Watergate journalist says Donald Trump is 'unravelling' after 'corruption' exposed

Watergate journalist and CNN political analyst Carl Bernstein says US President Donald Trump is experiencing "an unravelling" in response to "evidence of the president's corruption" in a whistleblower complaint released overnight.

"We are seeing both in real time, with the president's remarks and also through documentary evidence, his corruption," Bernstein told CNN's Brooke Baldwin today.

The complaint alleges that Mr Trump abused his official powers "to solicit interference" from Ukraine in the upcoming 2020 election, and that the White House took steps to cover it up.

Bernstein pointed to Mr Trump's subsequent comments on how spies were dealt with differently in the old days in referencing who provided key information to the whistleblower as a display of "his temperament in an extreme, perhaps even greater than we've ever seen before".

"We're watching, too, an unraveling in front of us, both factually and also temperamentally, in terms of the conduct of the President of the United States," Bernstein said.

"And why?" he added.

"Well, partly because the President of the United States recognises that there is in this whistleblower's documents terrible evidence of the president's corruption."

The complaint has been at the centre of a controversy that has spurred Democrats to launch a formal impeachment inquiry.

The White House on Wednesday also released a rough transcript of a July 25 call showing that Mr Trump pressed Ukraine to work with his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and Attorney General William Barr investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

There is no evidence of wrongdoing by either Joe or Hunter Biden.

Bernstein argued that the complaint showed Trump's "willingness to undermine the free electoral system in this country, to involve foreign powers in our election, and also to try and get (the attorney general) involved".

When asked whether the complaint was similar to the tapes of recorded White House conversations central to President Richard Nixon's impeachment inquiry, Bernstein said that "there are definitely some parallels here."

"These are clearly documents that the President doesn't want exposed, and which according to the whistleblower and other witnesses, demonstrate the President's cover up as well as his actions, per se, in these Ukraine phone calls," he added.