This archive report was first published on 14 November 2019.
Impeachment Hearing: Trump's Ukraine Pressure Campaign Exposed ¶
On November 13, 2019, the first public testimony in the House's impeachment investigation further implicated President Trump in a campaign to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rivals. The hearing, which lasted five hours, saw William Taylor, the top American diplomat in Ukraine, and George Kent, a senior State Department official, testify before the House Intelligence Committee.
According to Taylor, one of his aides had overheard a phone call involving Trump and Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, in which the president asked about 'the investigations.' When the aide asked about Trump's thoughts on Ukraine, Sondland said the president cared more about 'investigations of Biden.'
Kent testified that efforts to pressure President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine 'were now infecting U.S. engagement with Ukraine, leveraging President Zelensky's desire for a White House meeting.'
Republicans dismissed Taylor and Kent, both veteran diplomats, as representatives of a 'politicized bureaucracy' without firsthand knowledge of Trump's actions.
Trump, who was too busy to watch the hearing, dismissed it as 'a hoax' and welcomed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey to the White House, a month after the country's incursion into Syria scrambled U.S. policy in the Middle East.
