Trump impeachment inquiry holds rare envoy hearing

Bloomberg

The House impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump shifts into an accelerated phase as the three Democratic-led committees leading the inquiry hold their first weekend session to question the State Department’s top diplomat for Europe.
The closed-door testimony by Philip Reeker, the acting assistant secretary of European and Eurasian affairs, precedes a full slate of interviews set for next week before the Intelligence, Oversight and Reform, and Foreign Affairs committees.
Reeker arrived on Capitol Hill on Saturday and was expected to face questions about the role of Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, in the administration’s dealings with Ukraine and, in particular, the removal of former Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch in the spring.
Yovanovitch testified that she was ousted after a “concerted campaign” by Trump and his allies, including Giuliani.
Since the disclosure of a whistle-blower’s complaint last month, Democrats have been focussed almost entirely on the question of whether Trump and a handful of close advisers
put pressure on Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to conduct investigations of Trump’s political rivals, including by holding up US military assistance.
Reeker’s testimony was originally scheduled for earlier. A career foreign service officer who served in both Republican and Democratic administrations, he has been in his post since March.
Trump and his Republican allies have continued to criticise Democrats for taking testimony in closed-door sessions, though Republican members of the three committees all have taken part in questioning witnesses.
This week, a group of Republicans, including some who are on one of the committees conducting the inquiry, stormed the secure areas where the witness interviews are being conducted to stage a sit-in.
The move delayed the interview of a Pentagon official for about five hours.
Their complaints were extended to scheduling Reeker’s appearance for Saturday.
“Chairman Schiff has chosen to conduct his inquiry behind closed doors with only a limited number of members present, allowing selective leaks of cherry-picked information to paint misleading public narratives,” Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the ranking Republican on the Oversight committee, wrote in a letter to Reeker, referring to Adam Schiff, the Intelligence Committee chairman.
“For these reasons, we were surprised and disappointed that you had agreed to appear for a deposition on Saturday.”
The schedule for next week includes testimony from Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Charles Kupperman on Monday, and Timothy Morrison, a special assistant to the president, on Thursday.
But Kupperman asked a federal judge whether he must appear. He said in court papers that he faces “irreconcilable commands” — a subpoena from House Democrats requiring him to cooperate and an order from the White House not to testify.
His lawyer, Charles Cooper, said in a statement that Trump “has asserted that Dr Kupperman, as a close personal adviser to the president, is immune from Congressional process, and has instructed Dr Kupperman not to appear and testify in response to the House’s subpoena.”
Department of State Counselor T Ulrich Brechbuhl was subpoenaed to appear at a deposition on November 6.