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		</div><p>Impeachment investigators met in private on Saturday with a White House budget official, as the historic inquiry produced new testimony offering direct insight of President Donald Trump’s actions towards Ukraine.</p>
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<p>After a week of dramatic public hearings, investigators heard late on Friday in a closed session from State Department official David Holmes, who delivered a firsthand account that puts the president at the forefront of events.</p>
<p>Mr Holmes, the political counsel at the US Embassy in Kiev, said he overheard Mr Trump in a phone call with his European Union ambassador, Gordon Sondland, saying he wanted Ukraine to conduct investigations.</p>
<p>Mr Sondland later explained the investigations pertained to “Bidens” – a reference to former vice-president Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who served on the board of a gas company in Ukraine. No wrongdoing by either Biden has been substantiated.</p>
<figure id="attachment_144366" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-144366" style="width: 600px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-full wp-image-144366" src="https://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/94277146-09E7-40B2-9D0D-B1025C908C14.jpeg" alt="" width="600" height="411" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-144366" class="wp-caption-text">David Holmes was political counsel at the US Embassy in Ukraine</figcaption></figure>
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<p>It was one of the first direct accounts of Mr Trump seeking investigations of a political rival and provides Democrats with a counter-argument to Republicans, who dismiss the testimony so far as largely hearsay from diplomats and others with, at best, secondhand knowledge of events.</p>
<p>Sharpening the arguments, both sides are preparing for an intense line-up of public hearings in the coming week.</p>
<p>House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the president’s actions amount to “bribery”.</p>
<p>In an interview to air on US network CBS on Sunday, Ms Pelosi says Mr Trump “made a mistake” by live-tweeting his criticism of Marie Yovanovitch, the US ambassador to Ukraine he dismissed, during her public testimony on Friday. Democrats said that amounted to witness intimidation.</p>
<p>Ms Pelosi acknowledged that presidents are able to nominate and dismiss ambassadors.</p>
<p>But she said Mr Trump “should not frivolously throw out insults, but that’s what he does”.</p>
<p>She added: “I think part of it is his own insecurity as an impostor. I think he knows full well that he’s in that office way over his head.”</p>
<figure id="attachment_144365" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-144365" style="width: 600px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-full wp-image-144365" src="https://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/1EC52D02-4DFD-49C7-B619-813436E48B3D.jpeg" alt="" width="600" height="411" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-144365" class="wp-caption-text">Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi condemned Donald Trump for ‘throwing out insults’</figcaption></figure>
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<p>In a speech on Friday night, Attorney General William Barr said congressional Democrats were pursuing “scores of parallel investigations through an avalanche of subpoenas” that are “designed to incapacitate the executive branch”.</p>
<p>Mr Barr, who favours an expansive view of executive power, said “the cost of this constant harassment is real”.</p>
<p>The latest witness on Saturday was Mark Sandy, a White House budget officer, as Democrats scrutinise the administration’s decision to withhold military aid from Ukraine while Mr Trump pushed the country’s new president for the political investigations.</p>
<p>Mr Sandy was the first official from the Office of Management and Budget to defy Mr Trump’s instructions not to testify. Like others, he received a subpoena to appear.</p>
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<p>Questions over that trade-off – military aid and a coveted White House visit for Ukraine’s president in exchange for the investigations – are central to the impeachment inquiry.</p>
<p>Mr Trump insists he did nothing wrong.</p>
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