Open House
IMPEACH PROBE GOES PUBLIC
House Democrats are bringing the impeachment inquiry out of the U.S. Capitol’s basement and into the public spotlight this week.
The proceedings will begin with televised testimony Wednesday from a couple of career State Department officials who have already spilled plenty about President Trump’s Ukraine scandal.
Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, and George Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of state overseeing European affairs, are first up in the long-awaited public chapter of the impeachment probe, which is zeroing in on Trump’s attempts to press Ukraine into announcing investigations of Joe Biden’s family and other Democrats.
Their joint Wednesday appearance marks the first time the American public will be able to hear themselves from key witnesses in the fastmoving inquiry, which has up until now played out entirely behind closed doors in the Capitol basement’s secure hearing rooms.
In a letter to his colleagues Tuesday, House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (DCalif ), one of three Democrats in charge of the impeachment push, spelled out procedure for the open-door hearing.
First, Schiff and the top Republican on his committee, California Rep. Devin Nunes, will offer opening statements, according to the letter.
Taylor and Kent will then be sworn in before Schiff and Nunes can question the witnesses for 45 minutes each.
Both Schiff and Nunes can delegate questioning to committee counsels, and Schiff said in the letter that he plans to “yield extensive time” to his staff attorney, Daniel Goldman.
Schiff said the extended questioning format has precedent from the impeachment inquiry of President Bill Clinton.
Once Schiff and Nunes are done, individual members on the intelligence panel will be given customary five-minute slots to question Kent and Taylor.
“Like the depositions preceding them, these hearings will address subjects of profound consequence for the nation and the functioning of our government under the Constitution,” Schiff wrote in the letter. “The House’s inquiry into whether grounds exist for President Trump’s impeachment has been, and will continue to be, a sober and rigorous undertaking.”
Schiff said the Republican minority will be able to call their own witnesses for future public testimony.
However, the California Democrat stressed he will not accept witness requests that would “further the same sham investigations into the Bidens or into debunked conspiracies about 2016 U.S. election interference that President Trump pressed Ukraine to undertake for his personal political benefit.”
Schiff also said he will not entertain Republican requests for testimony from the CIA whistleblower, whose anonymous complaint about Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sparked the impeachment probe. Federal law allows the whistleblower to remain anonymous.
In the Wednesday hearing, Democrats are expected to press Kent and Taylor to expand on damning details they already divulged in closed-door depositions last month.
Republicans, meanwhile, plan to vociferously defend Trump and claim he undertook his Ukraine scheme in a bid to root out corruption from the country, according to a memo that was being circulated among GOP members Tuesday.
But transcripts of the closed-door depositions of Taylor and Kent released last week suggest Trump was more interested in securing investigations of his political rivals than in stamping out corruption.
Taylor, a Vietnam War veteran and longtime diplomat who has served in Democratic and Republican administrations, testified in his closed-door appearance on Oct. 22 that there was a “clear understanding” Trump would not release $391 million in sorely needed military aid to Ukraine unless Zelensky publicly announced one investigation into Biden and another one into debunked right-wing claims about the 2016 election.
Taylor said this amounted to a politically motivated quid pro quo on the president’s part, according to his transcribed testimony. Taylor also testified Trump wouldn’t invite Zelensky for a White House meeting unless the politically charged probes were announced.
Kent revealed in his Oct. 15 deposition that Trump didn’t just want Zelensky to mention Biden and the 2016 election in his investigation announcement. He also wanted Zelensky to namedrop Hillary Clinton, according to Kent.
“POTUS wanted nothing less than President Zelensky to go to a microphone and say ‘investigations, Biden and Clinton,’ ” Kent testified, according to the transcript.
Kent said Trump wanted Zelensky to specifically make the announcement in an interview with CNN, a media outlet the U.S. president regularly attacks over social media.
Zelensky ended up never making the announcement after Trump released the military assistance two days before the Ukrainian president was set to go on CNN and announce the investigations, according to testimony.
Trump has not explained exactly what prompted him to finally release the aid, though he was facing bipartisan pressure to do so at home. Two days before the aid was released, the whistleblower complaint had started circulating on Capitol Hill.
In their depositions, Taylor and Kent also shed light on Rudy Giuliani’s prominent role in Trump’s bid for political dirt in Ukraine, including the former mayor’s smear campaign against Taylor’s predecessor, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
Kent called Giuliani’s Yovanovitch smear “a campaign of lies” in his testimony.
Yovanovitch, who was abruptly yanked from her post after raising concern about Trump’s shadow foreign policy in Ukraine, will follow Taylor and Kent and testify publicly Friday.
Late Tuesday, Schiff announced that nine key witnesses in the impeachment inquiry will testify publicly next week, including Trumpappointed Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, National Security Council official Alexander Vindman, former U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker and ex-Russia adviser Fiona Hill.
“I hope that all members will approach these proceedings with the seriousness of purpose and love of country that they demand,” Schiff wrote.
“The American people and the Constitution deserve nothing less.”