WASHINGTON, D.C.—Today marked the opening of the public phase of the process to consider impeaching President Donald Trump, and at the Longworth House Office block, the public showed up. There were TV cameras lining either side of the security gates in the lobby, there was a bewigged drag queen comedian in a red minidress holding court around the corner, there was a stern-faced procession of people in black “Arrest Trump” T-shirts pacing the hall and reciting the constitutional text delineating impeachment.

And outside the jammed-full Ways and Means committee room where testimony before the House Intelligence Committee was heard, there were hundreds of people lined up, watching the livestream on their phones.

What they heard during more than five hours of the hearing, was William Taylor, the top-ranking Ukraine diplomat, and George Kent, the State Department’s top Ukraine official, testify to what they understood to be a scheme to condition both a White House meeting and hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid on launching politically motivated investigations to benefit Trump’s re-election campaign.

In the biggest new revelation of the day, Taylor testified, in a rich voice that recalled that of famed broadcaster Walter Cronkite, that one of his staff members overheard a cellphone conversation between America’s EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland and Trump on the day after the famous call that launched the whistle-blower complaint. On the call, Taylor said, Trump directly asked about the progress of “the investigations,” and Sondland replied that the Ukrainians were “ready to move forward.”

“Following the call with President Trump, the member of my staff asked Ambassador Sondland what President Trump thought about Ukraine. Ambassador Sondland responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of (Joe) Biden, which (Trump lawyer Rudy) Giuliani was pressing for,” Taylor said.

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Kent, wearing a yellow bow-tie and matching pocket square, characterized the whole alleged pressure campaign on behalf of Trump as an “attempt to gin up politically-motivated investigations.”

Both men, and Taylor in particular, detailed their understandings that both the release of military aid and arranging a meeting with Trump for the Ukrainians was conditional on launching an investigation into Trump’s Democratic rival Biden and his son Hunter, and another investigation into a conspiracy theory that Ukraine had interfered with the 2016 election to help Hillary Clinton.

Taylor, a decorated combat veteran who served in the infantry during Vietnam, explained that Ukrainians were dying in battle with Russian attackers while awaiting the military aid. “To withhold that assistance for no good reason other than help with a political campaign made no sense,” Taylor said. “It was counterproductive to all of what we had been trying to do.”

Both men testified that in their respective decades of service in international diplomacy in the U.S. government, such a request by an American president was unprecedented, and was in their opinions improper.

The bulk of Taylor and Kent’s testimony was to repeat and confirm what they had told the committee in closed depositions earlier. The question is whether having the general public hear it directly from the men themselves will have any effect on polarized public opinion.

Those watching in the room and in the hallway were joined by millions more across the country as the hearing was broadcast live on all the major television networks. As an AP report detailed, Americans watched from the seats of tractors in South Dakota, bar stools in Florida and homes in Colorado and every other state in the nation.

It seemed clear from the statements and questions of the members of congress during the hearing that the information being revealed was unlikely to change opinions in the room. The polarization evident in the very-nearly party-line vote to authorize the hearings was evident throughout the day, beginning with the opening statements.

Adam Schiff, the Democratic Party member who chairs the committee and is leading the hearing, began by saying it was a pivotal moment for a country deciding what behaviour it would tolerate from a president who was putting his own interests above his nation’s. Devin Nunes, the Republican Party ranking member on the committee, attacked the Democrats on the committee and the “immense damage” he said they were doing to the country through the impeachment process.

In their question time, Democrats often focused on asking questions to elicit more information about the two witnesses’ knowledge of any pressure that was applied to Ukraine, while Republicans sometimes refrained altogether from questions in favour of offering arguments that the president did nothing wrong.

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In the latter case, it was obvious members were less intent on soliciting information from the witnesses than they were on making a case directly to the American public watching in the room and in the hall outside, one particular American who was likely watching from the White House , and even more so people watching across the country.

For while ultimately they and their colleagues in the House of Representatives will decide whether to bring impeachment charges, and the Senate will serve as a jury to weigh whether those charges merit removal from office, it is the opinions of Americans that both will be watching. Impeachment is a constitutional legal process, but one conducted by politicians for whom the judgment of the public is decisive.

Beginning with Taylor and Kent’s testimony today, and in a process that will continue for weeks, that public finally gets the chance to hear the evidence for themselves.

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