The White House has tweeted a video defending Donald Trump, just before the first public impeachment hearings into his attempt to coerce the Ukrainian government to dig up dirt on a political rival began.
The animated video posted to the White House’s Twitter account claims that Democrats are pursuing a biased attack on the president, and claims that the opposition wants a “media circus, not facts or fairness”.
In addition, the video implies that Democrats themselves are corrupt, but resistant to investigating their own members.
The House is conducting its first public impeachment hearings on Wednesday, with William Taylor — the top US diplomat to Ukraine — and George Kent — a senior State Department official — giving evidence side-by-side in Washington.
The public hearings come after closed-door impeachment hearings were held, in which Mr Taylor said that he was led to believe that the president would withhold US military aid to Ukraine if Volodymyr Zelensky did not publicly announce that his government was investigating Joe Biden and his family’s ties to a Ukrainian energy company.
Mr Kent has likewise testified that Mr Trump wanted Mr Zelensky to “go to microphone” and announce investigations.
The video posted by the White House claims that neither of these men were on the infamous July phone call in which the president pressured Mr Zelensky to open an investigation. But, House investigators have honed in on their testimony as it shows a coordinated effort behind the scenes to push for the investigation using American government aid as leverage to pursue political matters.
