Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, a US national security council official, said that Donald Trump made “inappropriate” demands in the July 25 phone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky that has sparked a congressional impeachment inquiry.
“What I heard was inappropriate,” Col Vindman told the House intelligence committee, which is leading the public phase of the inquiry. “It is improper of the president of the United States to ask a foreign government to investigate a political opponent.”
Mr Vindman and Jennifer Williams, a state department official working for vice-president Mike Pence who is also appearing before the committee on Tuesday, are the latest officials to testify publicly after previously giving closed-door testimony about a White House campaign to pressure Mr Zelensky.
In the July 25 call, Mr Trump asked his Ukrainian counterpart to find dirt on former Democratic vice-president Joe Biden and the local business activities of his son Hunter, who served on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company.
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Mr Trump also enlisted Rudy Giuliani, his personal lawyer, to urge Kyiv to probe the Bidens and look into widely debunked claims that Ukraine had interfered in the 2016 US presidential election.
Mr Trump faces the biggest crisis of his presidency after a CIA whistleblower in August sent a complaint to the CIA inspector-general that said White House officials were concerned Mr Trump was using his office to push for an investigation into a possible political rival, which would amount to foreign interference in a US election.
Mr Trump has accused the Democrats of pursuing another hoax in the wake of the Russia probe led by Robert Mueller. Republicans have accused the Democrats of seizing on the Ukraine issue to impeach Mr Trump because they are concerned that he will be difficult to defeat in the November 2020 election.
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Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the committee, said the media were Democratic “puppets” in the “Ukraine hoax”.
Republicans have described some witnesses who have provided damaging testimony as “Never Trumpers”. Some have questioned the patriotism of Col Vindman, a decorated army officer whose family emigrated from the Soviet Union when he was a child.
Joe Dunford, the recently retired chairman of the US joint chiefs, told Fox News that Col Vindman, who worked on his staff, was a “patriotic and loyal” officer.
“He’s made an extraordinary contribution in peacetime and in combat,” Mr Dunford said.
Mr Trump has described the July 25 call as “perfect”. He said he was just trying to root out corruption in Ukraine and was concerned that Hunter Biden received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Burisma despite having no relevant experience.
Republicans have accused Joe Biden of forcing Ukraine to end a probe into Burisma — a claim that has been debunked by former US aides and officials from other countries and multilateral institutions involved in efforts to stamp out corruption in Ukraine.
Asked by the Democrats on Tuesday if they were aware of any credible allegations about Mr Biden and Ukraine, Col Vindman and Ms Williams both said they were not.
