Fiona Hill, a former special assistant to the president to President Donald Trump on European and Russian affairs, has arrived on Capitol Hill to testify before Congress, where she is expected to detail a “shadow foreign policy” pursued by the president and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, as well as U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland.
According to NBC News, Hill is set to testify that Sondland and Giuliani went around the National Security Council and official White House protocol to speak directly with Trump about Ukraine.
Hill’s attorney, Lee Wolosky, confirmed Monday morning that his client had received a subpoena and intended to answer questioning from members beginning at 10 a.m. She is the first former White House official to agree to cooperate with the House’s impeachment inquiry.
The former White House official will also reportedly testify that she strenuously objected to the removal of former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, but that her input was disregarded, according to The New York Times.
Hill entered the secured meeting room in the Capitol basement at roughly 9 a.m., an hour before the deposition was scheduled to begin. She declined reporters requests for comment heading in.
Republican leaders were more talkative. Reps. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), Scott Perry (R-Pa.), and Jim Jordan (Ohio), senior Republican on the House Oversight and Reform Committee, spoke with reporters on their way into the room, accusing Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) of conducting an underhanded process by releasing only selected portions of the some of the previous witness testimony.
Trump and his Republican allies are demanding a vote on the House floor to launch an impeachment inquiry formally and complained that they’re denied certain powers, such as the right to call witnesses themselves.
The July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is at the heart of a whistleblower complaint that prompted the House to announce an impeachment inquiry into Trump.
