On Wednesday, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee kicked off public impeachment proceedings into President Donald Trump by calling two main witnesses, State Department career diplomats William Taylor Jr. and George Kent.
"What [Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff] is doing is like a prosecutor in a murder trial leading with two witnesses who didn't witness the crime and who have no knowledge of the victim or the accused," said former New York Lieutenant Governor and New York Post columnist Betsy McCaughey on Fox Nation's "Deep Dive."
"They got a fourth-hand rumor that the defendant was guilty," she said and asked incredulously, "That's evidence to remove somebody from office?"
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio., illustrated McCaughney's observation in pointed questioning of acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor on Wednesday.
Jordan focused on Taylor's claim, stated in a deposition and repeated in testimony on Wednesday, that he came to have a "clear understanding" that U.S. security assistance money for Ukraine was being withheld until the president of Ukraine committed to pursuing an investigation into former vice president Joe Biden and his son.
"What I wonder is where do you get this clear understanding?" Jordan asked the ambassador.
Taylor indicated that he was informed by a conversation with U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, which is detailed in Sondland's written testimony to Congress.
Jordan read out loud from Sondland's amended testimony, which states, "Ambassador Taylor recalls that Mr. Morrison told Ambassador Taylor that I told Mr. Morrison that I had conveyed this message to Mr. Yermak on September 1, 2019, in connection with Vice President Pence’s visit to Warsaw and a meeting with President Zelensky."
“We got six people having four conversations in one sentence, and you just told me this is where you got your clear understanding?” Jordan asked.
"And you're their star witness?" he asked Taylor rhetorically.
McCaughey said: "Here's what people watching on television need to know. These witnesses never talked with Donald Trump about the issue of withholding aid to the Ukraine.
"They have no... first-hand knowledge of that issue. And so their testimony today is based on fourth or fifth-hand information... that they get garnered mostly through a game of telephone on September 7th, when Ambassador Sondland called Tim Morrison from the National Security Council, who then called Ambassador Taylor, who then called George Kent to relay what they thought Sondland had said.
"What's so troubling is that the American people, many of whom obviously don't have time to watch this impeachment hearing, have read in The New York Times, in Politico and heard on CNN that these two witnesses today, Kent and Taylor, have what they call 'overwhelming evidence' of president wrongdoing when in fact, they have none," she concluded.
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