The US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee could kick off hearings as early as next week in its impeachment inquiry into US President Donald Trump, media reported Friday, Trend reports citing Sputnik.
"We will move as expeditiously as possible [...] But we have to see what witnesses are going to make themselves available and what witnesses are going to require compulsion", House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said, cited by CNN.
Earlier in the day, Trump called on Schiff to resign and face an investigation over what he called a fictitious account of his phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
During a House hearing on Thursday, Schiff provided his own interpretation of the 25 July Trump-Zelensky telephone conversation. The lawmaker later said his reading of the transcript was intended to be partly a "parody".
On Tuesday, the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives launched its long-awaited impeachment inquiry over allegations that Trump, in an attempt to boost his 2020 re-election bid, pressed Zelensky to probe business activities of former Vice President Joe Biden’s's son in Ukraine in the July phone talk. House Dems also allege that Trump threatened to withhold military aid to Ukraine unless Zelensky did him the favor.
On Wednesday, the White House declassified an unredacted transcript of the phone conversation.
The transcript revealed that the US president did ask Zelensky to work with his personal lawyer and the US attorney general to "look into" the case of Joe Biden, who "went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution" into his son’s possible corruption in Ukraine.