Foreign
US President Donald Trump lashed out at a government official who will testify in public in the coming week, as part of the impeachment inquiry.
This is a move that comes on the heels of a previous barb that Democrats said was witness intimidation.
Jennifer Williams testified in a closed-door session that she was concerned that the July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky amounted to an “unusual and inappropriate” demand that Ukraine probe Joe Biden, his domestic rival.
Trump tweeted that Williams, “whoever that is” should meet with other opponents of the president and “work out a better presidential attack”.
Williams works for the vice president and will testify on Tuesday.
Marie Yovanovitch, the ousted ambassador to Ukraine – who seems to have been removed to enable a channel to pressure on Zelensky, according to other testimonies – was testifying before Congress on Friday when Trump bashed her career on Twitter.
Trump had previously disparaged Yovanovitch in his call with Zelensky, calling her “bad news” and cryptically saying: “She’s going to go through some things.”
Democrats denounced what they saw as witness intimidation by the president.
Meanwhile, Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, took to Twitter to declare: “Democrats have NO crime and NO victim!”
He also called the impeachment inquiry a “travesty and embarrassment to our country”.
Trump himself claimed impeachment was a “partisan weapon,” and pointed to public statements from both Zelensky and the Ukranian foreign minister which seemed to indicate they did not feel pressure to investigate Biden.
Testimonies, however, are painting a picture of a president and his allies who were seeking dirt on Biden, with allegations that military aid to Ukraine was made dependent on a probe. (dpa/NAN)
– Nov 19, 2019 @ 11:35 GMT |
Tags: as lawyer says ‘no crime’ Trump lashes out at second witness
