WASHINGTON (AP) — Career U.S. diplomat William Taylor advanced fresh testimony tying President Donald Trump to efforts pressing Ukraine to investigate Trump’s political rivals as House investigators launched historic public impeachment hearings Wednesday.
Republicans retorted that the Democrats still have no more than second- and third-hand knowledge of allegations that Trump held up millions of dollars in military aid from the Eastern European nation facing Russian aggression.
The hearing, the first on television for the nation to see, provided hours of partisan back-and-forth but so far no singular moment etched in the public consciousness as grounds for removing the 45th president from office.
“I’m too busy to watch it,” Trump said as he appeared at the White House with visiting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan by his side. “It’s a witch hunt. It’s a hoax.”
His reelection campaign was busy, too, sending out an email blast: “FAKE IMPEACHMENT HEARINGS HAVE BEGUN! … I WANT TO RAISE 3 MILLION DOLLARS IN THE NEXT 24 HOURS.”
The long day of testimony unfolded partly the way Democrats leading the inquiry wanted: in the somber tones of career foreign service officers telling what they know about Trump’s actions toward Ukraine as the public decides whether they are, in fact, impeachable.
For the first time a top diplomat testified that Trump was overheard asking about “the investigations” he wanted Ukraine to pursue that are central to the impeachment inquiry.
Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, said his staff recently told him they overheard Trump when they were meeting with another diplomat, Ambassador Gordon Sondland, at a restaurant the day after Trump’s July 25 phone call with the new leader of Ukraine that sparked the impeachment investigation.
The staff explained that Sondland had called the president and they could hear Trump on the phone asking about “the investigations.” The ambassador told the president the Ukrainians were ready to move forward, Taylor testified
The inquiry was launched after an anonymous whistleblower’s complaint that Trump, in the July phone call, pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Democratic foe Joe Biden and Biden’s son — all while the U.S. was holding up U.S. military aid.
Despite Republican interjections and objections, the scene offered the credibility that Democrats wanted to set the stage and sway public opinions.
At the start, Rep. Adam Schiff, the Democratic chairman of the Intelligence Committee, outlined the question at the core of the impeachment inquiry — whether the president used his office to pressure Ukraine officials for personal political gain.
“The matter is as simple and as terrible as that,” said Schiff of California. “Our answer to these questions will affect not only the future of this presidency but the future of the presidency itself, and what kind of conduct or misconduct the American people may come to expect from their commander in chief.”
Republicans lawmakers immediately pushed Democrats to hear in closed session from the anonymous whistleblower. Schiff denied the request at the time but said it would be considered later.
“We will do everything necessary to protect the whistleblower’s identity,” Schiff declared.
