The first public hearings for impeachment against US President Donald Trump ended in the United States House of Representatives. The first to testify were William Taylor and George Kent, two State Department officials considered central to the affair that led to the start of the impeachment procedure. On November 15, it will be the turn of Marie Yovanovitch, the former US ambassador to Ukraine.
The impeachment procedure began last September after the contents of a phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, dating back to last July, had been made public. In a nutshell, Trump put pressure on Zelensky, withholding military aid that the United States would have to pay to Ukraine, to convince him to start an investigation in Ukraine into the activities of Joe Biden's son, Hunter, then part of the board of directors of an important Ukrainian gas company. Trump's goal was to show that Biden had abused his power to protect Hunter from some anti-corruption investigations launched in Ukraine, a widespread conspiracy theory in the American right but without any foundation; indeed, Biden's actions increased pressure on the corrupt judicial system to the detriment of the company in which his son worked.
During his testimony, William Taylor, a prominent US diplomat in Ukraine, confirmed that Trump blocked economic aid to Ukraine to put pressure on Zelensky, and revealed the contents of a phone call on July 26, a day after Trump's phone call to Zelensky, between the president of the United States and Gordon Sondland, US ambassador to the European Union. Sondland had just concluded a meeting with a senior Ukrainian official in Kiev and in the phone call, heard by a member of Taylor's staff, Trump would talk to Sondland about the "investigations", and Sondland would tell him that Ukraine was "ready to proceed ". After the phone call, Taylor's staff member would ask Sondland what Trump thought of Ukraine, and this would have replied that "President Trump is more interested in investigating Biden".
George Kent, on the other hand, said in his testimony that he was concerned about the actions of Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer accused of conducting a potentially illegal campaign to find embarrassing information about Joe Biden, and said that these actions led to the removal of the then US ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch. Kent said that Giuliani's allegations were based on "false information" given by "former corrupt prosecutors" who wanted to "take revenge on those who had denounced their misconduct, including US diplomats".
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https://www.ilpost.it/2019/11/13/audizioni-trump-impeachment-george-kent-william-taylor/
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