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US House Set to Start Public Trump Impeachment Hearings

Ken Bredemeier

   WASHINGTON - Wednesday brings the start of open hearings in the
   impeachment inquiry examining the actions of U.S. President Donald
   Trump.

   The House Intelligence Committee is overseeing the probe. After weeks
   of closed-door depositions involving current and former diplomat and
   officials, lawmakers and those watching across the country will hear
   testimony from William Taylor, the current top American diplomat in
   Ukraine, and George Kent, who oversees Ukraine affairs.

   Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said Taylor, Kent and a third witness
   set to testify Friday, Marie Yovanovitch, a former U.S. ambassador to
   Kyiv, "bring decades of dedicated and exemplary service to our nation,
   and I believe it is vitally important that the American people and all
   members of Congress hear in their own words what they experienced and
   witnessed."

   Both Taylor and Kent have said that Trump pressed Ukrainian President
   Volodymyr Zelenskiy to open investigations of one of Trump's chief 2020
   Democratic challengers, former Vice President Joe Biden, before he
   would release $391 million in military aid Kyiv wanted to help fight
   pro-Russian separatists in the eastern part of the country.

   But Republicans, according to memos circulating Tuesday to party
   members ahead of the hearings, plan to sharply question the two
   officials' understanding of Trump's intent in dealing with Ukraine and
   insist that Trump had a "deep-seated, genuine and reasonable
   skepticism" about corruption in Ukraine and that his withholding aid
   was "entirely reasonable."

   In a late July call with Zelenskiy, Trump asked the Ukrainian leader
   for "a favor," the investigation of Biden, his son Hunter Biden's work
   at a Ukrainian natural gas company, and a debunked theory that Ukraine
   had meddled in the 2016 election that Trump won, not Russia, as the
   U.S. intelligence community concluded.

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