Trump impeachment probe goes public in political drama

WASHINGTON: The impeachment inquiry into U.S. President Donald Trump will reach a critical juncture on Wednesday when lawmakers launch their first televised public hearings, marking a new phase that could determine the fate of his tumultuous presidency.

Democrats leading the U.S. House of Representatives probe have summoned three U.S. diplomats – all of whom have previously expressed alarm in closed-door testimony about Trump’s dealings with Ukraine – to detail their concerns under the glare of wall-to-wall news coverage this week. The public hearings are scheduled for Wednesday and Friday.

With a potential television audience of tens of millions looking on, two witnesses – William Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, and George Kent, the deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs – will testify before the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday about whether Trump improperly pressured Ukraine for his own political benefit.

Taylor, a career diplomat and former U.S. Army officer, previously served as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and is now the chargé d’affaires of the U.S. embassy in Kiev. Kent oversees Ukraine policy at the State Department.

Taylor and Kent, who had already agreed to testify but still received subpoenas to appear, arrived separately under heavy security. Both previously have testified to lawmakers in closed sessions. Journalists streamed into the hearing room ahead of the scheduled beginning of the session at 10 a.m. (1500 GMT).

Trump’s fellow Republicans, who will also be able to question the witnesses, have crafted a defense strategy that will argue he did nothing wrong when he asked Ukraine’s new president to investigate prominent Democrat Joe Biden, a former U.S. vice president and key 2020 re-election rival.

This week’s hearings may pave the way for the Democratic-led House to approve articles of impeachment – formal charges – against Trump. That would lead to a trial in the Senate on whether to convict Trump of those charges and remove him from office. Republicans control the Senate and have shown little support for Trump’s removal.

Both sides are playing to a sharply polarized electorate as they move deeper into a six-week-old investigation that has cast a shadow over Trump’s presidency with the threat of being removed from office even as he campaigns for a second term.

It has been two decades since Americans last witnessed impeachment proceedings against a president, and these will be the first of the social media era. Republicans, who then controlled the House, brought impeachment charges against Democratic President Bill Clinton in a scandal involving his sexual relationship with a White House intern. The Senate ultimately voted to keep Clinton in office.

Only two U.S. presidents ever have been impeached and none have been removed through the impeachment process.

FOCUS ON UKRAINE

The focus of the inquiry is on a July 25 telephone call in which Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to open a corruption investigation into Biden and his son Hunter Biden and into a discredited theory that Ukraine, not Russia, meddled in the 2016 U.S. election. Hunter Biden had worked for a Ukrainian energy company called Burisma.

Democrats are looking into whether Trump abused his power by withholding $391 million in security aid to Ukraine – a vulnerable U.S. ally facing Russian aggression – as leverage to pressure Kiev into conducting investigations politically beneficial to Trump. The money – approved by the U.S. Congress to help Ukraine combat Russia-backed separatists in the eastern part of the country – was later provided to Ukraine.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing, derided some of the current and former U.S. officials who have appeared before committees as “Never Trumpers” – a term referring to Republican opponents of the president who he has called “human scum” – and branded the investigation a witch hunt aimed at hurting his re-election changes.

Before the start of the hearing, Trump continued to raise doubts about the witnesses’ loyalties, tweeting “NEVER TRUMPERS” and reiterating a refrain echoed by his political supporters: “READ THE TRANSCRIPT.”

A handful of protesters stood outside the Capitol building holding signs reading “Remove Trump” and “Trump Lies all the Time.” Inside, a long line of journalists and members of the public waited to enter the hearing room, where Americans will hear directly for the first time from people involved in events that sparked the congressional inquiry.