WASHINGTON — The U.S. Ambassador to the European Union will testify at today’s House impeachment hearing.
Gordon Sondland was in charge of overseeing Ukraine’s policy. The House Intelligence Committee will also hear from Laura Cooper and David Hale. Cooper is a senior Defense Department official and Hale is a top State Department official.
Democrats accuse President Trump of pressuring Ukraine’s leader to launch a political investigation while delaying critical U.S. military aid to Ukraine.
Trump claimed on Wednesday the impeachment hearings were turning into a disaster for Democrats.
You can listen to the hearings right here at wibc.com
“The Republicans are absolutely killing it. They are doing so well because it’s a scam,” he said at a Cabinet meeting.
“They’re using this impeachment hoax for their own political gain to try and damage the Republican Party and damage the President, but it’s had the opposite effect.”
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, a California Democrat who is running the impeachment hearings, however, argues the process has shattered the core of Trump’s defense — that he was concerned above all with fighting corruption in Ukraine.
“The evidence points in the other direction,” Schiff said Wednesday, suggesting that the President’s goal all along was to harm former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who had business dealings in Ukraine. “The evidence points in the direction of the President inviting Ukraine to engage in the corrupt act of investigating a US political opponent.”
Transcripts are revealing the closed-door testimony of the State Department aide who overheard a phone call in which President Trump.
David Holmes told lawmakers last week that he heard Trump ask Gordon Sondland during a phone call if Ukraine’s leader was “going to do the investigation.” Sondland responded, “He’s going to do it.”
The conversation was about investigations into Joe Biden. Holmes’s testimony confirms statements acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor gave to lawmakers.
Holmes will testify publicly later this week.
24/7 Newsource and CNN contributed to this article
(PHOTO: Tom Williams/Getty Images)
