House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has claimed a key part of the US envoy to Ukraine’s testimony to Congress was ‘destroyed’ in just 90 seconds.
The Republican representative from California said John Ratcliffe deconstructed Bill Taylor’s evidence to the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees yesterday.
Taylor, the top diplomat in the Ukraine, testified that he was told that US military aid to the country was contingent on Kiev putting out a statement they were investigating the Bidens and the 2016 election.
Donald Trump refused to release the aid or meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky until authorities agreed to investigate the president’s political rivals, Taylor testified.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy speaking during a press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington yesterday. He claimed Bill Taylor’s testimony was ‘destroyed’ in front of the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees
Bill Taylor, the top US diplomat to Ukraine, arriving at the closed session before the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees yesterday
The president has faced a storm of accusations of trying to use a foreign government to dig up dirt on Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who previously sat on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company.
Democratic lawmakers called the evidence ‘damning’ as they left the behind-closed-doors hearing on Capitol Hill yesterday.
But on Fox News, McCarthy claimed Taylor’s evidence was taken apart by fellow Republican from Texas, Ratcliffe, who is a member of both the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees.
Although McCarthy did not give specific examples of Ratcliffe’s argument because ‘we can’t really talk about it’.
He told host Laura Ingraham: ‘In 90 seconds, we had John Ratcliffe destroy Taylor’s whole argument.
‘The one thing that you find out in this process is all this information is just like that whistleblower, everything is second, third, and fourth-hand information.
‘Adam Schiff won’t let us talk about what happened. There is no quid pro quo.’
John Ratcliffe speaking to reporters after attending a closed door meeting at the US Capitol. He was said to have deconstructed Taylor’s testimony yesterday
McCarthy also criticized House Intelligence Committee Chairman, Schiff, for how he is conducting the impeachment proceedings.
He claimed the relevant Republicans are unable to view information and documents from the hearings unless they are accompanied by the chairman’s staff members or in the presence of Democrats.
McCarthy wrote on Twitter yesterday: ‘Under Chairman Schiff and the Dem majority, the most basic responsibilities of the committee have been neglected.
‘Instead, the House Intelligence Committee is using its time and resources to run a sham impeachment inquiry in secret.’
Taylor testified yesterday that Trump’s EU ambassador Gordon Sondland told another diplomat: ‘President Trump did insist that President Zelenskyy go to a microphone and say that he is opening investigations of Biden and 2016 election interference, and that President Zelenskyy should want to do this himself.’
He told lawmakers Trump wanted to put Zelensky in a ‘public box’ of committing to probing the Bidens before sitting down with him, according to The Washington Post.
President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House on Monday. He is facing an impeachment inquiry over claims he tried to pressure Ukraine into investigating political rivals by withholding military aid
The bombshell testimony rocked Washington D.C. and left the White House reeling – after Trump had started the day by calling impeachment ‘a lynching’.
Trump, a day after calling on his fellow Republicans to get tougher in defending him in the inquiry, inflamed the controversy by writing on Twitter: ‘All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here – a lynching. But we will WIN!’
The president triggered outrage by comparing the Democrat-led impeachment inquiry, a process that is laid out in the Constitution, to a deadly and racist chapter in US history.
McCarthy, who is also close to Trump, said ‘lynching’ isn’t ‘the language that I would use’.
Ohio resident, Malinda Edwards, whose father was lynched by Ku Klux Klansmen in Alabama in 1957, said Trump’s tweet was ‘unbelievable’.
The inquiry hinges on Trump’s July now-infamous phone call with Zelensky in which he pressed him to investigate unsubstantiated claims about Democratic rival Joe Biden and a debunked conspiracy theory involving a computer server at the Democratic National Committee.
Trump, at the time, had quietly put a hold on nearly $400 million in military aid that Ukraine was counting on in its fight against Russian-backed separatists.