AFP, Washington :
US president Donald Trump. File photoThe leader of the impeachment investigation of president Donald Trump said Tuesday that witnesses had provided substantial support for allegations that Trump illegally tried to force Ukraine to investigate his political rival Joe Biden.
While the White House and Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani refused to turn over subpoenaed documents on the Ukraine affair to Congress, House Intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff said five witnesses had backed up allegations of misuse of power that could underpin formal impeachment charges.
Witnesses have supplied information showing that Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukraine leader Volodymyr Zelensky, in which Trump appeared to tie military aid to getting dirt on Biden from Kiev, was planned in advance and then followed up, Schiff said.
“We’ve made dramatic progress in answering some of the questions surrounding that July phone call… in which the President of the United States sought to coerce a vulnerable ally into conducting what can best be described as sham investigations involving his opponent,” Schiff told reporters.
“We have learned that call was not in isolation. There was a great deal of preparatory work that was done before the call. There was a lot of follow-up work done after the call,” he said.
Schiff spoke a day after former White House Russia expert Fiona Hill reportedly told Congressional investigators in closed-door testimony that several high-level aides reported the
Trump-Zelinsky phone call to a White House lawyer as possible wrongdoing by the president.
Hill said her own boss, then-national security advisor John Bolton, characterised Trump’s pressure on Zelensky together with Giuliani and White House chief-of-staff Mick Mulvaney as akin to a narcotics transaction.
“I am not part of whatever drug deal Rudy and Mulvaney are cooking up,” Bolton said, according to Hill’s testimony as reported by the New York Times.
Hill said Bolton also warned that Giuliani, who is reportedly under federal investigation over his Ukraine dealings, is “a hand grenade who’s going to blow everyone up.”
Trump lashed out at the probe Tuesday as House Democrats interviewed a State Department official about his role between the White House and Giuliani and Ukraine, and prepared to question three more diplomats this week.
US president Donald Trump. File photoThe leader of the impeachment investigation of president Donald Trump said Tuesday that witnesses had provided substantial support for allegations that Trump illegally tried to force Ukraine to investigate his political rival Joe Biden.
While the White House and Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani refused to turn over subpoenaed documents on the Ukraine affair to Congress, House Intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff said five witnesses had backed up allegations of misuse of power that could underpin formal impeachment charges.
Witnesses have supplied information showing that Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukraine leader Volodymyr Zelensky, in which Trump appeared to tie military aid to getting dirt on Biden from Kiev, was planned in advance and then followed up, Schiff said.
“We’ve made dramatic progress in answering some of the questions surrounding that July phone call… in which the President of the United States sought to coerce a vulnerable ally into conducting what can best be described as sham investigations involving his opponent,” Schiff told reporters.
“We have learned that call was not in isolation. There was a great deal of preparatory work that was done before the call. There was a lot of follow-up work done after the call,” he said.
Schiff spoke a day after former White House Russia expert Fiona Hill reportedly told Congressional investigators in closed-door testimony that several high-level aides reported the
Trump-Zelinsky phone call to a White House lawyer as possible wrongdoing by the president.
Hill said her own boss, then-national security advisor John Bolton, characterised Trump’s pressure on Zelensky together with Giuliani and White House chief-of-staff Mick Mulvaney as akin to a narcotics transaction.
“I am not part of whatever drug deal Rudy and Mulvaney are cooking up,” Bolton said, according to Hill’s testimony as reported by the New York Times.
Hill said Bolton also warned that Giuliani, who is reportedly under federal investigation over his Ukraine dealings, is “a hand grenade who’s going to blow everyone up.”
Trump lashed out at the probe Tuesday as House Democrats interviewed a State Department official about his role between the White House and Giuliani and Ukraine, and prepared to question three more diplomats this week.
