PELOSI: TRUMP ACTIONS WERE ‘BRIBERY’
WASHINGTON — House Democrats are refining part of their impeachment case against the president to a simple allegation: bribery.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday brushed aside the Latin phrase “quid pro quo” that Democrats have been using to describe President Donald Trump’s actions toward Ukraine. As the impeachment hearings go public, they’re going for a more colloquial term that may resonate with more Americans.
“Quid pro quo: bribery,” Pelosi said about Trump’s July 25 phone call in which he asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for a favor.
Trump says the call was perfect. Pelosi said, “It’s perfectly wrong.
It’s bribery.”
The House has opened its historic hearings to remove America’s
45th president, with more to come Friday. Trump continued to assail the proceedings as “a hoax” on Thursday, and House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy dismissed the witness testimony as hearsay, at best secondhand information.
The president, who said he was too busy to watch the initial hearing as it was televised, caught up in the White House residence Wednesday evening and tweeted along with a Fox News morning recap Thursday.
2nd staffer heard call
Also, a second U.S. Embassy staffer in Kiev overheard a cellphone call between Trump and his ambassador to the European Union discussing a need for Ukrainian officials to pursue “investigations,” The Associated Press has learned.
The July 26 call between Trump and Gordon Sondland was first described during testimony Wednesday by William Taylor, the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. Taylor said one of his staffers overhead the call while Sondland was in a Kiev restaurant the day after Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that triggered the House impeachment inquiry.
The second diplomatic staffer also at the table was Suriya Jayanti, a foreign service officer based in Kiev.
13.8 million watch hearings
An estimated 13.8 million people watched live coverage of diplomats William Taylor and George Kent on the first day of the House’s public impeachment hearings on President Donald Trump. The Nielsen company said 10 networks aired live or taped coverage of the hearing on Wednesday.
An estimated 20.4 million people watched Brett Kavanaugh’s hearing for his Supreme Court nomination following sexual misconduct allegations in September 2018.