House committees investigating President Donald Trump heard Wednesday from Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale. But State Department counselor T. Ulrich Brechbuhl won’t be testifying in response to a subpoena: He was on a plane bound for Germany with Secretary of State Michael Pompeo. #Whistleblower #Impeachment #ImpeachmentInquiry #Trump
There may not be any transcript releases Wednesday, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The House Intelligence Committee will hold its first open hearings next week in the impeachment inquiry, chairman Adam Schiff said.
William Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, and George Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of state in the European and Eurasian bureau, will appear on Wednesday, Nov. 13.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch is scheduled for Nov. 15.
Taylor gave an account to House impeachment panels of efforts directed by Trump to tie U.S. military aid for Ukraine to his effort to get that country to promise an investigation into the Biden family and the 2016 election.
Taylor’s first-hand testimony has already been described as a smoking gun by Democrats on the House committees as they piece together a potential impeachment case against Trump.
The lawyer for Fiona Hill, a key witness in the House impeachment inquiry, accused Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, of lying in his testimony about interactions with her.
“Sondland has fabricated communications with Dr. Hill, none of which were over coffee,” Lee Wolosky said in a tweet Wednesday. Sondland had testified that he and Hill had a coffee at the time she left her job as a senior aide on the White House’s National Security Council. Sondland said she had never expressed “critical comments” to him about President Donald Trump’s policy toward Ukraine.
“Dr. Hill told Sondland what she told lawmakers — the lack of coordination on Ukraine was disastrous,” Wolosky tweeted, and said the forcing out of Marie Yovanovitch, the ambassador to Ukraine, was “shameful.”
Hale, the No. 3 official at the State Department, arrived at the Capitol to testify Wednesday before three House committees leading the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.
Hale is the first witness this week to buck the official White House policy to not cooperate with the probe and comply with the congressional request. Witnesses on Monday and Tuesday who were subpoenaed did not appear for questioning.
It’s uncertain yet whether State Department counselor Brechbuhl will testify in response to a subpoena, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named.
Not expected, though they had been invited, are Secretary of Energy Rick Perry and Russell Vought, acting director of the White House budget office. Vought tweeted previously that he won’t testify, and a Perry aide said he also wouldn’t appear.
Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney won’t testify this week before House committees conducting the impeachment inquiry, presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway said Wednesday.
“I’m told no,” Conway told reporters when asked whether Mulvaney would appear for questioning this Friday as requested by leaders of three House panels overseeing the probe.
“Why would we try to be complicit in an impeachment inquiry that we’re not even sure what it’s about?” Conway said. “What is it about? If I gave you a blank piece of paper, literally, what would you write on it? What are we telling the American people, right here right now, as to why we’re impeaching the president?”
House leaders said in asking Mulvaney to testify that he may have been “directly involved” in an effort led by Trump, his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and others to “withhold a coveted White House meeting and nearly $400 million in security assistance in order to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to pursue investigations that would benefit President Trump’s personal political interests, and jeopardized our national security in attempting to do so.”
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