Democrats, Republicans Square Off In First Public Trump Impeachment Hearing
By RFE/RL
WASHINGTON -- Democrat and Republican leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee painted sharply different pictures as they kicked off the historic public impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump in front of a packed congressional hearing room and a global TV audience.
Democratic Representative Adam Schiff, the chairman of the committee who has become the face of the Democratic-led effort, said on November 13 that the hearings will seek to determine if Trump "conditioned" official acts on whether a foreign nation assisted with investigations designed to help him politically and whether that represented an "abuse of office."
"In 2014, Russia invaded the United States' ally Ukraine to reverse that country’s embrace of the West and to fulfill [President] Vladimir Putin's desire to rebuild a Russian empire," Schiff said in his opening statement.
In the following years, Schiff said, 14,000 Ukrainians died as they battled "superior Russian forces."
Questions presented by this impeachment inquiry will determine whether Trump sought to "exploit that ally’s vulnerability and invite Ukraine’s interference in our elections," the lawmaker said.
It is as "simple and terrible as that," Schiff said, adding: "If this is not impeachable conduct, what is?"
The panel's senior Republican Devin Nunes, in his opening remarks, blasted the hearings as a "televised theatrical performance staged by Democrats," arguing that Trump did nothing wrong or impeachable when he asked Ukraine's new president to investigate prominent Democrat Joe Biden, a former U.S. vice president and key 2020 reelection rival.
"It's nothing more than an impeachment process in search of a crime," Nunes said.
The first two scheduled witnesses -- William Taylor, the charge d’affaires in Ukraine, and George Kent, deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs -- sat side-by-side as the dramatic and historic session began.
Democrats were scheduled to begin the hearings with 45 minutes of questioning, followed by 45 minutes allocated to Republicans.
Further rounds of questions for the two witnesses are possible, although Schiff will determine as the day proceeds if they will be held and what their final duration will be.
The lengthy procedure – which could lead to impeachment proceedings and a trial in the Senate -- is probing whether the president has abused his office for personal and political gain by prodding a foreign government to investigate his foes and if those actions constitute impeachable offenses.
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