Second diplomat ‘overheard Donald Trump Ukraine phone call’
Republicans hit back as second US diplomat claims to have overhead Trump phone call to Ukraine.
A second US diplomat overheard a phone call in which Donald Trump inquired about the status of “investigations” in Ukraine, adding weight to testimony linking the president to a campaign to pressure that country for his own political benefit.
The disclosure, coming only a day after the first public hearing in the impeachment trial, is another setback to Republican attempts to distance Mr Trump from the campaign to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rival Joe Biden.
It came as Democrat house Speaker Nancy Pelosi escalated her argument for impeachment, accusing the president of committing bribery in withholding US military aid to pressure Ukraine to publicly investigate the Bidens.
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Ms Pelosi said the public testimony of two senior US diplomats this week, William Taylor and George Kent, had “corroborated evidence of bribery uncovered in the inquiry and that the president abused power and violated his oath by threatening to withhold military aid and a White House meeting in exchange for an investigation into his political rival”.
“In doing so, as I’ve said to the president, you jeopardise our national security, undermine our national security, jeopardise the integrity of our electoral system, violate your oath of office,” Ms Pelosi said.
One day after the House held the first public hearing in our impeachment inquiry, I am speaking to reporters about our ongoing work #ForThePeople. https://t.co/FGCJzszZ4o
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) November 14, 2019
Republican house minority leader Kevin McCarthy said Friday (AEDT) that there was nothing presented to the impeachment inquiry so far that was an impeachable offence.
Mr McCarthy said that even if Mr Trump did inquire about investigating the Biden’s during a phone call with US diplomat Gordon Sondland on July 26, it was not an impeachable offence.
“Okay, well you have a phone call, where the president asked about an investigation,’ Mr McCarthy said. “None of that is impeachable.”
The top US diplomatic in Ukraine, Mr Taylor, provided the headline news in the hearing this week when he revealed a member of his staff overheard a July 26 phone call between the president and Mr Sondland.
The staffer David Holmes, the US political counsellor at the US embassy in Kiev, was in a restaurant with Mr Sondland and overheard the president on the phone asking Mr Sondland about “the investigations”.
“Following the phone call with President Trump a member of my staff asked Ambassador Sondland what President Trump thought about Ukraine,” Mr Taylor testified.
“Ambassador Sondland responded that president Trump cares more about the investigation of Biden, which (Rudy) Giuliani was pressing for.”
Mr Holmes will give closed-door testimony to the house Intelligence Committee Saturday (AEDT).
Mr Trump has said he had no recollection of that phone call.
On Friday (AEDT) it emerged that a second US diplomat Suriya Jayanti, a Foreign Service officer based at the US Embassy in Kiev, also overheard the phone call and witnessed Sondland’s response.
The disclosures have added weight to the importance of the testimony of Mr Sondland, a Trump donor and ally, who will appear in a public hearing next Thursday (AEST).
Ms Pelosi’s new focus on the alleged crime of bribery is designed to prepare the ground for possible impeachment given that bribery is specifically cited in the Constitution as an impeachable crime.
In the first public hearing this week, Mr Taylor and Mr Kent painted a picture of a shadowy non-official diplomatic channel headed by Mr Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani which carried out Mr Trump’s desire to pressure Ukraine to publicly investigate the Bidens.
Mr Taylor said he became increasingly alarmed as he realised that US military aid to Ukraine had been frozen in an attempt to pressure Ukraine to investigate the president’s political opponent.
“To withhold that assistance for no good reason other than to help with a political campaign made no sense,” Mr Taylor said. “It was counter-productive to all of what we had been trying to do. It was illogical. It could not be explained. It was crazy.”
Public hearings resume Saturday (AEST) with former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch giving evidence.
Mr Trump on Thursday (AEST) tweeted: “This impeachment Hoax is such a bad precedent and soooo bad for our Country.”
....that the House Democrats have done since she’s become Speaker, other than chase Donald Trump.†This Impeachment Hoax is such a bad precedent and sooo bad for our Country!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 14, 2019
Cameron Stewart is also US Contributor for Sky News Australia
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