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Impeachment witness says Ukraine ‘gradually came to understand’ Trump’s desired investigation was tied to aid, meeting

A counselor in the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine told lawmakers last week that he was shocked to overhear a phone call in which a top diplomat assured President Trump that Ukrainian officials would pursue an investigation of interest to the U.S. commander in chief — a probe that the diplomat later suggested was of former vice president Joe Biden, Trump’s political rival.

The counselor, David Holmes, also testified that the Ukrainians “gradually came to understand that they were being asked to do something in exchange” for a White House meeting or military aid, which was held back as the president and his allies pressed for the Biden investigation, according to a transcript of his testimony released Monday.

Democrats released the transcript of Holmes’s testimony — along with that of another diplomatic official, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale — as they kicked off what will be perhaps the most intense week yet of their impeachment inquiry into whether Trump sought to engage the Ukrainians in a corrupt bargain to help him get reelected.

View the complete November 18 article by Matt Zapotosky, Karoun Demirjian, Ellen Nakashima and Elise Viebeck on The Washington Post website here.

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