Open impeachment hearings announced by House Democrats

WASHINGTON, D.C. (NBC) – The first public hearings will be next week in the impeachment inquiry of President Trump.

House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff announced Wednesday morning the first hearing will be Wednesday, November 13thm starting with career diplomat William Taylor and State Department official George Kent.

Then on Friday, November 15^th, ousted ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, will appear before the committee.

Schiff said, “So those open hearings will be an opportunity for the American people to evaluate the witnesses for themselves, make their own determination about the credibility of the witnesses, but also to learn first-hand about the facts of the president’s misconduct.”

These are the first public hearings since the House passed a resolution outlining procedures for the impeachment inquiry.

Schiff says he expects the hearings to reveal a lot of information. He explained, “These will be the first of the open hearings and I think you will see throughout the course of the testimony, not only their testimony but many others, the most important facts are largely not contested. We are getting an increasing appreciation for just what took place during the course of the last year and the degree to which the president enlisted whole departments of government in the illicit aim of trying to get Ukraine to dig up dirt on a political opponent as well as further conspiracy theory about the 2016 election that he believed would be.”