House Democrats to Begin Public Impeachment Hearings Next Week

(Bloomberg) -- House Democrats are opening the public phase of their impeachment inquiry of Donald Trump next week with some of the central witnesses who have detailed the president's pressure on Ukraine to investigate a political rival.

The public hearings will begin Nov. 13 with William Taylor, the current top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, who described the conditions that Trump and his associates set for Ukraine's new president to receive military aid and a coveted White House meeting.

The Intelligence Committee, which will lead the public hearings, will call the State Department's George Kent on the same day. Former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch will testify Nov. 15.

The testimony from career public servants raises the political risk for the Trump as he seeks to de-legitimize the impeachment process while preserving his re-election prospects in 2020. But there is also risk for Democrats who are trying to build public support for impeachment and protect moderate members who will be campaigning in Trump-friendly districts next year.

House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff said next week's testimony will show how “the most important facts are largely not contested.”

“We are getting increasing appreciation for just what took place during the course of the last year and the degree to which the president enlisted whole departments of the government in the illicit aim of trying to get Ukraine to dig up dirt on a political opponent,” Schiff told reporters Wednesday.

‘Smoking Gun'

Schiff also said his panel plans to release the transcript of Taylor's private Oct. 22 testimony on Wednesday.

That deposition was described as a “smoking gun” by Democrats on the committees, since it included details about the pressure put on Ukraine through a back-channel effort led by Rudy Giuliani and other Trump administration officials.

Crucially, Taylor described a conversation in which U.S Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland told Andriy Yermak, an adviser to Ukraine's president, that military and security aid to Ukraine would be withheld until Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy committed to pursuing an investigation of Burisma Holdings, one of Ukraine's largest private natural gas companies.

Trump and Giuliani contend that potential Trump 2020 challenger Joe Biden, when he was vice president, pushed for the ouster of a Ukrainian prosecutor who wanted to investigate Burisma, where Hunter Biden had served on the board.

Sondland on Monday revised his earlier testimony to the House committees in which he said he didn't remember many of the events. In the revision, Sondland said his memory had been “refreshed” and that he did recall telling Yermak about the link between the aid and the investigation sought by the White House.

The statements provide the first direct testimony that a quid pro quo was communicated to Ukrainian officials, undermining Trump's main defense against the impeachment inquiry. Although Taylor and Sondland said they understood the aid and a White House visit for Zelenskiy were conditioned on Ukraine conducting the investigation, neither said he heard it directly from Trump.

Kent provided details on how Sondland, special envoy Kurt Volker and Energy Secretary Rick Perry were instructed to work with Giuliani on Ukraine issues outside normal diplomatic channels.

Defending the President

At least one of Trump's congressional allies, North Carolina Representative Mark Meadows, pushed back on the notion that it has become more difficult to defend the president.

“The Republicans are not struggling on anything,” Meadows, a member of the Oversight and Reform Committee, said Wednesday. “It's actually getting easier to defend the president.”

Jay Sekulow, one of Trump's outside attorneys, said the scheduling of public hearings next week shows House Democrats want to wrap-up impeachment by year's end because they believe that letting the process drag into an election year would hurt their candidates.

“They know bringing this into 2020 is very dangerous for them politically,” Sekulow said on his radio show.

Schiff, in a tweet announcing the public hearings, said there will be “more to come.” He told reporters that the open hearings will give voters a chance “to evaluate the witnesses for themselves, to make their own determinations about the credibility of the witnesses, and also to learn first-hand about the facts.”

Next week's hearings will also include Yovanovitch, who was recalled from her Ukraine post in May, previously testified that she was warned by Ukrainian officials in February that Giuliani was mounting a campaign to oust her.

She also said she subsequently felt threatened by the way Trump spoke about her on a July 25 phone call with Zelenskiy. In that call, documented by a White House memo later made public, Trump called Yovanovitch “bad news” and said “she's going to go through some things.”

--With assistance from Jordan Fabian.

To contact the reporter on this story: Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, Joe Sobczyk

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