Donald Trump reenacts conversation with Gordon Sondland after bombshell impeachment testimony
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The fifth day of public impeachment hearings has come and gone, with another pair of key witnesses delivering damning evidence against Donald Trump. Meanwhile, the president spent his time lashing out against the proceedings on Twitter, writing: “Never in my wildest dreams thought my name would in any way be associated with the ugly word, Impeachment!”
Mr Trump has had a more controversial week than usual, as his EU ambassador, Gordon Sondland, implicated the president in a quid pro quo with Ukraine during his own impeachment hearings - along with vice president Mike Pence, secretary of state Mike Pompeo and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney. “Was there a ‘quid pro quo’?" Mr Sondland said in his opening statement. "As I testified previously, with regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes."
The president's critics have said the proceedings are exposing impeachable offences, including ex-White House ethics lawyer Richard W Painter, who said it was effectively “game over” for his administration. Mr Trump has attempted to undermine the inquiry, insisting that he barely knew his ambassador and wanted “NOTHING” from Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev. As all that happened, the Democratic 2020 contenders took to the debate stage in Georgia to attack Mr Trump as "one of the most corrupt presidents" in US history.
During the Thursday testimony, Fiona Hill, a former White House adviser on Ukraine, and David Holmes, a top staffer at the US embassy in Ukraine, testified about the irregular channel of communication in which Mr Trump pushed for a domestic-ally oriented political investigation.
Ms Hill told investigators that she believed Republican arguments claiming that it was OK for Mr Trump to ask for an investigation into Ukraine's 2016 role played into Russian talking points, and that furtherance of that played into their hands.
Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal
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Mr Homes, meanwhile, told investigators that he was on the phone call that allegedly occurred 26 July, just a day after Mr Trump's call with Mr Zelensky. He said that he could hear the president speaking, even though he was not on spearker phone.
Devin "Nunes just accused Democrats of accusing President Trump of several different offenses — bribery, extortion, or a quid pro quo — as if they are separate things. They’re all different ways of describing the same arrangement, in which he withheld needed military aid until the Ukrainians announced investigations into Joe Biden’s family and conspiracy theories which posit Ukraine — not Russia — interfered in the 2016 election."
The Republican ranking member is calling the impeachment hearings a "kangaroo court" and even taking a page out of Adam Schiff's book from yesterday, saying the Democrats "got caught" trying to remove the president from office.
Mr Schiff said the White House "got caught" during yesterday's proceedings, as Republicans attempted to explain away the president's dealings with Ukraine.
Not only is Devin Nunes listing off several falsities - including a claim that Democrats sought nude pictures of the president as some sort of blackmail - but he's also seemingly playing a game of words.
The Republican ranking member decried the Democrats' "conspiracy theories" just before Fiona Hill, a top Russia expert, was set to deliver damning testimony rejecting Donald Trump's false claims that Ukraine meddled in the US 2016 election.
That is an actual conspiracy theory - one that is endorsed by Vladimir Putin.
David Holmes describes himself as an "apolotical, foreign policy" expert whose job is to focus on the politics of the country for which he's assigned, rather than Washington.
He defends former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and says he worked with her on anti-corruption and rule-of-law tasks.
David Holmes makes abundantly clear in his opening statement that he viewed Donald Trump withholding military assistance to Ukraine as an apparent form of pressure:
“My clear impression was that the security assistance hold was likely intended by the president as either an expression of dissatisfaction that the Ukrainians had not yet agreed to the Burisma/Biden investigation or as an effort to increase the pressure on them to do so.”
David Holmes provides some insight on how top US officials dealing with international diplomacy viewed the president's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani stepping into their affairs:
"It became apparent that Mr. Giuliani was having a direct influence on the foreign policy agenda that the Three Amigos were executing on the ground in Ukraine. In fact, at one point during a preliminary meeting of the inauguration Delegation, someone wondered aloud about why Mr. Giuliani was so active in the media with respect to Ukraine. My recollection is that Ambassador Sondland stated, 'Dammit Rudy. Every time Rudy gets involved he goes and f---s everything up.'"
David Holmes explains why it was so crucial for the newly-elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to get a visit at the White House with Donald Trump:
"A White House visit was critical to President Zelenskyy. President Zelensky needed to show US support at the highest levels in order to demonstrate to Russian President Putin that he had US backing, as well as to advance his ambitious anti-corruption reforms."
David Holmes is decrying Donald Trump's phone calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, saying he was "deeply disappointed to see that the President raised none of what I understood to be our inter-agency agreed-upon foreign policy priorities in Ukraine and instead raised the Biden/Burisma investigation" and Crowdstrike.
David Holmes says Donald Trump repeatedly raised sensitive issues on an unsecured line with Gordon Sondland, who reassured the president that Volodymyr Zelensky was "gonna do it," referring to announcing the investigations.
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