Schiff Announces First Public Impeachment Hearings Will Be Held Next Week
The House of Representatives will hold its first public impeachment hearings next week, according to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff.
The California Democrat tweeted Wednesday that Bill Taylor, the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, and George Kent, the deputy assistant secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, will testify publicly on Wednesday, Nov. 13.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch will follow on Friday, he said.
Next week, the House Intelligence Committee will hold its first open hearings as part of the impeachment inquiry.
On Wednesday, November 13, 2019, we will hear from William Taylor and George Kent.
On Friday, November 15, 2019, we will hear from Marie Yovanovitch.
More to come.
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) November 6, 2019
“More to come,” Schiff tweeted.
Each of those three witnesses have already testified privately as part of House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, The New York Times reported.
“Ms. Yovanovitch testified that she had been removed because Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s private lawyer, and his associates wanted her out of the way. Mr. Kent described career diplomats being shoved aside in favor of Mr. Giuliani and a shadow Ukraine policy being run out of the White House,” according to The Times.
House investigators are probing whether President Donald Trump suggested a quid pro quo during his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing, and a White House transcript of the call revealed that the two leaders did not discuss military aid. Trump did ask Zelensky to investigate issues related to Hunter Biden, who sat on the board of a Ukrainian energy firm.
That firm, Burisma Holdings, had been under scrutiny in Ukraine before Hunter’s father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, pressured Ukraine to fire the prosecutor who had investigated the energy company.
Sources on the House Intelligence Committee told Axios the goal is for the public hearings to be “narrowly focused” in nature “so that it’s both easy for the American public to follow and helps accelerate the impeachment timeline,” the outlet reported.
“I think you will see throughout the course of the testimony,” Schiff told reporters Thursday, “the most important facts are largely not contested.”
JUST IN: House Intel Committee Chairman Adam Schiff announces the first open hearings in the impeachment inquiry will be next week.
Witnesses include Marie Yovanovitch, William Taylor and George Kent. https://t.co/UqAhAtNu3n pic.twitter.com/Ew3DckNeEg
— CBS News (@CBSNews) November 6, 2019
While Democrats continue to plow ahead, a new poll has revealed that public support for impeaching the president is dropping.
A Morning Consult survey of roughly 2,000 registered voters, conducted between Nov. 1 and Nov. 3, showed that just 47 percent of respondents support Trump’s impeachment.
By contrast, a Morning Consult poll conducted between Oct. 11 and Oct. 13 showed that a majority of respondents — 51 percent — were in favor of impeachment.
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