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Trump accused of bribery as impeachment inquiry gathers steam

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The impeachment inquiry against United States President, Donald Trump, for abusing the power of the presidency is gathering steam even as the House of Representatives Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has dismissed the President’s denials of wrongdoing.

Pelosi accused Trump of an impeachable offence under the US Constitution and said he (Trump) has already admitted to bribery in the Ukraine scandal at the heart of a Democratic-led inquiry,

“The bribe is to grant or withhold military assistance in return for a public statement of a fake investigation into the elections. That’s bribery,” Pelosi, the top Democrat in Congress, told a news conference on Thursday, the day after the first public hearing in the impeachment inquiry she announced in September.

“What the president has admitted to and says it’s ‘perfect’, I say it’s perfectly wrong. It’s bribery,” Pelosi said.

The allegations by the House of Representatives Speaker comes a day after two top US diplomats in Ukraine, for the first time, publicly testified against Trump after weeks of close-door testimony.

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The public inquiry was launched against Trump by Democrats for abusing the power of the presidency by withholding political support and US security assistance from Ukraine until President Volodymyr Zelenskyy agreed to announce investigations involving Trump’s political opponents.

The two witnesses identified as William Taylor and Deputy Assistant Secretary George Kent testified before the US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee in an inquiry that threatens Trump’s presidency even as he seeks re-election in 2020.

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