House Democrats announce first public hearings in Trump impeachment inquiry

WASHINGTON – The first set of public hearings in the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump will happen next week, the House Intelligence Committee announced on Wednesday.

"Next week, the House Intelligence Committee will hold its first open hearings as part of the impeachment inquiry," said Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff on Twitter, adding that more hearings were to come. 

Schiff, speaking to reporters outside the secure room in the Capitol basement where State Department official David Hale was testifying, said that the open hearings will allow the public to see the evidence and hear from witnesses themselves and “make their own determinations” about the allegations against the president.  

"The most important facts are largely not being tested," Schiff said. "We are getting an increasing appreciation for just what took place during the course of the last year and the degree to which the president enlisted whole departments of government in the illicit aim of trying to get Ukraine to dig up dirt on a political opponent, as well as further conspiracy theories about the 2016 election that he believed would be beneficial to his reelection campaign."

The Oct. 31 vote to formalize the impeachment process laid out a format for the public phase of the inquiry. 

Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide

The first hearings will be held on Nov. 13 with Ambassador William Taylor and Deputy Assistant Secretary George Kent.

Taylor is head American diplomat in Ukraine and has told congressional investigators behind closed doors that a White House meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as well as security aid would be conditioned on investigations into Democrats.     

What does it mean? The Trump impeachment is all about an allegation of quid pro quo.

Kent, the State Department official overseeing European and Eurasian policy, said he raised red flags within the department about the influence of Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani in Ukraine policymaking. 

Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch will testify publicly on Nov. 15.  

Yovanovitch, who was dismissed as the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine following criticism in conservative media amplified by figures like Donald Trump Jr., told investigators she was told to tweet support for Trump if she wanted to keep her job. 

Republicans have railed against the impeachment process as "Soviet-style" because of its closed-door nature. On Oct. 23, in protest of the process, a group of Republicans lawmakers entered the secure room in the Capitol basement where witnesses were interviewed, delaying the testimony of Pentagon official Laura Cooper. 

Democrats have said they were holding the hearings behind closed doors to allow witnesses to speak more candidly than they might otherwise in a more public setting.