Democrats move towards a bribery charge against Donald Trump in the impeachment hearings.

Legislators such as Jerry Nadler, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, began referring on Thursday to bribery, an impeachable offense. In the afternoon at her press conference, Speaker Nancy Pelosi consolidated the message,

The devastating testimony corroborated evidence of bribery uncovered in the inquiry, and that the president abused his power and violated his oath by threatening to withhold military aid and a White House meeting in exchange for an investigation into his political rival — a clear attempt by the president to give himself an advantage in the 2020 election.

In the first public hearing on Wednesday, two witnesses — the US chargé d’affaires in Kiev, William Taylor, and the State Department official overseeing Ukraine, George Kent — added evidence of Trump’s suspension of $391 million in military aid to Ukraine and refusal of a White House visit for new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. They confirmed that Trump imposed the measures unless Kiev acceded to his requests for an announcement of the investigations to tarnish Presidential candidate Joe Biden and Democrats and to cover up Russia’s interference in the 2016 US elections.

In the most significant new revelation, Taylor spoke of Trump’s phone conversation — the day after Trump’s July 25 call with Zelenskiy, which sparked a formal complaint and then the impeachment hearings — with US Ambassador Gordon Sondland.

Sondland told a US official alongside him — believed to be David Holmes, who will testify in a closed-door session on Friday — that “President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden, which [Trump’s personal attorney Rudy] Giuliani was pressing for”, than he did about Ukraine.

See also EA on BBC and talkRADIO: Trouble for Trump After 1st Day of Impeachment Hearings
TrumpWatch, Day 1,028: Impeachment Hearings — Diplomats Give More Evidence of Trump’s Ukraine Pressure

Pelosi explained, “The bribe is to grant or withhold military assistance in return for a public statement of a fake investigation into the elections. That’s bribery.”

Article II of the US Constitution says the President and other public officers “shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors”.

New Witnesses Come Forward

On Thursday, a second US official came forward to speak of the Trump call to Sondland, a political appointee and central figure in the Trump-Giuliani “irregular channel” that began in November 2018.

Suriya Jayanti, serving in the US Embassy in Kiev, said she and Holmes were at the restaurant as Trump — by mobile phone over an unsecured line — asked Sondland about the state of the investigations.

Sondland is scheduled to testify in next Wednesday’s public hearing of the House Intelligence Committee.

Another crack in the White House attempt to stonewall and undermine the inquiry appeared yesterday. The lawyer for a high-ranking official at the Office of Management and Budget, Mark Sandy, said his client would appear for a deposition on Saturday if subpoenaed.

The OMB has become part of the Trump-Giuliani affair because of its role in suspending the military aid to Ukraine. US officials have testified that the head of the OMB, White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, implemented Trump’s order.

Several OMB staff have been asked to testify but have followed White House commands not to do so.

On Friday the former US Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, will testify in the public hearing.

Yovanovitch was the target of a sustained disinformation effort by Giuliani, who saw her as a barrier to the quest for investigations. She was recalled from Kiev in May by Trump.

Last month the Ambassador told House committees that she felt “threatened” by Trump, after he told Zelenskiy that she would “go through some things”. She said she was “shocked” by the statement: “I didn’t know what it meant. I was very concerned. I still am.”

See TrumpWatch, Day 1,019: Transcripts Document Trump-Ukraine Plot, Trump’s Threats to US Diplomats