Trump hearing hits TV screens
Diplomats imply Ukraine deal as impeachment inquiry goes public
For the first time, the Democrats’ case for President Donald Trump’s impeachment streamed from American TVs yesterday, including a new contention that he was overheard asking about political “investigations” that he demanded from Ukraine in trade for military aid.
On day one of extraordinary public US House hearings — only the fourth formal impeachment effort in US history — career diplomats testified in the open after weeks of closed-door interviews aimed at removing the nation’s 45th President.
The account they delivered was a striking though complicated one that Democrats say reveals a President abusing his office, and the power of American foreign policy, for personal political gain.
“The matter is as simple and as terrible as that,” said Adam Schiff, the Democratic chairman of the Intelligence Committee, as he opened the day-long hearing. “Our answer to these questions will affect not only the future of this presidency but the future of the presidency itself.”
Career diplomat William Taylor, the charge d’affaires in Kiev, offered new testimony that Trump was overheard asking on the phone about “the investigations” of Democrats that he wanted Ukraine to pursue, whichare central to the impeachment inquiry.
Trump, who yesterday met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said he was too busy to watch and denied having the phone call. “First I’ve heard of it,” he said when asked.
All day, the diplomats testified about how an ambassador was fired, the new Ukraine Government was confused and they discovered an “irregular channel” — a shadow US foreign policy orchestrated by the President’s personal lawyer, Rudy
Giuliani, that raised alarms in diplomatic and national security circles.
The hearing, playing out on live television and in the partisan silos of social media, provided the nation and the world a close-up look at the investigation.
At its core, the inquiry stems from Trump’s July 25 phone call when he asked Ukraine’s newly elected President, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, for “a favour”. Trump wanted the Ukraine Government to investigate Democrats’ activities in the 2016 election and his potential 2020 rival, Joe Biden — all while the Administration was withholding military aid for the Eastern European ally that is confronting an aggressive neighbour, Russia.
Democrats said Trump was engaged in “bribery” and “extortion”. Republicans said nothing really happened — the military aid was ultimately released after Congress complained.
The hours of partisan back-andforth did not appear to leave a singular moment etched in the public consciousness the way the Watergate proceedings or Bill Clinton’s impeachment did generations ago.
The witnesses, the greying Taylor and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent, defied White House instructions not to appear. Both received subpoenas. They are among a dozen current and former officials who already testified behind closed doors. Yesterday was the start of days of public hearings that will stretch into next week.
Taylor, who was asked by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to return to Ukraine as Trump was firing Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, introduced new information yesterday.
He testified that a staff member recently told him of overhearing Trump when they were meeting with another diplomat, Ambassador Gordon Sondland, at a restaurant the day after Trump’s July 25 phone call to the Ukraine President that sparked the impeachment investigation.
The staff member explained 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.
Republicans argued that even with the diplomats at the witness table the Democrats have only second- or third-hand knowledge of Trump’s alleged transgressions.
A Trump ally on the panel, Jim Jordan, mockingly called Taylor the Democrats’ “star witness” and said he’d “seen church prayer chains that are easier to understand than this”.
Taylor, a West Point graduate and former Army infantry officer in Vietnam, responded: “I don’t consider myself a star witness for anything.” The top Republican on the panel, Devin Nunes, said Trump had a “perfectly good reason” for wanting to investigate the role of Democrats in 2016 election interference, giving airtime to a theory that runs counter to mainstream US intelligence that found Russia intervened and favoured Trump.
Nunes accused the Democratic majority of a “scorched Earth” effort to take down the President after the special counsel’s Russia investigation into the 2016 election failed to spark impeachment proceedings.