Hearings in the impeachment inquiry resume with witnesses who have direct knowledge of Trump's call with Zelensky. Follow our live coverage:
It wasn’t a new strategy to discredit the House Democrat-led impeachment inquiry, but Devin Nunes of California, the top Republican on the House Intelligence panel, escalated attacks on the media in his opening remarks on Tuesday.
He also sought to undermine the Democrats’ own rhetorical pivot, from describing the president’s actions not with the Latin phrase, “quid pro quo,” but the more commonly understood bribery — which also happens to be explicitly listed in the Constitution as an impeachable offense.Sitting before the House Intelligence Committee Tuesday in his full Army dress uniform, Vindman stressed that he reported his concerns about the requests out of a sense of duty.
A Capitol Hill staffer for the press gallery came around to the media tables to warn that Vindman’s identical twin brother, Yevgeny, would also be attending, in uniform, so that reporters would not confuse them. Vindman, one of four witnesses testifying Tuesday, told lawmakers that he twice contacted the top lawyer for the National Security Council, John Eisenberg, with concerns upon hearing demands that Ukraine investigate Trump’s potential 2020 rival Joe Biden and unfounded theories that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 U.S. election.Vindman told he was worried that an investigation by Ukraine “would be interpreted as a partisan play.
First up will be Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, who said in his deposition that he repeatedly raised concerns in the White House about President Trump’s push on Ukraine for investigations into his political rivals during a July 25 phone call. Vindman was the first current White House official to give a deposition, and wasof numerous details in an anonymous whistleblower’s complaint that first fueled the inquiry.
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