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Ex-Adviser, Diplomat to Testify in Trump Impeachment Inquiry

VOA News

   Two additional advisers will testify Thursday as the U.S. House of
   Representatives holds a marathon week of public hearings on the
   impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.

   Former White House adviser Fiona Hill and career foreign service
   officer David Holmes are to testify Thursday.

   On Tuesday Jennifer Williams, an aide to Vice President Mike Pence, and
   Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the National Security Council's top Ukraine
   expert, former U.S. Special Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker and former NSC
   official Tim Morrison testified.

   On Wednesday, the most high-profile witness to appear, U.S. Ambassador
   to the E.U. Gordon Sondland, testified for nearly seven hours. He was
   followed by career Pentagon official Laura Cooper and Undersecretary of
   State David Hale Wednesday afternoon.

   All nine have testified previously in closed-door hearings about
   Trump's efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rival,
   former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who had served as
   a board member of a Ukraine natural gas company, and probe a
   discredited conspiracy theory regarding the 2016 president election.
   Three of the nine listened in on the July 25 phone conversation between
   Trump and Ukraine's president.

   Democrats hope the hearings will sway public opinion in favor of
   impeachment. Republicans have used them to discredit the impeachment
   proceedings and poke holes in the witnesses' testimony.

   Here is what you need to know about the witnesses Thursday and their
   role in the Ukraine affair.

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