The key interrogators in the Trump impeachment inquiry

Televised public hearings in the House impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump start Wednesday.

The live proceedings, which could easily draw tens of millions of viewers, come approximately six weeks after the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, announced the investigation into Trump’s dealings with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

In the closed-door testimony that followed, witnesses testified in front of several committees about Trump’s alleged attempts to strong-arm Ukraine into interfering with the 2020 presidential race by investigating his main political rival, Joe Biden.

Now some of those witnesses will present their testimony publicly and face grilling by both Democratic politicians seeking to prove Trump plotted a “quid pro quo” and Republicans aiming to thwart and delegitimize the enquiry.

Below is a guide to key House intelligence committee members and the two lawyers – one Democrat and one Republican – who will interrogate the witnesses.

Democrats

Daniel Goldman

A former federal prosecutor, Goldman is the committee attorney who will lead impeachment inquiry questioning for the Democrats. Goldman, who has already conducted questioning for Democrats in the inquiry, previously worked for the US attorney’s office for the southern district of New York – the same office which prosecuted Michael Cohen, and that’s now pursuing a case against associates of Trump’s present lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, as well as investigating Giuliani himself.

During Goldman’s decade at the southern district of New York, he supervised cases against Russian organized crime; his background also includes racketeering and securities fraud.

Adam Schiff

A California Democrat, Schiff chairs the House intelligence committee – meaning he’s leading this phase of the impeachment inquiry against Trump.

When Schiff announced that public testimony would be held, he said, “Those open hearings will be an opportunity for the American people to evaluate the witnesses for themselves, to make their own determinations about the credibility of the witnesses, but also to learn firsthand about the facts of the president’s misconduct.”

Not surprisingly, Schiff has repeatedly been the target of attacks from Trump and his allies. The president routinely refers to the longtime legislator as “Shifty Schiff,” often accussing him of wrongdoing though no such evidence exists.

Eric Swalwell

Swalwell, also a Democrat from California, has been a major player in the inquiry and on Sunday, set out the party’s position on the claims against Trump.

“We have evidence of an extortion scheme using taxpayer dollars to ask a foreign government to investigate the president’s opponent,” he said on CBS’s Face the Nation.

The former presidential hopeful, who called for impeachment in June, has also taken a firm stance on Trump’s work with Giuliani – namely, that he wouldn’t have acted without the president’s blessing. “Rudy Giuliani is Donald Trump and Donald Trump is Rudy Giuliani,” he recently said on ABC News’ Start Here podcast.

Jim Himes

The Connecticut Democrat, like his colleagues, has come out swinging against Trump. “The president of the United States demanding – extorting – a vulnerable country to do his political bidding, to go after his opponent, has nothing to do with Joe Biden executing the foreign policy of the United States,” Himes said during a Sunday appearance on Meet the Press.

He also urged against using the phrase quid pro quo to describe Trump’s actions, saying, “When are you trying to persuade the American people of something really pretty simple, which is that the president acted criminally and extorted in the way a mob boss would extort somebody, a vulnerable foreign country… it is probably best not to use Latin words to explain it.”

Jackie Speier

The congresswoman, who also hails from California, was succinct in describing the Ukraine controversy during a television interview on Sunday. “This is a very simple, straightforward act: the president broke the law,” Speier said on ABC’s This Week. “He went on a telephone call with the president of Ukraine and said ‘I have a favor though’ and then proceeded to ask for an investigation of his rival. This is a very strong case of bribery.”

She also gone further on what crimes Trump may have committed: “The Constitution is very clear – treason, bribery or acts of omission… And in this case it’s clearly one of those.”

Speier has also pushed back against Republicans’ demands to identify the whistleblower, whose confidential complaint ultimately led to the impeachment inquiry.

REPUBLICANS

Steve Castor

Castor is set to lead questioning for Republicans. He has reportedly earned the admiration of Republicans for his aggressive questioning during witnesses’ prior appearances. His congressional resume includes investigations into steroid abuse in professional sports, but also high-profile inquiries of the Obama administration involving Benghazi and alleged IRS focus on conservative groups.

Jim Jordan

GOP leader Kevin McCarthy formally made the Ohio Republican a member of the intelligence committee on Friday. Commentators have suggested that Jordan – a dogged and aggressive Trump supporter – was moved to the committee in an attempt to mount a strong defense of the president.

However, procedural rules for these hearings probably won’t give Jordan much of an opportunity to talk. Under the House resolution that spelled out hearing rules, witnesses will be interviewed by Democrats and Republicans, with each group getting 45-minute sessions. But the rules also place an emphasis on the top minority member – in this case

Jordan’s appointment also comes in the wake of accusations that he ignored sexual misconduct while working as an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University, per CNN.

Devin Nunes

The committee’s top Republican has been among the impeachment inquiry’s most vocal critics – comparing the proceedings to a “cult” during an appearance on Fox News and alluding to “DemSocialist/Media involvement in Ukraine” on Twitter.

Nunes has demanded that the whistleblower be called to testify “…because Trump should be afforded an opportunity to confront his accusers, the anonymous whistleblower should testify”, he said in a letter to Schiff.

He has also reportedly demanded that Schiff provide testimony behind closed doors. Despite the strong words, he ceded some of his questioning time to other Republican legislators during the closed-door proceedings and “also missed at least one session with an impeachment witness”, the Fresno Bee noted.

Will Hurd

The retiring Texas Congressman and former CIA employee has distanced himself from his colleagues’ attacks on the whistleblower. “I think we should be protecting the identity of the whistleblower; I’ve said that from the very beginning,” Hurd said on Fox News Sunday, “because how we treat this whistleblower will impact whistleblowers in the future.”

That doesn’t mean Hurd has abandoned GOP talking points, however. He wants Schiff to answer questions about his office’s communications with the whistleblower.

“He has misled the American public earlier in the year on what he knew about or the contact he had with the whistleblower, so if you want to protect the identity of the whistleblower, I think it’s important for Chairman Schiff to answer questions about his interactions,” Hurd has said.

John Ratcliffe

The Texas Republican is a Trump loyalist, so much so that he was once the president’s pick for national intelligence director.

Ratcliffe, who wound up withdrawing from consideration following questions about his qualifications, has recently railed against the “liberal media,” congressional Democrats and a “frame job” against Trump – and insisted there is no evidence of withheld aid to Ukraine.

He also wrote “smart guy” when sharing a tweet that used the phrase “Democrats’ ‘whistleblower hoax’”. One of Ratcliffe’s key defenses of Trump is that, in his view, the Ukranians didn’t know whether aid was withheld.