After Weeks of Hearings, Impeachment Evidence Still Limited to Hearsay and Presumptions
U.S. lawmakers conducting the Democrat-led impeachment inquiry have yet to discover any direct evidence of the central allegation against President Donald Trump, even after a parade of witnesses and weeks of depositions and hearings.
The leader of the inquiry, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), has long alleged that Trump sought to boost his reelection chances by withholding foreign aid from Ukraine to pressure the nation’s leader to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
The evidence that witnesses have shared to date adds up to a pyramid of hearsay that rests primarily on just two original sources: U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and former U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker.
Under cross-examination on Nov. 20, Sondland said that no one had told him that the hold on aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations and that he simply presumed that the connection existed. Volker, who had contact with both Trump and the Ukrainians, testified that the aid was never conditioned on investigations.
