Testimony: Giuliani pushed for probes
Witnesses: President Trump’s lawyer sought Biden investigations
Testimony on Thursday from former White House adviser Fiona Hill and State Department official David Holmes capped an intense week in the historic impeachment inquiry and reinforced its central complaint: that President Donald Trump used foreign policy for political aims, setting off alarms across the U.S. national security and foreign policy apparatus.
Holmes said he understood that Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s push to investigate Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company where Joe Biden’s son Hunter served on the board, was code for the former vice president and his family.
Hill said Giuliani “was clearly pushing forward issues and ideas that would, you know, probably come back to haunt us.”
WASHINGTON – Key impeachment witnesses said Thursday it was clear that President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani was pursuing political investigations of Democrats in Ukraine, in testimony undercutting Trump’s argument that he only wanted to root out Ukrainian corruption.
State Department official David Holmes said he understood that Giuliani’s push to investigate Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company where Joe Biden’s son Hunter served on the board, was code for the former vice president and his family. Former White House adviser Fiona Hill warned that Giuliani had been making “explosive” and “incendiary” claims.
“He was clearly pushing forward issues and ideas that would, you know, probably come back to haunt us, and in fact, I think that’s where we are today,” Hill testified.
Testimony from Hill and Holmes capped an intense week in the historic inquiry and reinforced its central complaint: that Trump used foreign policy for political aims, setting off alarms across the U.S. national security and foreign policy apparatus.
Democrats allege Trump was relying on the discredited idea that Ukraine rather than Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election as he sought investigations in return for two things: U.S. military aid that Ukraine needed to fend off Russian aggression, and a White House visit the new Ukrainian president wanted that would demonstrate his backing from the West.
Hill, a former aide to then-national security adviser John Bolton, sternly warned Republican lawmakers – and implicitly Trump – to quit pushing the “fictional” narrative that Ukraine, rather than Russia, interfered in U.S. elections as an impeachment defense. Republicans launched their questioning Thursday reviving those theories.
Hill declared: “I refuse to be part of an effort to legitimize an alternative narrative that the Ukrainian government is a U.S. adversary, and that Ukraine – not Russia – attacked us in 2016.”
Hill and Holmes were adamant that efforts by Trump and Giuliani to investi gate the Burisma company were wellknown by officials working on Ukraine to be the equivalent of probing the Bidens.
That runs counter to earlier witnesses Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, and Kurt Volker, the former Ukraine special envoy, who insisted they had no idea there was a connection.
Hill said she came to realize Sondland wasn’t simply operating outside official diplomatic channels, but carrying out instructions from Trump. “He was being involved in a domestic political errand,” she said.
Hill left the White House before the July phone call that sparked the impeachment probe, though she was part of other key meetings and conversations related to Ukraine policy.