New witness’s testimony shakes White House
A new witness in the impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump rocked the White House Tuesday with testimony that he personally witnessed officials pressuring Ukraine to help Trump politically.
National Security Council Ukraine expert Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, a decorated Iraq war veteran, was to tell the House inquiry that he twice reported concerns about improper White House efforts to get Kiev to open investigations designed to help Trump politically.
In explosive prepared testimony, Vindman said he personally listened to Trump pressure Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky in a July 25 phone call. His testimony, released late Monday, offers some of the strongest evidence yet for accusations that Trump abused his presidential powers and broke election laws to gain Kiev’s support for his re-election effort next year.
Vindman says in the prepared testimony that a senior US diplomat close to Trump, ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, was the first person he witnessed pressing Ukraine for the investigations, in a July 10 meeting with Ukraine national security official Oleksandr Danylyuk.
“Following this meeting, there was a scheduled debriefing during which Amb. Sondland emphasized the importance that Ukraine deliver the investigations into the 2016 election, the Bidens and Burisma,” he says, referring to a Ukraine energy company on whose board Biden’s son Hunter sat while his father was vice president.
Vindman reported both his concerns about the July 10 meeting and the July 25 call to the chief attorney of the NSC.
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