Impeachment hearings: key witness to reject claim Ukraine meddled in US election – live

Fiona Hill, ex-senior director for Europe and Russia on the national security council, and David Holmes, a state department aide in Kyiv, to testifyIn this defining moment for America, support the Guardian’s independent journalism. Make a contribution 1.43pm GMT Hill will warn that Russia has “geared up to repeat their interference in the 2020 election” and asks the committee not to help them by confusing who it was that attacked the United States in 2016. But she will be competing with a very loud voice working to sow that confusion: Donald Trump. Witnesses have described an Ahab-like zeal on Trump’s part to uncover evidence of the Fox News- and Kremlin-promoted conspiracy theory that Ukraine worked to undermine him in 2016. “They tried to take me down,” he told diplomats in May. U.S. support for Ukraine—which continues to face armed Russian aggression—has been politicized. The Russian government’s goal is to weaken our country—to diminish America’s global role and to neutralize a perceived U.S. threat to Russian interests. President Putin and the Russian security services aim to counter U.S. foreign policy objectives in Europe, including in Ukraine, where Moscow wishes to reassert political and economic dominance. 1.27pm GMT Fiona Hill will seek to correct Republicans on the intelligence committee who have been saying for weeks that Ukraine colluded with Democrats to tamper the 2016 election, according to her opening statement just released – it is here.“This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves,” Hill plans to say.We are running out of time to stop them. In the course of this investigation, I would ask that you please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests.Based on questions and statements I have heard, some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country—and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did. This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves. The impact of the successful 2016 Russian campaign remains evident today. Our nation is being torn apart. Truth is questioned. Our highly professional and expert career foreign service is being undermined. Fiona Hill is going to be dismissed by House Republicans as a Never Putiner https://t.co/GIvnXdR8g8 Continue reading…
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