Transcripts from former and current Trump administration officials testifying in the impeachment inquiry will be released soon, a Democratic congresswoman said over the weekend.
So far, all witnesses have testified behind closed doors and none of their testimony has been released, though their opening statements have been leaked.
“I don’t know if they’re all going to be released on the same day, but they’re going to be very telling to the American people,” added Speier, a member of the House Intelligence Committee.
“There is no question now whether there was a quid pro quo, and now the question the Republicans are trying to throw out is, ‘Well, was there corrupt intent?’”
Both parties have claimed the release of the transcript will favor them, but Speier insisted the testimonies will show the public that there “is growing evidence of grounds for impeachment.”
Speier also said that public hearings will likely start after one more week of closed-door testimonies.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who also appeared on the program, declined to say whether the hearings will end before Thanksgiving. Democrats have not said how long the impeachment inquiry will take, and have even indicated it could go into 2020, a presidential election year.
“Time is not constraining us,” Hoyer said. “The truth and the facts are constraining us. We are going to move as soon as the facts and the truth dictate that we have.”
“This is not a calculation about whether this is good for us politically or bad for us politically,” Hoyer said.
He said the efforts to impeach Trump “may well” have a political impact on Democrats in the upcoming elections but suggested it’s a sacrifice party leadership has taken into account.
“But we have a duty,” he said. “We have a duty to the country, to the American people, and to the Constitution of the United States.”
President Donald Trump, meanwhile, speaking to reporters on Saturday, noted that majorities in battleground states have indicated disapproval of the inquiry.
“You know, Nancy Pelosi has become unhinged. There’s something wrong with her. If you look at what’s happening, if you look at the poll numbers, if you look at the poll numbers in the swing states, they’re saying, ‘Don’t do this. Don’t do it.’ I’m fine with it; we did absolutely nothing wrong,” Trump said, adding that his phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—the complaint about the call led to Pelosi starting the inquiry—was “perfect.”
“Everybody knows it. The Republicans have never been this unified. I’m at the highest level I’ve ever been at. But the Republicans have never been this unified,” the president added. “And this whole impeachment scam—that’s exactly what it is; it’s a scam. It’s a hoax. The Democrats are using it for political purposes to try and win an election that they’re not going to win.
