US House releases two testimony transcripts
New transcripts also implicate WH chief of staffs Mick Mulvaney
WASHINGTON: An official at the White House’s national security council said he heard the US ambassador to the European Union press Ukrainian officials to investigate Joe Biden and his son, according to a transcript released on Friday by Democrats leading the impeachment probe of President Donald Trump.
Alexander Vindman, a US Army lieutenant colonel and Ukraine expert on Trump’s NSC staff, said there was “no ambiguity” in the remarks he said were made at a meeting in the White House on July 10 by Gordon Sondland, a Trump donorturned-diplomat now heading the US delegation to the EU.
“He was calling for something, calling for an investigation that didn’t exist into the Bidens and Burisma,” Vindman said.
“My visceral reaction to what was being called for suggested that it was explicit. There was no ambiguity.”
The transcript was one of many released this week by House committees investigating whether Trump pressured Ukraine to carry out a corruption probe into political rival and former vice president Joe Biden.
Biden’s son, Hunter, was on the board of directors of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company.
Earlier on Friday, Trump said he was unconcerned about the impeachment inquiry and dismissed the release of transcripts of testimony by US diplomats and others. He also criticised House Democrats for moving their inquiry into the public eye with open, televised hearings next week.
“They shouldn’t be having public hearings; this is a hoax,” Trump told reporters.
Trump also accused Democrats of looking for people who hated him to testify in the probe and said he was not familiar with most of the witnesses, who include a number of top US state department officials.
“I’m not concerned about anything. The testimony has all been fine. I mean, for the most part, I never even heard of these people. I have no idea who they are,” he said.
House investigators are still pursuing testimony from witnesses behind closed doors, including from acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who is Trump’s top aide as well as director of the White House’s office of management and budget.
That Mulvaney approved a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Trump, if Ukraine agreed to start new investigations into Joe and Hunter Biden was revealed in a transcript of another testimony released on Friday. It was the testimony of the former top Russia adviser on the NSC, Fiona Hill.
Mulvaney was issued a subpoena on Thursday and ordered to appear before the Intelligence committee on Friday. At the 11th hour, Mulvaney said he was told by White House counsel that due to “constitutional immunity of current and former senior advisers to the president” he must not to appear and testify. Mulvaney later on Friday asked a judge to determine whether he must comply with a House Intelligence committee subpoena to testify in its impeachment hearings.