Trump hints at testimony as House impeachment hearings resume

WASHINGTON — The House impeachment inquiry picks up steam this week with eight former or current officials set to testify about President Donald Trump’s telephone call to the Ukrainian president and whether the release of $400 million in military aid was tied to an investigation into a political rival.

“The facts are uncontested,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. “The president abused his power for his own personal, political, benefit at the expense of our national security interests.”

Trump took to his Twitter account to counter, claiming Pelosi was spearheading a “phony Impeachment Witch Hunt.”

To a suggestion by Pelosi on Sunday’s edition of “Face the Nation” that Trump testify before the House Intelligence Committee, the president responded: “Even though I did nothing wrong, and don’t like giving credibility to this Do Due Process Hoax, I like the idea & will, in order to get Congress focused again, strongly consider it.”

No one took the president’s comment at face value on Capitol Hill.

Meanwhile, Republicans have shifted strategy in defense of the president.

Last week, many GOP members on the Intelligence Committee insisted that the witnesses did not have first-hand knowledge about the phone call or the president’s conversations involving the military aid and the conversations with Ukrainian officials.

Democrats pointed out that many of the witnesses with that knowledge were blocked from testifying by the White House and the administration.

This week, a person pivotal to the controversy and the inquiry will appear before the committee.

Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, who was reportedly overheard speaking with Trump about getting the investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden started, is scheduled to testify on Wednesday.

Last week, acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor told the committee that an embassy staffer told him that he had overheard a cellphone conversation between Trump and Sondland discussing the investigation — testimony that corroborates claims that the president sought the probe.

That staffer, David Holmes, testified before the committee behind closed doors on Friday. He will appear in public this Thursday.

Holmes told the committee that during the discussion between Sondland and Trump, he overheard the president ask, “So he’s going to do the investigation?”

Sondland replied that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he was “going to do it,” and noting Zelenskiy would do anything that was asked, according to Holmes’ testimony.

Scheduled to testify Tuesday is former special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, a career State Department official who worked with the president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to set up the telephone call between Zelenskiy and Trump.

Volker told House investigators earlier this year that he never saw anything that would amount to a quo pro quo in the talks between Trump and Zelenskiy. His testimony has bolstered Republican claims that there was there no wrongdoing in the interaction between the two leaders.

Democrats are looking to Wednesday and the testimony of Sondland, who has changed or reversed himself on previous testimony.

Witnesses are expected to appear before the panel all week, with testimony scheduled throughout on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Last week’s dramatic hearing with former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, turned into a spectacle as she testified about presidential threats to her while Trump was attacking her on Twitter while she was testifying before the committee.

“Witness intimidation in real time by the president of the United States,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., chairman of the Intelligence Committee told reporters during a break in the hearing.

Yovanovitch, Taylor and Foreign Service officer George Kent told the committee last week that Giuliani was running a shadow group of Trump loyalists who did not promote policies advocated by the State Department.

She testified she became the victim of a smear campaign when she became an obstacle to the group. She was later removed from her job without explanation.

When Yovanovitch returned to the United States, she said her reputation and character were being attacked by a conservative commentator and Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son.

The hearings continue with testimony from Volker as well as Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a Ukraine specialist on the National Security Council, and Jennifer Williams, a foreign service aide for Vice President Mike Pence.

Both Vindman and Williams listened into the July 25 call between Trump and Zelenskiy. Williams was concerned with the nature of the call, and became another victim of a Trump Twitter attack about her loyalty.

Later this week, Fiona Hill with the National Security Council, who raised concerns about Giuliani’s involvement in Ukraine and according to then-National Security Adviser John Bolton, was “a hand grenade that is going to blow everybody up.”

The White House has blocked Bolton from testifying.

Contact Gary Martin at gmartin@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7390. Follow @garymartindc on Twitter.