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Public impeachment hearings to being soon

Public impeachment hearings into President Donald Trump will begin next week, according to Adam Schiff, the House Intelligence Committee Chairman. Schiff said the public hearings will allow the American public to decide for themselves whether Trump committed serious wrongdoing.

Democrats launched an impeachment inquiry after Trump allegedly withheld military aid from Ukraine until the Ukrainian president agreed to hand over information damaging to Trump’s 2020 Presidential rival, Joe Biden. Trump has denied the charges, and has repeatedly challenged the public to “read the transcript” of the call.

“I think you will see throughout the course of the testimony, not only their testimony but many others, the most important facts are largely not contested,” Schiff told reporters. “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 elicit aim of trying to get Ukraine to dig up dirt on a political opponent.”

But Republicans are not playing along. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said he would not read the impeachment transcripts, calling the whole process “B.S.” The Ukrainian president himself denied that Trump had threatened to withhold military aid, Graham said.

“All I can say is that the president of Ukraine didn’t believe that. The president of the United States on the phone call didn’t say that…if the person being threatened with withholding the aid, if they say, ‘I wasn’t threatened,’ I don’t care what any bureaucrat says,” Graham told reporters.