GIULIANI'S ROLE UNDER SCRUTINY
The House Intelligence Committee will first hear from William Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, who told the committee in closed-door testimony that he was unhappy U.S. aid to the country was held up by the administration.
Taylor said he also became uncomfortable with what he described as an “irregular channel” of people involved in Ukraine policy, including Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer.
George Kent, a senior State Department official who oversees Ukraine, will appear at Wednesday’s hearing as well. Kent was also concerned about Giuliani’s role in conducting shadow diplomacy – and has testified that he was cut out of the decision-making loop on Ukraine matters.
On Friday, the committee will hear from former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. She says she was ousted from her post after Giuliani and his allies mounted a campaign against her with what she called “unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives.”
Democrats are likely to call further witnesses after this week.
House Republicans released their list on Saturday of witnesses they would like brought before the committee, including Hunter Biden and the yet-unnamed whistleblower who first brought the complaint against Trump over his July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, a Democrat, is unlikely to summon either to testify, and even some Republicans have opposed the push from Trump and some of his supporters that the whistleblower be identified.
“I think we should be protecting the identity of the whistleblower," Will Hurd, a former CIA officer and a Republican member of the committee, said on the "Fox News Sunday" program, "because how we treat this whistleblower will impact whistleblowers in the future.”
Hurd said, however, he "would love to hear from Hunter Biden" and accused Democrats of running a "partisan exercise."
Trump and Giuliani have led accusations - without providing evidence - that Joe Biden sought the dismissal of a Ukrainian prosecutor to block a corruption probe of Burisma. The Bidens have denied wrongdoing.
Republicans on the committee will be permitted to question the witnesses this week and defend the president, although the president's lawyers will not allowed to do so - something Trump has complained about bitterly.
