Pressure builds as Trump impeachment probe hears new claims

Two top US diplomats delivered gripping testimony Wednesday about Donald Trump's efforts to get Ukraine to investigate his potential 2020 rival Joe Biden, as the impeachment inquiry into the president shifted into a new phase of high-stakes televised hearings.

Trump dismissed the probe in the Democratic-led House of Representatives as a "witch hunt" and said he was "too busy" to watch the first public hearings, during which he received staunch backing from Republican lawmakers.

William Taylor, the top US diplomat in Ukraine, began his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee with a new revelation about Trump's efforts to pressure Kiev -- the main issue of just the fourth impeachment process in US history.

Democrats accuse Trump of abusing his power by using US military assistance and a possible White House meeting to pressure President Volodymyr Zelensky into opening a probe into the Democrat Biden and his son Hunter, who served on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma.

The key evidence is the official White House transcript of a July 25 telephone call between Trump and Zelensky in which the US president asked his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate the Bidens.

Taylor testified that he was told Trump cared more about the probe than he did about Ukraine.

The grey-haired former Army officer and veteran diplomat, who testified in a closed hearing last month, said he had since become aware of a telephone call between Trump and the US's EU ambassador Gordon Sondland, which a member of Taylor's staff overheard.

The staffer asked Sondland after the call what Trump thought about Ukraine and was told that "President Trump cared more about the investigations of Biden," Taylor said.

Freshman House Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, an outspoken Trump critic, said the new Taylor comment added "a layer of proximity" for the president.

"(Trump) himself was making and partaking in some of these phone calls... And that really adds a much more disturbing degree of the involvement that he had in using the powers of government to create politically motivated investigations," the New York representative told CNN.

Asked about the new allegations, while hosting his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the White House, Trump replied: "First time I've heard it." Sondland "did speak to me for a brief moment, and I said no quid pro quo under any circumstances."
"Withholding security assistance in exchange for help with a domestic political campaign in the United States would be crazy," he said. "I believed that then and I believe it now."
"I do not believe the United States should ask other countries to engage in selective politically associated investigations or prosecutions against opponents of those in power because such selective actions undermine the rule of law."
In his opening statement, committee chairman Adam Schiff, the California congressman overseeing the probe, said the proceedings will examine "whether President Trump sought to exploit (Ukraine's) vulnerability and invite Ukraine's interference in our elections." "If this is not impeachable conduct, what is?" Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the panel, hit back by accusing Democrats of a "carefully orchestrated media smear campaign."