The public Trump impeachment hearings begin Wednesday. Here's how to watch
- The House of Representatives will launch public hearings this week into whether President Donald Trump should be impeached.
- The move marks a historic inflection point in Trump's roller coaster presidency.
- Scroll down to read more about what Trump could be impeached for, who's testifying, and where and how to watch the hearings.
- Here's everything you need to know about Trump's impeachment process, including what's happened so far, who the players are, and what comes next.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
The House of Representatives will launch public hearings this week into whether President Donald Trump should be impeached.
The move marks a historic inflection point in Trump's roller coaster presidency. If the House votes to impeach him, he will be the fourth president in US history to face potential removal from office. Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson were both impeached and acquitted by the Senate, and Richard Nixon resigned from office before he was formally impeached.
What could Trump be impeached for?
House investigators are examining whether Trump abused his public office for private gain. At the center of the impeachment inquiry are Trump's communications with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his repeated efforts to pressure Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son for corruption ahead of the 2020 election.
Trump also asked Zelensky to investigate a bogus conspiracy theory suggesting it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 election and that it did so to benefit Hillary Clinton's campaign.
Several government officials have already testified to Congress behind closed doors, and their revelations paint a damaging portrait of a concerted effort across the administration to leverage US foreign policy to strongarm Ukraine into acceding to Trump's demands.
They also outlined the lengths White House officials went to in order to conceal records of a July 25 phone call between Trump and Zelensky.
Witnesses have testified that Trump's allies - particularly his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, the US's ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland, the acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, the US's former Special Representative to Ukraine Kurt Volker, and outgoing Energy Secretary Rick Perry - were part of an effort to condition vital military aid to Ukraine and a White House meeting on Zelensky publicly announcing the investigations Trump wanted.
The president's defenders say he did nothing wrong and that this is a normal part of how diplomacy and foreign policy are conducted.
But national security veterans, legal scholars, and at times Trump's own officials who have testified have suggested his actions open him up to a variety of potential charges including abuse of power, bribery, extortion, misappropriation of taxpayer funds, and soliciting foreign interference in the upcoming election.
Who's testifying this week?
In the spotlight this week are three officials who provided some of the most damning testimony so far against Trump.
On Wednesday, November 13, the US's chief envoy to Ukraine, Bill Taylor, and the deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, George Kent, will take center stage. Both men are career officials and can attest to the shadow foreign policy campaign that was spearheaded by Giuliani, Sondland, Volker, and others.
Kent has testified to the fact that Giuliani's efforts on Trump's behalf were not part of US foreign policy but instead a personal mission to get the president the political dirt he wanted on the Bidens.
Taylor, meanwhile, directly confirmed a quid pro quo and said he learned Sondland conveyed to a top Ukrainian official that Zelensky would not get the military aid or a White House meeting until he announced the investigations Trump demanded.
On Friday, November 15, the US's former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch will take the stage.
Yovanovitch is a powerful witness who is expected to lay out in detail what several officials characterized as a smear campaign Trump, Giuliani, and others embarked on against her. She was abruptly recalled from her position in May despite having "done nothing wrong," Yovanovitch said in her closed-door testimony.
Instead, Yovanovitch testified that she was removed because she refused to help Giuliani pressure Ukrainian officials to investigate the Bidens and purported Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election.
Kent has also corroborated that, telling lawmakers in his closed-door hearing, "Mr. Giuliani, at that point, had been carrying on a campaign for several months full of lies and incorrect information about Ambassador Yovanovitch, so this was a continuation of his campaign of lies."
How to watch the hearings
Kent and Taylor will jointly testify beginning at 10 a.m. ET on Wednesday. The time for Yovanovitch's hearing on Friday has not yet been scheduled.
Both hearings will be broadcast live on C-SPAN and the major cable news networks.
They will be available to livestream on websites for the three committees overseeing the impeachment inquiry: the House Intelligence Committee, the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Insider will also embed a YouTube video of the hearings here.
- Read more of Insider's impeachment coverage:
- Think Trump will get impeached? Gambling sites say the odds are in your favor
- Trump could be impeached, removed from office, and still win re-election in 2020
- Over half of the House of Representatives support the impeachment inquiry against Trump - see all of them here
- Everything you need to know about Trump's impeachment process: what's happened, who the players are, and what comes next