendly and totally appropriate call,” Trump tweeted soon before Pelosi’s announcement. “No pressure and, unlike Joe Biden and his son, NO quid pro quo! This is nothing more than a continuation of the Greatest and most Destructive Witch Hunt of all time!”

Lawmakers have demanded to see not just the transcript of Trump’s call with Zelensky, but the whistle-blower complaint as well. Administration officials are discussing the possibility of providing that document to Congress in the coming days.