Latest updates on the impeachment hearings
- The House is holding the first public hearings of the impeachment probe, with two key diplomatic officials testifying before the Intelligence Committee.
- Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, told the committee he recently learned a member of his staff overheard President Trump asking about “the investigations” the day after his July 25 call with the president of Ukraine.
- In that call, Mr. Trump urged the Ukrainian leader to investigate a company that had employed Joe Biden’s son.
- Download the free CBS News app to stream live coverage of the impeachment hearings.
Washington — The top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine revealed new information about the events at the center of the House impeachment inquiry as the first open hearings before the House Intelligence Committee got underway Wednesday.
Bill Taylor, the chargé d’affaires at the U.S. embassy in Kiev, said in his opening statement that he recently learned about a conversation a member of his staff overheard between President Trump and Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the E.U. The conversation supposedly took place on July 26, the day after the president’s now-infamous call with the Ukrainian president.
Taylor said the aide overheard the president ask Sondland about “the investigations.” He also said Sondland told the aide that the president “cares more about the investigations of Biden” than U.S. policy toward Ukraine.
Taylor is appearing alongside George Kent, the deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs. Both officials raised concerns about the central allegation in the impeachment inquiry — that the Trump administration used U.S. military aid to Ukraine and the prospect of a White House visit to pressure the country to investigate the Biden family and events surrounding the 2016 election.
Democratic Chairman Adam Schiff opened the hearing by laying out the case against the president and saying the inquiry will “affect not only the future of this presidency, but the future of the presidency itself.”
Devin Nunes, the Republican ranking member, decried the proceedings as a “carefully orchestrated media smear campaign.” Early in the hearing, Republican lawmakers tried to raise procedural questions to delay the proceedings and demand testimony from the whistleblower whose complaint sparked the inquiry.
The rapidly escalating investigation is just the fourth time in U.S. history that Congress has seriously considered impeaching a president.
Taylor says he has never seen aid withheld for personal political gain
11:45 p.m.: Democratic counsel Daniel Goldman asked Taylor if, in his decades of service in the military and as a public servant, he had ever seen another example of withholding aid conditioned on the “personal or political interests of the president of the United States.”
“No, Mr. Goldman, I have not,” Taylor replied simply, an indication of how Mr. Trump’s request was. — Grace Segers
Schiff begins opening round of questioning
11:37 a.m.: After Taylor completed his lengthy opening statement, Schiff began his allotted 45 minutes of questioning. He dove right into the new information regarding the call Taylor said his aide overheard.
Taylor agreed that, based on his understanding and observations, the president cared more about Zelensky pursuing investigations regarding the Bidens and Burisma than he cared about Ukraine.
Taylor said it’s “hard to draw any direct lines” to determine whether lives were lost because of the delayed aid to Ukraine, but insisted it’s undeniable that the aid is necessary to counter Russian attacks. Ukrainians lose their lives “every week,” Taylor testified.
Schiff yielded the floor to the lead investigator on the committee staff to continue questioning. — Kathryn Watson
Taylor says aide overheard Trump ask Sondland about “the investigations” one day after Ukraine call
11:13 a.m.: In his opening statement, Taylor revealed new details about the events immediately following the president’s July 25 call with the president of Ukraine.
Taylor said a member of his staff told him last week about a phone call he overheard between U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland and Mr. Trump on July 26.
“Ambassador Sondland called President Trump and told him of his meetings in Kiev. The member of my staff could hear President Trump on the phone, asking Ambassador Sondland about ‘the investigations.’ Ambassador Sondland told President Trump that the Ukrainians were ready to move forward,” Taylor said.
“Following the call with President Trump, the member of my staff asked Ambassador Sondland what President Trump thought about Ukraine. Ambassador Sondland responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden, which Giuliani was pressing for,” he added.
Taylor said he did not know about the conversation when he first testified in a closed hearing on October 22, but reported it to the State Department counsel and to the majority and minority counsel on the House Intelligence Committee once he learned of it.
An attorney for Sondland told CBS News that he will respond to Taylor’s statement when he testifies in an open hearing next week.
Taylor said that Tim Morrison, a National Security Council official who will testify before the committee next week, told him Mr. Trump “doesn’t want to provide any assistance at all” to Ukraine.
Taylor said he urged Sondland to push back against Mr. Trump’s desire for Zelensky to publicly announce investigations.
“I told Ambassador Sondland that President Trump should have more respect for another head of state and that what he described was not in the interest of either President Trump or President Zelensky,” Taylor said, echoing his closed-door testimony.
Taylor also emphasized his nonpartisan views earlier in his testimony.
“I am not here to take one side or the other, or to advocate for any particular outcome of these proceedings,” Taylor said. “My sole purpose to provide facts as I know them.”
Like Kent, Taylor stressed the importance of U.S. security assistance to Ukraine, saying Ukraine was also a critical partner to the United States. He said it was “clearly in our national interest to deter further Russian interference” in Ukraine, and reiterated his belief that withholding assistance to Ukraine “would be crazy.”
“This security assistance demonstrates our commitment to resist aggression and defend freedom,” Taylor said. He added that it was a difficult decision for him to return to Ukraine after Yovanovitch was ousted due to smears spread by Rudy Giuliani.
Taylor said he “worried about the role” of Giuliani in formulating Ukraine policy. He said that when he arrived in Ukraine, he witnessed “encouraging, confusing, and ultimately alarming circumstances.”
“There appeared to be two channels of U.S. policy making and implementation: one regular, and one highly irregular,” Taylor said. He added that he was included occasionally in the irregular channel, which consisted of Kurt Volker, Gordon Sondland, Rick Perry, Mick Mulvaney and Giuliani. — Grace Segers
George Kent’s opening statement: Giuliani efforts were “infecting” Ukraine policy
10:36 a.m.: In his prepared opening statement, Kent describes at length his credentials and commitment to advancing U.S. interests and freedom in Ukraine. He then detailed what he saw as an attempt to contradict or undermine the national interest, and specifically to undermine then-Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
“Over the course of 2018-2019, I became increasingly aware of an effort by Rudy Giuliani and others, including his associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, to run a campaign to smear Ambassador Yovanovitch and other officials at the U.S. embassy in Kyiv,” Kent said in his remarks.
“In mid-August, it became clear to me that Giuliani’s efforts to gin up politically motivated investigations were now infecting U.S. engagement with Ukraine, leveraging President Zelensky’s desire for a White House meeting,” Kent continued.
Kent also briefly addressed his concerns about Burisma, the Ukrainian gas firm that had employed Hunter Biden. Mr. Trump has claimed that Joe Biden, as vice president, pushed for the removal of a prosecutor general because he was investigating Burisma, when in fact the prosecutor was widely seen as corrupt by the West.
Kent said he raised concerns about Hunter Biden’s service on the board of Burisma but “did not witness any efforts by any U.S. official to shield Burisma from scrutiny.”
Kent concluded his opening remarks by praising first-generation Americans who have testified before the committee in closed hearings, including Yovanovitch, Alexander Vindman and Fiona Hill. Yovanovitch is testifying in an open hearing on Friday, while Vindman and Hill will appear next week. — Kathryn Watson and Grace Segers
Republicans stall to ask for subpoena for whistleblower
10:35 a.m.: Republicans on the committee stalled the impeachment hearing by asking for the committee to vote on a subpoena for the whistleblower. Schiff said that there could be a vote after the hearing with Taylor and Kent. He also denied Republican allegations that he knows the identity of the whistleblower. — Grace Segers
Nunes calls inquiry a “carefully orchestrated media smear campaign”
10:29 a.m.: Nunes started out by referencing former special counsel Robert Mueller’s public testimony. After a “spectacular implosion” of the “Russian hoax,” Nunes said, Democrats are making another attempt to undo the results of the 2016 presidential election.
“And yet now, here we are. We’re supposed to take these people at face value when they trot out a new batch of allegations,” Nunes said.
The impeachment inquiry, Nunes said, is a “carefully orchestrated media smear campaign.”
Nunes hit on how closed-door depositions were leaked only in parts, even though transcripts of those closed-door depositions are now available for anyone to read. He also blasted Schiff for not granting Republicans’ request to allow former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, to testify in public. Nunes also criticized Schiff for his office’s failure to disclose that the whistleblower came into contact with the office this summer.
The top Republican on the committee said no hearings should take place at all until three questions are answered: What is the Democrats’ coordination with the whistleblower? What is the full extent of Ukraine’s election meddling against the Trump campaign? And why did Burisma hire Hunter Biden to serve on their board?
Wednesday’s hearing, Nunes reiterated, will simply be a televised spectacle.
“The main performance, the Russia hoax has ended, and you’ve been cast in the low-rent Ukrainian sequel,” Nunes told Taylor and Kent. — Kathryn Watson
Schiff lays out case against Trump in opening statement
10:20 a.m.: In his opening remarks, House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff emphasized the gravity of the hearing, saying the ongoing impeachment inquiry “will affect not only this presidency, but the future of the presidency itself.”
“The questions presented by this impeachment inquiry are whether President Trump sought to exploit that ally’s vulnerability and invite Ukraine’s interference in our elections,” Schiff said. “Whether President Trump sought to condition official acts, such as a White House meeting or U.S. military assistance, on Ukraine’s willingness to assist with two political investigations that would help his reelection campaign. And if President Trump did either, whether such an abuse of his power is compatible with the office of the presidency.”
Schiff said the facts at hand “are not seriously contested.”
“Beginning in January of this year, the president’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, pressed Ukrainian authorities to investigate Burisma, the country’s largest natural gas producer, and the Bidens, since Vice President Joe Biden was seen as a strong potential challenger to Trump,” Schiff said. “Giuliani also promoted a debunked conspiracy that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that hacked the 2016 election.”
He connected that effort with the administration delaying military aid to Ukraine, and the president’s request to the Ukrainian president to open investigations.
Schiff tried to preempt a Republican argument in defense of the president, which is that military aid to Ukraine was eventually released without Ukraine opening investigations into the Bidens or the 2016 election.
“Some have argued in the president’s defense that the aid was ultimately released. That is true. But only after Congress began an investigation; only after the president’s lawyers learned of a whistleblower complaint; and only after members of Congress began asking uncomfortable questions about quid pro quos,” Schiff said.
Schiff concluded his statement by comparing these impeachment hearings to the ones investigating President Nixon.
“These actions will force Congress to consider, as it did with President Nixon, whether Trump’s obstruction of the constitutional duties of Congress constitute additional grounds for impeachment,” Schiff said. “If the president can simply refuse all oversight, particularly in the context of an impeachment proceeding, the balance of power between our two branches of government will be irrevocably altered.” — Grace Segers
Hearing gets underway
10:06 a.m.: Taylor and Kent have both entered the hearing room as the first public impeachment hearing gets underway. — Stefan Becket
Posters preview Republican arguments
9:50 a.m.: Republican lawmakers have printed three posters they’re displaying on the dais in the hearing room, offering a preview of the arguments they plan to make.
One quotes a Democratic lawmaker urging impeachment, with another criticizing Schiff for his staff’s earlier interactions with the whistleblower. A third shows a tweet from 2017 from the whistleblower’s attorney, Mark Zaid, in which he said “#coup has started.” — Stefan Becket
Kent arrives for testimony
9:26 a.m.: George Kent has also arrived for his testimony. He and Taylor are waiting in a holding room before the hearing starts at 10 a.m.
An official working on the inquiry says both are appearing under subpoenas that were issued this morning. — Rebecca Kaplan and Olivia Gavis
Taylor arrives ahead of hearing
9:15 a.m.: Taylor arrived on Capitol Hill ahead of his testimony as the hearing room began to fill up. — Rebecca Kaplan
Staff lawyers to lead first rounds of questioning
9:15 a.m.: Schiff and Nunes will both designate staff attorneys to conduct the first 45-minute rounds of questioning.
Schiff will designate Daniel Goldman, senior adviser and director of investigations on the committee, to ask questions, according to a committee official.
Nunes will tap Steve Castor, the general counsel for the Republican minority on the House Oversight Committee. — Rebecca Kaplan
How the Trump inquiry compares to Clinton’s impeachment
9:00 a.m.: The hearings on Wednesday mark the fourth time in history that Congress has considered removing a president from office. The last time was 1998 when the House of Representatives impeached President Bill Clinton.
Clinton lied under oath about his affair with a White House intern, triggering an impeachment inquiry in the Republican-led House.
“I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,” Clinton said on January 26, 1998.
Then, like now, the parties were split over whether the president’s actions represented what the Constitution refers to as “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Just like today, the minority argued the opposing party had been looking for a way to take down the president for years.
Read more here.
Trump starts off morning quoting “Fox and Friends”
8:32 a.m.: The president appeared to be preparing for the hearings by tuning into “Fox and Friends,” where the guests and hosts were adamantly defending the president while attacking Schiff and other Democrats.
“‘Millions of Americans will see what a partisan sham this whole thing is,'” the president tweeted, apparently quoting conservative talk show icon Rush Limbaugh on the show.
The president then added his own commentary in the same tweet: “Also, why is corrupt politician Schiff allowed to hand over cross examination to a high priced outside lawyer. Did that lawyer ever work for me, which would be a conflict?”
An hour later, the president appeared to still be watching “Fox and Friends,” or at least be keeping an eye on the show.
“‘You have these people taking the most powerful tool the legislative branch has, Impeachment, & they’ve turned it into a political cudgel, which is not at all what the Founders intended. When you hear Schiff use all these words like quid pro quo, it is because they can’t specify that Donald Trump broke any laws or did anything wrong, and they have to move away from quid pro quo because there was no quid, and there was no quo,'” the president tweeted, apparently quoting an appearance by Washington Times opinion editor Charles Hurt.
He followed up with two common refrains:
— Kathryn Watson
How the first impeachment hearing will play out
8:00 a.m.: The hearing will get underway at 10 a.m. in the House Ways and Means Committee room and follow procedures laid out in a resolution adopted by the House last month.
After opening statements by Democratic Chairman Adam Schiff and ranking member Devin Nunes, witnesses Bill Taylor and George Kent will be sworn in and allowed to read their own statements.
The questioning portion of the hearing will differ from typical congressional hearings in two important ways. First, the initial round will consist of 45-minute sessions controlled by the chairman and ranking member for questions after opening statements. Secondly, Schiff and Nunes can both cede that time to designated committee staff members to conduct the questioning, meaning lawyers steeped in the investigation can pursue lengthy lines of questioning. Schiff can add additional rounds for himself and Nunes at his discretion.
Following the first round, the proceedings will move into a more traditional format, with members given five minutes to ask questions, alternating between parties. Schiff can decide the order of questioning. The witnesses can also request breaks over the course of the hearing.
Those parameters mean the proceedings will continue until the early afternoon and possibly into the early evening. — Stefan Becket and Rebecca Kaplan
Who is Bill Taylor?
7:15 a.m.: William Taylor is the top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine, the chargé d’affaires. A West Point graduate and former U.S. Army officer, he earned a Bronze Star for his service in Vietnam, and has been a public servant for more than 50 years.
He has served in a variety of diplomatic roles under presidents of both parties, including a stint as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2006 to 2009.
In his closed-door testimony in October, he said U.S. aid to Ukraine had been explicitly tied to Ukraine’s willingness to investigate Mr. Trump’s political rivals. He also spoke of an “irregular channel” of policymaking including Giuliani, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland and Kurt Volker, special envoy to Ukraine.
According to Taylor, there was a concerted effort by what he referred to as this “irregular, informal channel of U.S. policy-making” to pressure Ukraine to commit to opening investigations into unproven allegations of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, as well as into the gas company Burisma. — Stefan Becket
Who is George Kent?
6:30 a.m.: George Kent is the deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, overseeing State Department policy toward a number of countries, including Ukraine.
A longtime diplomat, Kent served as deputy chief of mission in the U.S. embassy in Kiev from 2015 to 2018, according to his State Department biography. He previously worked on anti-corruption State Department initiatives in Europe.
Kent provided closed-door testimony echoing Taylor’s statements to Congress. He said three officials had declared themselves in charge of Ukraine policy in May: Gordon Sondland, Kurt Volker and Rick Perry.
Kent also said Giuliani had engaged in a “campaign of slander” with no basis in fact against U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
White House to “aggressively” push back
6:35 a.m.: President Trump is expected to watch some of the impeachment inquiry hearings on TV Wednesday, White House officials told CBS News, and staff will be set up to “react in real time” with a “rapid response.”
The response team will include staffers from the White House press and communications teams, as well as the White House counsel and legislative affairs offices.
The White House will be “aggressively pushing back on TV, radio, in print, with digital efforts,” including Twitter. The White House will also emphasize what they believe is an “incredibly unfair process” by the Democrats.
In the past several weeks, the White House has been meeting with Republican lawmakers in an effort to present a unified front during the hearings. — Fin Gomez
Read more here.
How to watch the first public impeachment hearing
- Date: Wednesday, November 13, 2019
- Time: 10 a.m. ET
- Who: Bill Taylor, chargé d’affaires at the U.S. embassy in Ukraine, and George Kent, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs
- Online stream: CBSN, in the player above and on your mobile or streaming device
- On TV: CBS affiliates
How Americans view the impeachment inquiry
5:00 a.m.: Congressional Democrats and Republicans each appear to face a challenge moving public opinion on impeachment as public hearings begin, since many Americans say their views are already locked in, according to a new CBS News poll. There’s been essentially no change in the number who feel Mr. Trump deserves to be impeached since last month, and now the public expresses dissatisfaction with the approaches of both congressional Democrats and the president thus far.
More Americans feel the Democrats have done a bad job handling the inquiry (52%) than a good job (48%.) And more feel Mr. Trump has done a bad job handling it (56%) than feel he has handled it well (43%.)
Americans favor making at least some hearings public. A large majority think testimony should either be in open hearings (47%) or a mix of open and closed, depending on the sensitivity of the testimony (42%). Just 11% say hearings should be closed. More than half of Americans continue to approve of congressional Democrats having started the impeachment inquiry.
Read more findings from the poll here.
Democrats unveil next round of open hearings
5:00 a.m.: House Democrats on Tuesday evening unveiled a new slate of witnesses scheduled to appear in public hearings next week, with a total of eight officials set to testify before the House Intelligence Committee over the course of three days.
The committee will hold two hearings on Tuesday, November 19, and two on Wednesday, November 20. There will also be one hearing on Thursday, November 21.
These officials are scheduled to appear:
- Tuesday morning: Jennifer Williams and Alexander Vindman
- Tuesday afternoon: Kurt Volker and Tim Morrison
- Wednesday morning: Gordon Sondland
- Wednesday afternoon: Laura Cooper and David Hale
- Thursday: Fiona Hill
Read more here.
