Over the course of this week, it would seem that testimony from former State Department special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker and Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland laid the last solid planks on the bridge to a certain impeachment of Donald Trump. But the week is not over. On Thursday morning, the House impeachment inquiry will hear from former National Security Council Russia expert Fiona Hill and from foreign service officer David Holmes.
Holmes, who serves as the political counselor at the embassy in Kyiv, entered the news only recently as one of those who overheard a phone conversation between Sondland and Trump in which Trump insisted on investigations as the price of assistance to Ukraine. Following that conversation, Holmes also reports Sondland spoke to him about how those investigations included looking into Joe Biden—a claim that contradicts Sondland’s testimony that he didn’t connect the investigations that Trump was requesting with a desire to manufacture dirt on a political opponent.
But the more important witness could well be Fiona Hill. Hill, who served as supervisor to Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman until just days before Trump’s July call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, is expected to testify both to the July 10 meeting held in John Bolton’s office, and to broader concerns about Trump’s policies in Ukraine. In her earlier closed-door testimony, Hill reported her concerns about the smear campaign against former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and the influence of Rudy Giuliani.
The July 10 meeting—in which Ukrainian officials visited the White House and were met by a team of officials from both the State Department and NSC—has been the subject of some disputed testimony. While both Sondland and Vindman reported that the meeting ended after Sondland brought up Trump’s request for investigations, Vindman testified that this end came abruptly because the demand upset Bolton. Sondland reported that the meeting ended normally. Then, in a meeting-after-the-meeting, Vindman reported that Sondland was more direct about requesting those investigations, including directly mentioning investigations into the 2016 election and Burisma—the barely there code for investigations into Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. Hill should be able to talk to some of those events, and also to the follow-up in which Bolton referred to the “drug deal” being cooked up by Sondland and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.
The hearing gets underway at 9 AM ET.