US House Panel To Depose Aide Who Overheard Trump-Sondland Talks On Ukraine - Schiff

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th November, 2019) House Democrats have scheduled testimony from an aide to acting US Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor, who overheard a phone conversation between President Donald Trump and US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff told reporters.

In a July 26 conversation, described by Taylor in testimony on Wednesday, Trump reportedly pressed Sondland on whether Ukraine would open an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter as requested by Trump a day earlier.

"This witness is potentially very important and of course we are moving to depose this witness and we have already scheduled their deposition," Schiff said on Wednesday.

The conversation took place the day after a White House meeting in which Trump asked Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate Biden.

"In terms of the new information that Ambassador Taylor gave about this conversation ... one of Ambassador Taylor's staff is overhearing a conversation between Sondland and the president," Schiff said. "The president is interested in whether the Ukrainians are going to do the investigation and Sondland assures him that they are.

"

The testimony is important, Schiff said, because it will show the president giving top-down instructions to subordinates, whom Schiff fears Trump allies will attempt to discredit as he impeachment probe continues.

Earlier on Wednesday, Taylor told the impeachment panel: "Following the call with President Trump, the member of my staff asked Ambassador Sondland what President Trump thought about Ukraine. Ambassador Sondland responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden."

Later on Wednesday, Trump denied any knowledge of the purported conversation.

Biden has publicly admitted that as vice president, he threatened to withhold $1 billion in US military aid to Ukraine unless the country fired a prosecutor who was an investigating corruption at Bursima, a company that employed his son, Hunter.

Democrats, who control the impeachment probe, have refused Republican requests to have Hunter Biden testify about his work for Bursima when his father was vice president.