Historic Trump impeachment hearings set to begin

In a pillared House chamber at 10 a.m. ET on Wednesday, in the shadow of the 2020 presidential and congressional elections, House Democrats are set to host the first public hearing involving the potential impeachment of a president since November 19, 1998 -- and, they insist, they aren't happy about it.
"It’s a sad day," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, told Fox News on Tuesday. "A calm day. A prayerful day." For his part, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., called the hearings a "solemn undertaking" in a letter to colleagues.
Behind the scenes, House Democrats were predicting a "phenomenal week," Fox News is told. At the same time, Republicans have been preparing a methodical and vigorous cross-examination of Democrats' witnesses, whose accounts of President Trump's alleged wrongdoing have been based largely on hearsay and intuition.
Capitol Hill security officials told Fox News they're not anticipating the kinds of organized protests that rocked the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh last year, but sources on both sides of the aisle have cautioned that the day will be unpredictable. The proceedings are to be held in the cavernous House Ways and Means Committee hearing room at the Longworth House Office Building.
With the bang of a gavel, Schiff will open the impeachment hearings Wednesday into Trump's alleged pressure on Ukraine to investigate 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden's dealings in the country. The former vice president, a Democrat, has boasted about pressuring Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor, as his son Hunter Biden held a lucrative role board of a Ukrainian natural gas company despite having little relevant expertise.

The Capitol on Tuesday as the House is set to begin public impeachment inquiry hearings as lawmakers debate whether to remove President Trump from office. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

A whistleblower's complaint about Trump's July 25 telephone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ignited the impeachment investigation. During the hearing Wednesday, a key exchange during that 30-minute call, which has been outlined in a Sept. 24 transcript released by the White House, could take center stage. Zelensky has said he felt no pressure during the call.
"I would like you to do us a favor though," Trump said at one point in the call, after a mention of U.S. military aid to Ukraine. Ukraine apparently was not aware that the U.S. was withholding new military aid until August, approximately two weeks before the U.S. ultimately released the aid and well after Trump's phone call with Zelensky.
On the call, Trump then asked Zelensky to investigate reports that Ukraine had some involvement in 2016 election interference. Later on in the conversation, amid a discussion of deep-seated Ukrainian corruption, Trump mentioned Biden's push to have Ukraine's prosecutor fired, and suggested the country look into the matter.
Republicans have pointed out that the U.S. also delayed military aid assistance for Lebanon and Armenia. The GOP is expected to say the European Union was not doing its fair share to help root out corruption in Ukraine.
“The Russia invasion of Crimea had more to do with Europe than with the U.S.,” one Republican source told Fox News.
Trump has said the call was "perfect" and contained no "quid pro quo," or this for that. Democrats, meanwhile, have said it showed Trump using his office to pressure a foreign government to help him politically.
Big questions loomed, including how strongly administration officials connected Trump's apparent desire for a probe to the question of whether to provide military aid to Ukraine -- and whether such a probe would have been inappropriate. At its heart, the GOP argument was that the impeachment effort was unfair and sparked because "unelected and anonymous bureaucrats disagreed" with Trump's decisions on Ukraine.
Shortly after Schiff's gavel, he and ranking Republican Devin Nunes, R-Calif., are to begin the questioning. They get 45 minutes each, or can designate staff attorneys to do so.
Members of the panel will then get five minutes each to ask questions, alternating between Republicans and Democrats.
For the Democrats, expect to hear from Daniel Goldman and Daniel Noble, both counsels for the Intelligence Committee. Fox News is told on the GOP side, Steve Castor, whom Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan brought over from the Oversight Committee, will be the counsel to pose questions for the minority.
Republicans recently placed Jordan on the Intelligence Committee. Though Nunes is the senior Republican, the congressman from Ohio could act as an especially fierce attacker of the witnesses' credibility and the Democrats' case for impeachment.
Goldman and Castor asked the bulk of the questions of witnesses during weeks of closed-door depositions with current and former administration officials and diplomats.
"You're going to see a prosecutorial approach," said Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor who worked with Goldman to successfully prosecute a Genovese family boss and two mob hit men for racketeering, two murders and an attempted murder. "You will see somebody who knows every detail of every piece of evidence and will bring it to bear in his questioning. You'll see someone who knows how to get right to the point."
Democrats chose Ambassador Bill Taylor and career Foreign Service officer George Kent to kick off the public hearings. "They both were witness to the full storyline of the president’s misconduct," a Democratic aide told Fox News.
The two likely will describe a parallel foreign policy toward Ukraine led by Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and other White House officials.
"I discovered a weird combination of encouraging, confusing and ultimately alarming circumstances," Taylor testified in an Oct. 22 statement. Taylor, a West Point graduate and Vietnam War veteran who has served under every presidential administration, Republican and Democrat, since 1985, also worked for then-Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J.

Demonstrators marching on Pennsylvania Avenue protesting against climate policies and President Trump, in Washington last week. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Taylor said it was "crazy" that the Trump administration may have been withholding U.S. military assistance to the Eastern European ally over the political investigations, with Russian forces on Ukraine's border on watch for a moment of weakness.
Fox News is told the Democrats' game plan has been to let the witnesses "tell their story" on Wednesday. "We need to facilitate and stay out of the way," one Democrat involved in the questioning said.
Democrats also told Fox News that Taylor had "the best view of the scheme. He is a habitual note-taker. He is your worst nightmare. Very prepared."
One source told Fox News the most important line in all of the previously released transcripts so far may have come from Taylor: "Irregular policy channels were running contrary to longstanding goals of U.S. policy," Taylor said in his testimony.
But, Republicans have countered that it's the role of the president -- not unelected career bureaucrats -- to set U.S. foreign policy.

The hearing room where the House is to begin public impeachment inquiry hearings Wednesday, on Capitol Hill. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

And, Taylor wasn’t on the phone call between Trump and Zelensky. Fox News is told Republicans will cross-examine Taylor repeatedly over his lack of "first-hand knowledge" about the call.
"Hearsay puts a lot of people in jail," one Democratic source told Fox News. "Eyewitness testimony can be tough. Cops will tell you that. Taylor's deducing all of this."
Republicans, meanwhile, are expected to ask Taylor how and why he thought there was a "linkage" and "who told you that."
Kent, a career foreign service officer, testified on Oct. 15 there were three words Trump wanted to hear from the Ukraine president: "Investigations, Biden and Clinton."
He also told the investigators about the "campaign" of smears against former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch that he said Giuliani waged, leading to her being recalled from the position.

In this Nov. 19, 1998 file photo, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., presided over the committee's impeachment hearing for President Clinton. (AP Photo/Joe Marquette, File)

Yovanovitch is set to testify Friday. She previously testified on Oct. 11 that she was told people were "looking to hurt" her.
Fox News reported last week that Yovanovitch, a key witness for Democrats, communicated via her personal email account with a Democratic congressional staffer concerning a "quite delicate" and "time-sensitive" matter -- just two days after the whistleblower complaint that kickstarted the inquiry was filed, and a month before the complaint became public.
Emails obtained by Fox News appeared to contradict Yovanovitch's deposition on Capitol Hill last month, in which she told U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., about an email she received Aug. 14 from the staffer, Laura Carey -- but suggested under oath that she never responded to it.
Zeldin told Fox News: "I specifically asked her whether the Democratic staffer was responded to by Yovanovitch or the State Department. It is greatly concerning that Ambassador Yovanovitch didn't answer my question as honestly as she should have, especially while under oath."

FILE - In this Aug. 3, 1973, file photo, the Senate Watergate Committee hearings continue on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/File)

Republicans have privately acknowledged to Fox News that they might have a problem. "How do you counteract Kent and Taylor when you don’t have a witness to counter them?" one Republican source asked.
Schiff has approved just three of nine witnesses sought by the GOP. They were envoy Kurt Volker, State Department official David Hale and National Security Council aide Timothy Morrison.
Last week, Schiff rejected a request by Republicans to have the Ukraine phone call whistleblower testify, saying that their testimony was "redundant and unnecessary." The GOP witness list, obtained by Fox News this past Saturday, also included Hunter Biden.
Late Tuesday, Schiff announced that open hearings will again be held next week from Nov. 19-21. In addition to Volker, Hale and Morrison, the new witness list included Jennifer Williams, an aide to Vice President Pence; Alexander Vindman, the director for European affairs at the National Security Council; U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland; Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian Affairs Laura Cooper; and former National Security Council official Fiona Hill.
White House acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, for his part, said Tuesday he no longer plans to sue over the impeachment proceedings and will instead follow Trump's directions and decline to cooperate.
Aside from witnesses, there will also be exhibits -- lots and lots of exhibits. Democrats, at least, are expected to display excerpts from transcripts, text messages, relevant news articles and social media posts.
The Democrats reportedly have been wary of Republicans trying "stunts" and being argumentative in an effort to distract from the case against the president.

The Dec. 20, 1998 editions of newspapers from Massachusetts and Rhode Island with headlines of President Clinton's impeachment. (AP Photo/Peter Lennihan, File)

"By Act II, I suspect the Dancing Bears will enter the room," one Democratic source said. But, GOP sources downplayed the idea of guerilla tactics during the hearing.
Schiff, in a memo and open letter to colleagues on the eve of Wednesday's proceedings, outlined some of the rules -- including that members not assigned to the Intelligence Committee were not permitted to make statements or question witnesses, but were allowed to sit in the audience.
"It is important to underscore that the House’s impeachment inquiry, and the committee, will not serve as venues for any member to further the same sham investigations into the Bidens or into debunked conspiracies about 2016 U.S. election interference that President Trump pressed Ukraine to undertake for his personal political benefit," Schiff wrote.
The goal is to end the hearing by 4:30 p.m.
It's only the fourth time in American history that Congress has launched impeachment proceedings against a sitting president. Two of those — against Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton 130 years later— resulted in their impeachments, or formal charges approved by the House.
Both were acquitted by the Senate, which requires a two-thirds vote to remove a sitting president under the Constitution. The House impeaches by a majority vote.
Former President Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 before the House could vote to impeach him.
During Watergate, the Senate held televised hearings that served to turn public opinion against Nixon. The most sensational moments -- including the testimony of White House counsel John Dean and Sen. Howard Baker's famous question, "What did the president know and when did he know it?" -- occurred not during House impeachment hearings but during special Watergate hearings in the Senate.
Pelosi initially was reluctant to launch a formal impeachment inquiry. As Democrats took control of the House in January, she said impeachment would be "too divisive" for the country. Trump, she said, was simply "not worth it."
After former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s widely panned appearance on Capitol Hill in July for the end of the Russia probe, the door to impeachment proceedings seemed closed.
But, the next day, Trump got on the phone with Ukraine's leader.
Fox News' Mike Emanuel, Brooke Singman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Hillary Clinton Cartoons

Clinton criticizes UK government for blocking Russian report

LONDON (AP) — Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says she’s “dumbfounded” the U.K. government has failed to release a report on Russian influence in British politics as the country prepares for national elections.

Clinton told the BBC in an interview broadcast Monday that the public needs to know what is in the report by Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee. The government said it needs more time to consider the report before releasing it to the public, but critics claim the report has been withheld until the next Parliament because it is embarrassing to Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party.

“I’m dumbfounded that this government won’t release the report ... because every person who votes in this country deserves to see that report before your election happens,” Clinton said.

An American investigation into the 2016 U.S. presidential election found “sweeping and systemic” interference.

Bill Browder, a former investment manager in Russia, told the BBC he gave the committee evidence on wealthy Russians working to influence British politics.

The Intelligence and Security Committee report was sent to the prime minister on Oct. 17, and it needs government approval before it is made public. Johnson’s Downing Street office says the report has not yet gone through the clearance process necessary for publication.

Lawmakers from a range of parties, including Johnson’s Conservatives, urged the government to publish the report during a debate in the House of Commons. But Foreign Office minister Christopher Pincher argued it was “not unusual” for the review of such reports to “take some time.”

Clinton also spoke with the Guardian newspaper at the event promoting “The Book of Gutsy Women,” co-authored with her daughter.

“I am, as a great admirer of Britain, concerned, because I can’t make sense of what is happening,” Clinton told the Guardian. “We have a president who admires dictators and takes their help and does all kinds of crazy stuff. So we need you to be the sane member of this partnership going forward.”

Nikki Haley, embracing Trump -- but not too tightly -- as she maps her political future

Nikki Haley knows how to thread the needle.
And she understands a thing or two about selling books.
The former U.N. ambassador, who obviously wants a political future, is depicting herself as a Trump loyalist—with a few exceptions. Haley knows that if she distances herself too much from the president, she’s toast with today’s Republican Party.
At the same time, she wants to maintain her viability with those who have grown skeptical of the president.
In granting exclusives to the Washington Post and CBS “Sunday Morning,” she put out the clickiest of the clickbait: how in her view John Kelly and Rex Tillerson tried to recruit her into a cabal to undermine Trump. Yes, it’s palace intrigue, but it’s pretty intriguing.
In “With All Due Respect,” Haley writes: “Kelly and Tillerson confided in me that when they resisted the president, they weren’t being insubordinate, they were trying to save the country. It was their decisions, not the president’s, that were in the best interests of America, they said. The president didn’t know what he was doing,” Haley wrote of the views the two men held. What’s more, she writes, Tillerson said people would die unless Trump was reined in.
Kelly, the former White House chief of staff, said in a statement that if providing the president “with the best and most open, legal and ethical staffing advice from across the [government] so he could make an informed decision is ‘working against Trump,’ then guilty as charged.”
There have been other books (by Bob Woodward, for instance) and other ex-officials who say they tried to steer the president away from unrealistic or outlandish ideas. If you oppose Trump, you view them as patriots doing the best they can to work within the system. If you support Trump, you view them as rogue operators trying to usurp his authority.
Haley puts herself in the latter camp.
This obviously fuels Trump’s frequent claim that people in his own administration are trying to undermine him. In this case, though, they’re two of his own top appointees rather than members of some nefarious Deep State.
But in the end, they were staff. He’s the guy who got elected. And so they became ex-staff.
According to the Post, Haley “backed most of the foreign policy decisions by Trump that others tried to block or slow down, including withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accord and the relocation of the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.”
What about impeachment? Here, too, Haley backs Trump but not 100 percent, telling the Post’s Anne Gearan: “So, do I think it’s not good practice to talk to foreign governments about investigating Americans? Yes. Do I think the president did something that warrants impeachment? No, because the aid flowed.” That, of course, is a reference to the $391 million in military aid to Ukraine that Trump held up—and the argument that it doesn’t matter because it was eventually released.
But in a clear bow to the president’s critics, Haley writes that she objected to Trump’s handling of the Helsinki summit with Vladi­mir Putin, as well as his response to the violence in Charlottesville. Reflecting on Trump’s “both sides” comments, Haley writes:
“A leader’s words matter in these situations. And the president’s words had been hurtful and dangerous. I picked up the phone and called the president.”
The most interesting excerpt involves the murder of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, when Haley was South Carolina’s governor. She says she was treated for post-traumatic stress syndrome, including episodes of sobbing, loss of appetite and feelings of guilt.
Joe Scarborough says Haley is auditioning for Mike Pence’s spot on the 2020 ticket. I don’t think there’s an opening there, but as a former governor, ex-diplomat and daughter of Indian immigrants, Haley obviously has potential as a presidential contender down the road.
Perhaps that’s why she wrote a memoir that keeps her in Trump’s camp, criticizes him in selected spots and throws a couple of her former White House colleagues under the bus.

DACA heads to Supreme Court and all eyes are on Chief Justice John Roberts

The Supreme Court on Tuesday is set to take up the Trump administration’s plan to end protections that shield about 660,000 immigrants from deportation, and legal experts say all eyes will be on the likely tie-breaker Chief Justice John Roberts.
Created under an Obama-era executive order, DACA gives some undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children the chance to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and become eligible for a work permit.
Legal experts have looked back on Roberts’ June vote that blocked a citizenship question from appearing on the 2020 census. The Trump administration claimed that Americans have the right to know who’s in the country illegally.
"So important for our Country that the very simple and basic "Are you a Citizen of the United States?" Question be allowed to be asked in the 2020 Census," Trump tweeted at the time.
Critics said the question would discourage illegal immigrants from participating. Census totals determine congressional seats and political boundaries.
Linda Greenhouse, a New York Times columnist who focuses on the Supreme Court, wrote last week that the parallels between the census case and DACA is not exact, "but they are striking."
She wrote that Roberts called the Commerce Department's claim in the case "contrived."
The department claimed that the question needed to be included so the Justice Department could better job enforcing the Voting Rights Act. Greenhouse said Roberts' opinion "made it clear that the court was addressing process, not substance."
Agencies are required to offer "genuine justifications for important decisions, reasons that can be scrutinized by courts and the interested public," he wrote, according to the Times. "Accepting contrived reasons would defeat the purpose of the enterprise."
The Los Angeles Times reported Monday that Dreamers' "best hope for victory almost surely depends on" Roberts. CNN reported that lawyers were crafting their argument to appeal to one justice: Roberts.
But the L.A. Times pointed out that Roberts wrote in the travel ban ruling that the country's chief executive oversees immigration enforcement. Roberts also handed two other immigration wins to the administration.
The court sided with President Trump in allowing him to enforce the travel ban on visitors from some majority Muslim countries and Roberts voted in favor of Trump shifting military dollars to fund the wall.
Janet Napolitano, the University of California president who served as Obama's homeland security secretary when DACA was created, said the administration seems to recognize that ending DACA protections would be unpopular.
"And so perhaps they think it better that they be ordered by the court to do it as opposed to doing it correctly on their own," Napolitano said in an interview with The Associated Press. She is a named plaintiff in the litigation.
Trump has said a ruling in his favor would force Democrats back to the table and a "bipartisan deal will be made to the benefit of all."
The Associated Press contributed to this report

Defense Department official says Pentagon received 'phone calls from industry' after hold on Ukraine aid

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Laura Cooper testified last month that Pentagon officials began receiving "phone calls from industry" -- apparently referring to private companies that supply weapons and military hardware to the government -- after President Trump initiated a hold on military aid to Ukraine earlier this year.
The revelation, which came in a transcript of Cooper's closed-door Oct. 23 deposition released Monday by House Democrats as part of their impeachment inquiry, prompted concerns from commentators that the most self-destructive elements of the Russia probe were resurfacing.
"Like Russiagate, Ukrainegate enrolls liberals in the Cold War designs of dangerous hawks and neocons," tweeted journalist Aaron Mate.
Additionally, Cooper testified that the Trump administration had pushed Ukraine to issue a public statement disavowing any efforts to influence U.S. elections -- but Cooper stopped short of saying that officials wanted to include a reference to Joe and Hunter Biden's business dealings in the country.
Previous testimony in the inquiry has suggested that the White House improperly pressured Ukraine to implicate the Bidens publicly. Former U.S. envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, for example, had remarked that European Union envoy Gordon Sondland and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani worked with a top Ukrainian aide to include a reference to the Biden-linked Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings.
But, Cooper said that on Aug. 20, Volker met with her -- and the idea of mentioning the Bidens apparently didn't come up.
"In that meeting, he did mention something to me that, you know, was the first about, somehow, an effort that he was engaged in to see if there was a statement that the government of Ukraine would make that would somehow disavow any interference in U.S. elections and would commit to the prosecution of any individuals involved in election interference," Cooper said. "And, that was about as specific as it got."
Cooper's testimony was made public as House Democrats on Monday also released transcripts from their interviews with Christopher Anderson, a career foreign service officer at the State Department, and Catherine Croft, a Ukraine expert at the State Department. Croft testified that she speculated Trump would be willing to shift Ukraine policy to hurt a Biden candidacy, and that news of a holdup of Ukraine aid "blew up" a State Department meeting.
Croft, in her remarks, said that the Office of Management and Budget had "reported that the White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, had placed an informal hold on security assistance to Ukraine. The only reason given was that it came at the direction of the president."
Separately, Cooper testified about Defense Department concerns that Trump's temporary withholding of military aid to Ukraine may have been illegal.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Laura Cooper, left, on Capitol Hill on Oct. 30. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

"I'm not an expert on the law, but in that meeting immediately deputies began to raise concerns about how this could be done in a legal fashion because there was broad understanding in the meeting that the funding -- the State Department funding related to an earmark for Ukraine and that the DOD funding was specific to Ukraine security assistance," Cooper testified, concerning a July 23 meeting of national security officials. "The comments in the room at the deputies' level reflected a sense that there was not an understanding of how this could legally play out, and at that meeting, the deputies agreed to look into the legalities and to look at what was possible."
The legalities likely regarded the issue of "impoundment" – the requirement that the president either had to spend the money or "impound" it.  The White House was coming up against an impoundment deadline when it released the funds for Ukraine.
Moreover, Cooper said, Defense Department officials were concerned that Trump's decision would weaken a "strategic partner."
"I mean, so DOD was concerned about the obligation of funds," she said. "Policy, my team, we were also concerned about any signal that we would send to Ukraine about a wavering in our commitment. ... They are trying to negotiate a peace with Russia, and if they are seen as weak, and if they are seen to lack the backing of the United States for their Armed Forces, it makes it much more difficult for them to negotiate a peace on terms that are good for Ukraine."
She added: "My sense is that all of the senior leaders of the U.S. national security departments and agencies were all unified in their — in their view that this assistance was essential, and they were trying to find ways to engage the president on this."
Croft, meanwhile, told House investigators, "If this were public in Ukraine it would be seen as a reversal of our policy and would, just to say sort of candidly and colloquially, this would be a really big deal, it would be a really big deal in Ukraine, and an expression of declining U.S. support for Ukraine."
Ukraine had satisfied all necessary benchmarks to obtain Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative funding, Cooper told lawmakers. This past May, Cooper said, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy John Rood "provided the certification to Congress, but that was after coordination with the State Department."
Cooper also told investigators she could make a "very strong inference" that Ukraine was aware in August that the Trump administration was holding up the financial assistance, shortly before the aid was released in September. The Ukraine aid was suspended temporarily in August -- two weeks before the White House released it, Politico reported.
"It could have been my inference, yes, a very strong inference that there was some knowledge on the part of the Ukrainians," Cooper testified. She called the aid suspension, which came without an explanation to her knowledge, "unusual."
Military aid to Ukraine, Cooper further testified, was relevant to U.S. national-security interests.
"Ukraine, and also Georgia, are the two front-line states facing Russian aggression," Cooper said. "In order to deter further Russian aggression, we need to be able to shore up these countries' abilities to defend themselves. That's, I think, pure and simple, the rationale behind our strategy of supporting these countries. It's in our interest to deter Russian aggression elsewhere around the world."
Trump's suggested in his July call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that the country investigate Joe and Hunter Biden's business dealings there, after it emerged that Joe Biden, the former vice president and current 2020 presidential candidate, had pressured Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor while Hunter Biden held a lucrative role on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company. Zelensky has said he felt no improper pressure during the call.
In a statement, top House Democrats leading the impeachment inquiry noted that Cooper's testimony indicated that Trump's Ukraine policy angered some officials in the administration.

Katie Hill Cartoons

Steve Knight eyes old seat after Katie Hill resignation

The two-term Republican who was ousted in 2018 by Katie Hill announced on his website Sunday that he will attempt to win back his old seat.
“I am proud to return to public service and deliver the type of representation our district deserves,” Steve Knight posted on his website.
Hill defeated Knight by 9 points in California’s 25th District in November. Hill-- a centrist-- was seen as a rising Democratic star because the district is seen as one of a few in the state that could be carried by a Republican.
Henry Olsen, a columnist in the Washington Post, wrote a piece last month that questioned whether or not the state was “reopening” the doors to Republicans. He pointed out that the district was a Republican stronghold before President Trump. He also called the election—which will likely occur on March 3, a possible bellwether for Republicans.
"Republicans have no chance of retaking the House if they cannot retake seats like the one Hill is vacating," Olsen wrote.
Hill resigned from her seat last month after she said  explicit private photos of her with a campaign staffer had been “weaponized” by her husband and political operatives.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Hill had acknowledged “errors in judgment” that Pelosi said made her continued service in Congress “untenable.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report