Day One of public impeachment hearings puts pressure on moderate Dems

All eyes were on moderate House Democrats in swing districts Wednesday night, after the first day of public hearings in the impeachment inquiry against President Trump wrapped up with no major revelations -- but also highlighted weaknesses in Democrats' key witnesses, who relied primarily on second-hand information and never once interacted with the president.
At one point in Wednesday's hearing, Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., even appeared to embrace hearsay testimony, claiming that "hearsay can be much better evidence than direct" and that "countless people have been convicted on hearsay because the courts have routinely allowed and created, needed exceptions to hearsay." It was unclear which of those limited exceptions would apply to Wednesday's testimony -- and whether Quigley's argument would persuade critical swing-vote Democrats.
The House is now comprised of 431 members, meaning Democrats need 217 yeas to impeach Trump. There are currently 233 Democrats, so Democrats can only lose 16 of their own and still impeach the president. 31 House Democrats represent more moderate districts that Trump carried in 2016.
Freshman Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich. -- who flipped a GOP district in 2018 that Trump won by 7 points in 2016 -- told Fox News that she was tentatively weighing all the evidence.
"My constituents expect me to make an objective decision," Slotkin said as the hearings concluded, "not one based on an hour of testimony."
Slotkin went on to acknowledge that launching an impeachment inquiry was a "politically tough thing to do."
"I'm not waking up in the morning looking for some golden poll," Slotkin said, insisting that she would analyze all testimony carefully in the coming days.
Reports have emerged that, should Trump be impeached by a majority vote in the House, Senate Republicans might strategically hold a lengthy trial to "scramble" the 2020 Democratic presidential primary -- including by requiring several of the contenders to remain in Washington to handle the trial. Trump is all but certain to be acquitted by the GOP-controlled Senate in the event of impeachment, given that a two-thirds vote is required in the Senate to remove the president.
As the public hearing wrapped up on Wednesday, the panel voted 13-9, along party lines, to table a Republican motion to subpoena the whistleblower -- signaling that not many minds had been swayed.
A GOP source close to the House Intelligence Committee told Fox News late Wednesday that Republicans have full confidence in counsel Steve Castor, and he will continue to lead the questioning in the next round of public impeachment hearings. GOP members were pleased with his questioning today, the source said.
The day offered one previously undisclosed allegation. Career diplomat William Taylor, the charge d’affaires in Kiev, offered testimony, for the first time, that the president was overheard by a member of his staff on July 26 asking EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland about “the investigations,” to which Sondland supposedly responded that “the Ukrainians were ready to move forward.” Taylor said that following Sondland’s call with Trump, the member of his staff asked what Trump thought about Ukraine.
“Ambassador Sondland responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden, which Giuliani was pressing for,” Taylor said, revealing new information from his prior testimony last month. “At the time I gave my deposition on October 22, I was not aware of this information. I am including it for completeness.”
But, Republicans pointed out that Taylor's testimony was unverifiable hearsay, several layers deep -- and that Sondland has previously testified that Trump explicitly told him there were "no quid pro quo’s of any kind" with Ukraine, including one in which military aid would be conditioned on any politically motivated investigations.
"'Ambassador Taylor recalls that Mr. [Tim] Morrison told Ambassador Taylor that I told Mr. Morrison that I had conveyed this message to Mr. [Andriy] Yermak on September 1, 2019, in connection with Vice President Pence’s visit to Warsaw and a meeting with President [Volodymyr] Zelensky,'" Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan said, incredulously reading a statement from Sondland.
"We’ve got six people having four conversations in one sentence, and you just told me this is where you got your 'clear understanding,'" Jordan continued, as Taylor appeared to laugh. "Ambassador, you weren't on the call, were you? You've never talked to Chief of Staff [Mick] Mulvaney? You've never met the president. ... And you're their star witness?"
Even CNN analyst Jeffrey Toobin noted that Democrats had a "problem," in that their key witnesses Wednesday had never directly interacted with Trump. "And, that's a problem if you're going to impeach the president," Toobin said.
Jordan also reminded viewers that President Obama had declined to provide lethal aid to Ukraine, even after Russia's invasion. Trump, on the other hand, eventually provided Javelin missiles. And, Ukraine's president has said he felt no pressure, improper or otherwise, from the Trump administration to engage in any investigations.
Trump, for his part, said he was too busy to watch on Wednesday and denied having such a phone call. "First I've heard of it," he said when asked.
At a news conference with Turkey's leader, Trump vowed to release another transcript of an earlier call with Ukraine on Thursday. He called Democrats' efforts a hopeless "witch hunt."
The president pointed to Sondland's written testimony: "The one thing I've seen that Sondland said, he did speak to me for a brief moment, he did speak to me for a brief moment -- [he testified previously that] I said, no 'quid pro quo,' under any circumstances, and that's true. In any event, it's more second-hand information. ... The only thing, and I guess Sondland has stayed with his testimony, that there was no quid-pro-quo, pure and simple."
Media observers questioned whether the proceedings ultimately would sway any opinions, or make things any easier for moderate Democrats. ABC News' George Stephanopoulos mused on-air, "part of me is wondering, what do facts matter anymore in these debates?"
Meanwhile, Christian Jacobs, 50, sat in a beach bar in St. Petersburg, wearing a fedora and reluctantly watching the drama on television, as The Associated Press put it.
"I did not want this," Jacobs, a Democrat, said, glancing at the TV and vaping. He said he had been leaning closer toward impeachment.
"I'm so afraid, left to his own devices, what else he may do," Jacobs said of Trump.

"I did not want this."
— Christian Jacobs, 50, wearing fedora and sipping marijuana vape pen

Anthony Harris, cutting hair in Savannah, Georgia, had the hearing on in his shop, but he said, "It's gotten to the point now where people are even tired of listening."
Lawmakers largely signaled that the hours of partisan back-and-forth did not appear to leave a singular moment etched in the public consciousness the way the Watergate proceedings or former President Clinton's impeachment did.
"No real surprises, no bombshells," said committee member Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah.
Taylor and Kent had defied White House instructions not to appear. Both received subpoenas.
They were among a dozen current and former officials who already testified behind closed doors. Wednesday was the start of days of public hearings expected to stretch into next week.
All day, the diplomats testified about how an ambassador was fired, the new Ukraine government was confused and they discovered an "irregular channel" -- a shadow U.S. foreign policy orchestrated by the president's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani which raised alarms in diplomatic and national-security circles.
For their part, Republican lawmakers observed that the president -- not unelected career bureaucrats -- dictated foreign policy.
At its core, the inquiry has stemmed from Trump’s July 25 phone call when he asked Zelensky for "a favor."
The White House already has released a transcript of the call, in which the two discussed past U.S. "support" for Ukraine, as well as Ukraine's issues with corruption. On the call, Trump asked Kiev to investigate reports that Ukraine was involved in 2016 election interference.
Later on, the president also mentioned former Vice President Joe Biden's push to have Ukraine's chief prosecutor fired, and suggested the country look into the matter.
The call came a day after former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's widely derided appearance on Capitol Hill appeared to leave Democrats' hopes for impeachment dashed.
Fox News' Chad Pergram, Brooke Singman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Gosar fires back after Katie Hill rips his 'Epstein' tweets: You taught the country what a 'throuple' was

Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., slammed his former colleague Katie Hill who had criticized his cryptic Epstein tweets, telling her she taught the country a new word: "throuple."
Hill criticized Gosar over a series of tweets that spelled out "Epstein didn't kill himself." The saying has been appearing in memes and on social media. Hill blasted him for "tweeting out real conspiracy theories."
"No like this actually happened. Real members of Congress tweeting out real conspiracy theories. In an acrostic no less," Hill tweeted.
Gosar fired back, "You’re surprised by me? You single-handedly taught an entire country a new word. #throuple," Gosar reacted. "And wth is up with that tattoo? Relax."
"Throuple," which is a term to describe a three-person relationship, was the arrangement Hill reportedly had with her estranged husband and a female campaign staffer. Hill accused her estranged husband of leaking the nude photos as "revenge porn" amid their messy divorce. Hill's attorneys also vehemently denied allegations made in a DailyMail story that one of the nude photos shows a “Nazi-era Iron Cross” tattoo.
Gosar drew some attention to his Twitter account on Wednesday with a series of tweets he wrote in reaction to the ongoing testimony of U.S. diplomat Bill Taylor and State Department official George Kent as the first witnesses in a public impeachment hearing of President Trump, sharing videos and articles that memorialized the event.
"Evidence of a link between foreign aid and political investigations simply does not exist. The longer this circus continues the clearer it becomes that @realDonaldTrump has done absolutely nothing wrong," Gosar wrote on his official Twitter account.
Before that, "President @realDonaldTrump voluntarily chose to release the transcript of his phone call which clearly shows he did nothing wrong. This impeachment circus is a total sham, and Adam Schiff is the clown at the center of it all."
And, before that, "Schiff’s star witness is crumbling under pressure. He wasn’t listening to the phone call and he has never even met President Trump."
However, the Daily Wire and others took notice that as readers scrolled down Gosar's profile, the first letters of each tweet spelled, "Epstein didn't kill himself."
The "Epstein didn't kill himself" meme has spread like wildfire after the death of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The New York City medical examiner determined he had taken his own life, but vocal skeptics have suggested otherwise during random blurt-outs on television and other signs.
In a statement to Fox News, Gosar stressed that his tweets were all "substantive" but appeared to have some more fun in the process.
"All of the tweets pertained to testimony from today’s hearing.
Rest assured, they are substantive.
Every one of them.
All of them.
5 were brilliant.
1 was ok.”
In other words, "Area 51."
Hill resigned from Congress earlier this month after she was accused of having multiple inappropriate relationships with subordinates, including a congressional staffer that prompted an investigation from the House Ethics Committee.

Donald Trump Jr. on day one of public impeachment hearings: ‘I’ve never seen anything more ridiculous’

Donald Trump Jr. reacted to the first day of public hearings in the impeachment inquiry against his father on Wednesday saying, ‘‘I’ve never seen anything more ridiculous.”
The first day of public hearings wrapped up with no major revelations -- but he said it also highlighted weaknesses in Democrats' key witnesses, who relied primarily on second-hand information.
Speaking on “Hannity” on Wednesday night, Trump was quick to point that out.
"You see exactly what America voted against in 2016, career government bureaucrats doing their thing,” the executive vice president of the Trump Organization said.
“Everything was hearsay, ‘I heard it from a friend, who heard it from a friend, how heard it from a friend.’ I’m saying, ‘this is a joke.’”
At one point in Wednesday's hearing, Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., even appeared to embrace hearsay testimony, claiming that "hearsay can be much better evidence than direct" and that "countless people have been convicted on hearsay because the courts have routinely allowed and created, needed exceptions to hearsay." It was unclear which of those limited exceptions would apply to Wednesday's testimony -- and whether Quigley's argument would persuade critical swing-vote Democrats.
Trump commented on Quigley’s statements telling Sean Hannity, “Then I heard the Democrats, and this is when you realize how bad or, frankly, nonexistent their case is, ‘well hearsay is often times much better than regular evidence.’ I’m saying, ‘did that guy say that with a straight face?’”
Trump then compared Quigley’s comments to “the telephone game we learned about in Kindergarten.”
“So it’s better to have heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend than to have heard it with your own ears? I mean that’s the level of insanity that you’re seeing from these bureaucrats who’ve taken an anti-Trump position,” he said.
Earlier Wednesday Trump Jr. also tweeted about Quigley’s comments writing, “Can you believe this insanity? “Heresay [sic] can be much better evidence than DIRECT EVIDENCE” according to Democrat Mike Quigley. Are you fricken kidding me? 3rd and 4th party info better than hearing it yourself?”
On "Hannity" Trump said, “When Republicans start questioning, [House Intelligence Committee Chairman] Adam Schiff changes the rules, changes the goal posts, pretends they can’t even ask that question anymore. It’s never ending. It’s a comedy at this point.”
The House is now comprised of 431 members, meaning Democrats need 217 yeas to impeach Trump. There are currently 233 Democrats, so Democrats can only lose 16 of their own and still impeach the president. 31 House Democrats represent more moderate districts that Trump carried in 2016.
Trump Jr. told Hannity on Wednesday that the left “is not looking to govern, they’re not looking to do anything, they are looking to try to resist. Because they know they can’t beat Trump in the polls, they’re going to try to impeach and it’s not going to work in the long run and the American people see through it. They are sick of this garbage.”
Fox News’ Gregg Re contributed to this report.

Impeachment Cartoons

Impeachment hearings go live on TV with first witnesses

WASHINGTON (AP) — The closed doors of the Trump impeachment investigation are swinging wide open.

When the gavel strikes at the start of the House hearing Wednesday morning, America and the rest of the world will have the chance to see and hear for themselves for the first time about President Donald Trump’s actions toward Ukraine and consider whether they are, in fact, impeachable offenses.

It’s a remarkable moment, even for a White House full of them.

All on TV, committee leaders will set the stage, then comes the main feature: Two seasoned diplomats, William Taylor, the graying former infantry officer now charge d’affaires in Ukraine, and George Kent, the deputy assistant secretary in Washington, telling the striking, if sometimes complicated story of a president allegedly using foreign policy for personal and political gain ahead of the 2020 election.

So far, the narrative is splitting Americans, mostly along the same lines as Trump’s unusual presidency. The Constitution sets a dramatic, but vague, bar for impeachment, and there’s no consensus yet that Trump’s actions at the heart of the inquiry meet the threshold of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Whether Wednesday’s proceedings begin to end a presidency or help secure Trump’s position, it’s certain that his chaotic term has finally arrived at a place he cannot control and a force, the constitutional system of checks and balances, that he cannot ignore.

The country has been here just three times before, and never against the backdrop of social media and real-time commentary, including from the president himself.

“These hearings will address subjects of profound consequence for the Nation and the functioning of our government under the Constitution,” said Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee leading the inquiry, in a memo to lawmakers.

Schiff called it a “solemn undertaking,” and counseled colleagues to “approach these proceedings with the seriousness of purpose and love of country that they demand.”

“Total impeachment scam,” tweeted the president, as he does virtually every day.

Impeachments are rare, historians say, because they amount to nothing short of the nullification of an election. Starting down this road poses risks for both Democrats and Republicans as proceedings push into the 2020 campaign.

Unlike the Watergate hearings and Richard Nixon, there is not yet a “cancer on the presidency” moment galvanizing public opinion. Nor is there the national shrug, as happened when Bill Clinton’s impeachment ultimately didn’t result in his removal from office. It’s perhaps most like the partisanship-infused impeachment of Andrew Johnson after the Civil War.

Trump calls the whole thing a “witch hunt,” a retort that echoes Nixon’s own defense. Republicans say Democrats have been trying to get rid of this president since he first took office, starting with former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference to help Trump in the 2016 election.

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was initially reluctant to launch a formal impeachment inquiry. As Democrats took control of the House in January, Pelosi said impeachment would be “too divisive” for the country. Trump, she said, was simply “not worth it.”

After Mueller’s 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.

For the past month, witness after witness has testified under oath about his July 25 phone call with Ukraine’s newly elected president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and the alarms it set off in U.S. diplomatic and national security circles.

In a secure room in the Capitol basement, current and former officials have been telling lawmakers what they know. They’ve said an earlier Trump call in April congratulating Zelenskiy on his election victory seemed fine. The former U.S. reality TV host and the young Ukrainian comedian hit it off.

But in the July call, things turned.

An anonymous whistleblower first alerted officials to the phone call. “I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 election,” the person wrote in August to the House and Senate Intelligence committees. Democrats fought for the letter to be released to them as required.

“I am deeply concerned,” the whistleblower wrote.

Trump insisted the call was “perfect.” The White House released a rough transcript. Pelosi, given the nod from her most centrist freshman lawmakers, opened the inquiry.

“The president has his opportunity to prove his innocence,” she told Noticias Telemundo on Tuesday.

Defying White House orders not to appear, witnesses have testified that Trump’s acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, was withholding U.S. military aid to the budding democracy until the new Ukraine government conducted investigations Trump wanted into Democrats in the 2016 election and his potential 2020 rival, Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter.

It was all part of what Taylor, the long-serving top diplomat in Ukraine, called the “irregular” foreign policy being led by Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, outside of traditional channels.

Taylor said it was “crazy” that the Trump administration was withholding U.S. military assistance to the East European ally over the political investigations, with Russian forces on Ukraine’s border on watch for a moment of weakness.

Kent, the bowtie-wearing State Department official, told investigators there were three things Trump wanted of Ukraine: “Investigations, Biden, Clinton.”

On Friday, the public is scheduled to hear from Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, who told investigators she was warned to “watch my back” as Trump undercut and then recalled her.

Eight more witnesses will testify in public hearings next week.

“What this affords is the opportunity for the cream of our diplomatic corps to tell the American people a clear and consistent story of what the president did,” said Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., a member of the Intelligence panel.

“It takes a lot of courage to do what they are doing,” he said, “and they are probably just going to be abused for it.”

Republicans, led on the panel by Rep. Devin Nunes, a longtime Trump ally from California, will argue that none of those witnesses has first-hand knowledge of the president’s actions. They will say Ukraine never felt pressured and the aid money eventually flowed, in September.

Yet Republicans are struggling to form a unified defense of Trump. Instead they often fall back on criticism of the process.

Some Republicans align with Trump’s view, which is outside of mainstream intelligence findings, that Ukraine was involved in 2016 U.S. election interference. They want to hear from Hunter Biden, who served on the board of a gas company in Ukraine, Burisma, while his father was the vice president. And they are trying to bring forward the still-anonymous whistleblower, whose identity Democrats have vowed to protect.

The framers of the Constitution provided few details about how the impeachment proceedings should be run, leaving much for Congress to decide. Democrats say the White House’s refusal to provide witnesses or produce documents is obstruction and itself impeachable.

Hearings are expected to continue and will shift, likely by Thanksgiving, to the Judiciary Committee to consider actual articles of impeachment.

The House, which is controlled by Democrats, is expected to vote by Christmas.

That would launch a trial in the Senate, where Republicans have the majority, in the new year.

___

Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this report.

White House to set up cameras to livestream border wall construction: report

President Trump’s senior adviser Jared Kushner and other White House officials are planning to set up web cameras to livestream construction along the border wall, according to a report.
Kushner first offered the proposal during a July meeting, pitching the idea as a way to confront criticism that Trump has not followed through on his signature 2016 campaign promise, The Washington Post reported, citing unnamed officials
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and senior U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials have told Kushner they’re opposed to the initiative because certain construction contractors do not want their proprietary techniques shown to competitors, the sources told the Post.
Trump reportedly asked Kushner to reinvent messaging and communication about the border wall project after the government shutdown last year. The current website for the CBP shows information about construction along the border, but a new site, currently being designing by Trump administration’s chief digital officer Ory Rinat, will reportedly incorporate the live camera feeds, allowing the public to visibly track the wall’s progress.
Under the Trump administration, 81 miles of border wall, most of which was built as "replacement" barrier to reinforce older fencing, has been completed. The new barriers built of steel bollards stand anywhere from 18 to 30 feet tall.
An additional 155 miles of border fencing is currently under construction. And 273 miles are under “preconstruction,” according to the most recent CBP data. The Trump administration aims to build a total of 400 to 500 miles of border wall to complete the project. The project has been facing delays as officials work to acquire privately held land in Texas along the U.S.-Mexico border. It has cost taxpayers $10 million to date, the Post reported.

New taxes on guns, ammunition OK’d by Tacoma City Council

In an 8-0 vote Tuesday night, the city council of Tacoma, Wash., approved new taxes on the sales of firearms and ammunition.
When the taxes take effect July 1, 2020, gun buyers will pay a $25 tax on each purchase, plus 2 cents per round on ammunition of .22 caliber or less, and 5 cents per round on all other types of ammunition, the News Tribune of Tacoma reported.
The new levies are expected to raise about $300,000 annually, with the money designated for violence-prevention programs, the report said.

Tacoma's new taxes call for a $25 charge on firearms purchases and 2 cents to 5 cents for each round of ammunition. Gun parts and accessories are excluded, according to a report. (Getty Images)

But Second Amendment advocates questioned the council’s action, saying it amounted to punishing law-abiding gun owners for the actions of a relatively small number of criminals.
They proposed instead more vigorous enforcement of existing laws, the News Tribune reported.
“Everyday firearms protect life,” Jane Milhans, a local certified firearm instructor, told the council during the public-comment portion of the meeting. “It’s our personal protection.”
Manufacturers and retailers also expressed opposition to the plan.
“This type of regressive tax really impacts our ability to be competitive,” CEO Scott Dover of Tacoma-based manufacturer Aero Precision said during public comment. The company employs more than 400 people, the report said.

“This type of regressive tax really impacts our ability to be competitive.”
— Scott Dover, CEO of gun manufacturer Aero Precision

Last month, retail store manager Bruce Smith told Seattle's KOMO-TV that Tacoma's new taxes would drive businesses out of town.
“The owner of this company has already said if they pass the ordinance we will not be here when it starts," Smith told the station. "So as of January 1, this store will go away. It will be gone by then.”
Council member Catherine Uska described the city’s tax plan as a model that other communities could use in addressing gun violence.
“It gives a signal to other municipalities that it’s something that they can do,” Ushka said, according to the News Tribune.
Council member Keith Blocker had language added to the ordinance that city officials would convene a panel of school officials, gun advocates and other members of the community to review the effects of the new taxes and determine if the council “should consider repealing” the levies at some point.
Council members decided to exclude gun parts and accessories from being taxed, as a way to lessen the burden on businesses, the newspaper reported.

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.