WASHINGTON – President Trump denies knowing anything about a phone call in which he allegedly told EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland that he cared more about an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden than he did about Ukraine.
Details of that alleged phone call emerged at the public hearing with U.S. Diplomat Bill Taylor and Deputy Secretary of State George Kent on Wednesday.
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Taylor said his aide overheard the president on the phone with Sondland who later told the aide the president was more interested in Ukraine for the “investigation of Biden.”
House Democrats have subpoenaed Taylor’s aide, David Holmes, to testify behind closed doors on Friday.
Others are chewing over Taylor and Kent’s testimony and working to find out more about the aide. Democrats believe this is greatly “damning” and damaging information against the president if the president said he cared more about the investigation of Biden than U.S. policies on Ukraine.
Republicans, however, aren’t worried about the upcoming testimony or any details that may come out of the aide’s hearing. Republican California Congressman and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said the aide and his testimony don’t concern him “at all.”
“The president has a right to look into any faction that has taken place in 2016 as an open case. Again, there’s nothing here that’s impeachable,” said McCarthy, R-CA. “And we’re one year, less than a year away before an election, that this is what they’re bringing up and wasting the millions of dollars and they don’t trust the American public; it shows what Alexander Hamilton warned us about, that there would come a time and a day that people will use for their own political basis, the idea of impeachment.”
Taylor and Kent reiterated and made clear they were only there to present their views and did not side with any party.
Democrats believe this day successfully laid the groundwork for their impeachment case, while Republicans argue the case has no more than second and third-hand knowledge of allegations against the President.