“What the president has admitted to and says it’s perfect, I say it’s perfectly wrong.”
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday that Republican President Donald Trump has admitted to actions that amount to bribery in the Ukraine scandal at the heart of a Democratic-led impeachment inquiry.
“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,” Pelosi said at a news conference.
“What the president has admitted to and says it’s perfect, I say it’s perfectly wrong. It’s bribery. The Democratic-led impeachment inquiry against Trump moved forward on Thursday with preparations for the appearance of another central figure – former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch – in the investigation’s second public hearing.
Two career US diplomats, William Taylor and George Kent, testified on Wednesday in the first televised hearing of the House of Representatives inquiry that threatens Trump’s presidency even as he seeks re-election in November 2020. Taylor, the acting ambassador to Ukraine, offered an account that linked the Republican president more directly to a pressure campaign on Ukraine to conduct investigations that would benefit him politically.
