House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff has added eight additional witnesses who will testify at public impeachment hearings this week, including Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and diplomats Kurt Volker and Gordon Sondland.
Next week is packed with witness testimony, suggesting Democrats will wrap up public hearings and move on to drafting articles of impeachment against President Trump after they return from Thanksgiving recess. Public hearings begin Wednesday with testimony from top Ukraine diplomat William Taylor.
Republicans selected three of the witnesses on the latest list, including Volker, David Hale, the under secretary of state for political affairs, and Tim Morrison, senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council.
“The Majority has accepted all of the Minority requests that are within the scope of the impeachment inquiry,” Intelligence Committee Democrats said in a statement late Tuesday.
Schiff rejected the GOP’s request to summon Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, who earned a hefty salary from a Ukraine gas company after his father was put in charge of Ukraine policy by President Barack Obama. Schiff also rejected the GOP’s request to summon the anonymous whistleblower whose complaint about Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky launched the impeachment investigation.
Democrats added Sondland, Vindman, Jennifer Williams, Laura Cooper, and Fiona Hill as witnesses.
All except Sondland provided closed-door depositions critical of Trump’s handling of U.S. policy regarding Ukraine, and all four believed Trump was withholding security aid to extract Ukraine’s help investigating corruption allegations against Biden and 2016 election interference by Democrats.
Cooper is the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian affairs, Williams is an aide to Vice President Mike Pence, and Vindman is director for European affairs at the National Security Council.
Williams, Vindman, Volker, and Morrison will testify on Tuesday.
Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, will testify on Wednesday.
Sondland first told lawmakers in a closed-door deposition that he did not tell Ukraine that they must pledge to investigate Biden and 2016 election interference by the Democrats but later changed his testimony and said he told Ukrainian government officials they must cooperate with Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to ensure they receive security aid from the U.S.
Hill is the former National Security Council senior director for Europe and Russia. She’ll testify on Thursday.
