Trump news: President asked about Ukraine 'investigations', impeachment hearings told as Democrats reject effort to force whistleblower testimony
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Your support makes all the difference.The House impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump is beginning its first public hearings with Bill Taylor, acting US ambassador to Ukraine, and State Department official George Kent. Both witnesses delivered joint-testimony to Congress as the president derides the process as a “partisan sham”.
Mr Trump has meanwhile reportedly been threatening to fire his acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney over his recent blunders. He also previously considered axing Michael Atkinson, the inspector general of the US intelligence community, over his handling of the whistle-blower complaint about his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to The Washington Post.
Meanwhile, as senior Republicans insist they will not be watching the hearings and Mr Trump hosts his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the White House on Wednesday, progressive Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is calling for the resignation of senior Trump aide Stephen Miller over racist emails he sent to the right-wing news site Breitbart, in which he advocated white nationalist ideologies.
Following a meeting between the two leaders, Mr Trump repeated to reporters at a press conference that the day's public impeachment hearings are a "witch hunt" and a "joke".
"I haven't watched, I haven't watched for one minute because I've been with the president which is much more important as far as I'm concerned," Mr Trump said.
But the leaders were at odds following their controversial summit, to which five Senators were invited, discussing Turkey's cease-fire against Kurdish forces in Syria, as well as a two-day $100b trade deal and Turkey's acquisition of Russian anti-aircraft weapons.
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William Taylor says Russia is violating all of the treaties and agreements that previously "kept the peace" before they invaded Ukraine nearly three decades ago.
"If we don't push back on those violations, then that will continue," he says.
House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff followed up about perhaps the most notable revelations from William Taylor's opening remarks:
Adam Schiff: When your staff asked [Gordon] Sondland what Trump thought of Ukraine, his response was Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden, is that right?
William Taylor: And Burisma. Yes, sir.
Mr Schiff: The import of that is he cares more about that than he does Ukraine.
Mr Taylor: Yes sir.
The Independent's Andrew Feinberg says Connecticut Democrat Jim Hines passed a a note to House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff.
Democratic counsel Daniel Goldman is now questioning Deputy Assistance Secretary of State George Kent.
George Kent tells House investigators Volodymyr Zelensky wanted a White House meeting because "it would primarily boost his leverage to negotiate with Vladimir Putin about the Russian occupation of 7 percent of Ukraine’s territory".
Democratic counsel Andrew Goldman: Is pressuring Ukraine to conduct what I believe you've called political investigations a part of U.S. foreign policy to promote the rule of law in Ukraine and around the world?
George Kent: It is not.
"It's one thing to try and leverage a meeting at the White House ... it's another thing to leverage security assistance to a country at war," William Taylor says. "The White House meeting was one thing. Security assistance was another thing."
William Taylor says "President Trump, through Ambassador Sondland, was asking President Zelensky to very publicly commit to these investigations. That it was not sufficient to do this in private."
"I got several questions ... from Ukrainians asking about the security assistance. So what I know is the security assistance was very important to the Ukrainians," he says, adding that he heard an "urgent concern" from Ukrainian officials about the security assistance."
Donald Trump has released yet another video attacking the Democrats amid the first public impeachment hearings into the president's dealings with Ukraine:
The Trump 2020 campaign is reportedly hoping to fundraise $3m towards the president's re-election efforts during the hearings.
Here's video of William Taylor recounting text messages he sent to top officials calling the move "crazy" on the part of the Trump administration to withhold crucial aid to Ukraine for political investigations -
William Taylor: Ambassador Gordon Sondland "described conditions for the security assistance and the White House meeting in those terms, that is, were dependent upon, conditioned upon pursuing these investigations.
House counsel Daniel Goldman: And you heard that from Ambassador Sondland himself, correct?
Mr Taylor: Correct.
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