Summary
Senior Democratic and Republican lawmakers presented dueling narratives Wednesday as a U.S. congressional impeachment inquiry that threatens Donald Trump's tumultuous presidency entered a crucial new phase with the first public hearing.
Schiff's accusations that Trump abused his power was met by a staunch denial by the panel's senior Republican, Devin Nunes, of the Republican president's complicity in a saga that revolves around whether Trump and his aides improperly pressured Ukraine to dig up dirt on a political rival for his political benefit.
The focus of the inquiry is on a July 25 telephone call in which Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to open a corruption investigation into Biden and his son Hunter Biden and into a discredited theory that Ukraine, not Russia, meddled in the 2016 U.S. election.
Democrats are looking into whether Trump abused his power by withholding $391 million in security aid to Ukraine -- a vulnerable U.S. ally facing Russian aggression -- as leverage to pressure Kyiv into conducting investigations politically beneficial to Trump.
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