Impeachment and popcorn. First hearings on TV, Taylor: "Trump was only interested in the Biden investigation"

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To understand the impact of the first day of public hearings of the impeachment investigation for Donald Trump it will be necessary to wait a few hours, the minimum time to allow the Americans to digest the testimonies of some of the protagonists of the Kievgate, the Ukrainian saga with which the Democrats they hope to corner The Donald and force him, if not to dislodge him from the White House, at least to make his re-election more uncertain.

With a hammer beat, the president of the US House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, started the first public hearings of the president's impeachment investigation into the Kievgate, the case that broke out of pressure (and alleged blackmail) in the American morning of the White House on the Ukrainian government to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter. However one thinks of it, it is a page of history that is keeping millions of Americans glued to the video, but not The Donald, as his spokesman Stephanie Grisham readily informed: "The president is working in the Oval Office" and "he is not looking at "the hearing, and this hours before the meeting scheduled at the White House with the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a meeting from which it will come out with the proposal of a maxi-trade agreement worth 100 billion dollars.

The Democrats – Politico writes – have obtained new evidence in the hearings on impeachment, even if it is still early to establish whether they will succeed in their intent: to prove that Trump abused his power as president by subjecting a foreign leader to blackmail to take advantage of it electoral. And that by doing so it would endanger not only the lives of Ukrainian soldiers, but also the national security of the United States. A betrayal that should be removed from the White House.

Today two key figures for the investigation have testified: William Taylor, American business representative in Ukraine, and George Kent, a senior official of the State Department, an expert on Ukraine.

Taylor confirmed what was said in the previous round of closed-door hearings, reporting that the president was "more interested" in opening an investigation into Democratic rival Biden than the situation in Ukraine. Speaking under oath, Taylor said he had recently learned that the US ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, had made this statement on July 26 shortly after discussing with the president. A collaborator of Taylor, who had heard about Sondland and Trump, had subsequently asked Sondland what the tycoon thought of Ukraine: "Ambassador Sondland replied that President Trump was more interested in investigating Biden," said business manager.

And more: Taylor has accused Washington of having fed a "highly irregular channel" in information and decision-making processes with Kiev. "There seemed to be two channels in US decision making: one regular and one highly irregular. As deputy ambassador, I had authority over regular, formal, diplomatic processes. At the same time, I met an irregular and informal channel, "said the diplomat, adding that this" irregular "line was led by US officials Kurt Volker, Gordon Sondland, Rick Perry, Mick Mulvaney and Trump's special lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.

As for Kent, it was he who reported how Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, had orchestrated a "campaign of lies" to get to the removal of the then ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, considered part of the plot of which, without concrete evidence , the Biden were accused.

The Congress will then have to assess whether President Trump's acts of obstructionism "constitute further grounds for impeachment," said Schiff in the opening, referring to Trump's behavior that in recent weeks has ordered the State Department and other agencies to ignore the summons for the delivery of documents, urging witnesses not to appear and suggesting that those who do so should be treated "as a spy and a traitor". "These actions – he continued – will force the Congress to evaluate, as happened with President Nixon, if Trump's obstructionism towards the constitutional duties of the Congress does not constitute a further reason for impeachment".

House

Patriotism means putting country ahead of politics and personal ambition, and speaking out when you see something wrong. The witnesses coming forward to testify today have shown that patriotism again and again.https: //t.co/Zce5j4jEo5

– Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) November 13, 2019

As the Associated Press points out, it is good to remember that the current one in the Chamber is not a process, but an investigation that could lead to the approval of impechment articles. Only in this case would the actual trial take place, in the Senate.

It is only the fourth time in American history that the Congress has begun impeachment proceedings against an incumbent president. Two of these – against President Andrew Johnson in 1868 and against Bill Clinton 130 years later – led to the impechment, that is to say of the formal accusations approved by the Chamber. Both were then acquitted by the Senate. President Richard Nixon, on the other hand, resigned in 1974 before the House could vote to accuse him.

The Democrats, who control the House, hope to put the president on trial by the end of the year. For Trump it is the hour of truth, even if it counts on the fact that the Republican majority will absolve him eventually to the Senate, where it takes two thirds of the votes for the conviction: at the moment there are not 20 dissidents. But the final outcome of the impeachment remains unpredictable, as is the impact on public opinion in the 2020 White House elections: the percentage of those in favor of the proceedings is growing in the polls.

Having escaped a two-year investigation by super-prosecutor Robert Mueller on Russiagate, Trump has been swallowed alone in what has been renamed the Ukrainagate. Fault of the phone call of July 25th in which he asked the Ukrainian president Zelensky "the favor" to investigate Joe Biden – his rival in the race to the White House – and his son Hunter, who entered the board of the Ukrainian private energy company Burisma when his father, at the time vice president, he managed relations with Kiev and urged the dismissal of the talked-out attorney general who was also investigating Burisma. "Corruption," says the tycoon, suspected in turn of having blocked US military aid in Kiev by linking them to Biden investigations.

A phone call then reported by a mole, a CIA agent in service at the White House now protected as a "whistleblower". His accusations were corroborated behind closed doors by various witnesses, who from today will also be questioned publicly. After the diplomats Taylor and Kent, Friday will be the turn of Marie Yovanovitch, the US ambassador in Ukraine removed by Trump.

Republicans have set four lines of defense in a memo. The first is that the interview "shows no condition or pressure test". The second that both presidents said that "there was no pressure in the phone call". Furthermore, "the Ukrainian government was not aware of the US aid freeze" during the July 25th conversation. Finally, the aid blockade was lifted on 11 September, without Kiev opening the Biden investigation. However, a defense that seems to ignore what emerged from the investigations: from the maneuvers of Rudy Giuliani, personal lawyer of the tycoon, to open the Biden investigations to the admissions of diplomats on the links between military aid and investigations. The Republicans have also asked to hear various witnesses, including Hunter Biden and the mole, but the dems have reiterated that they are not talking about it: the identity of the informer will remain secret.