President Trump’s schedule will be clear when the first public hearing in the House impeachment inquiry commences on Wednesday morning.
Trump has no events on his schedule until noon, when he will welcome Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, according to White House guidance issued Tuesday evening.{mosads}
The White House guidance does not always include everything on the president’s schedule, but it is an indication that Trump will likely have free time to monitor the impeachment proceedings on television, which means he could react in real time.
The House Intelligence Committee will gavel in its hearing at 10 a.m., when lawmakers will hear opening statements and testimony from diplomat William Taylor and State Department official George Kent.
Both Taylor and Kent raised concerns in closed-door testimony last month that Trump and his associates were inappropriately pressuring the Ukrainian government in order to secure a commitment to investigate the president’s political opponents.
Trump, who often uses unrelated events to rail against impeachment, could weigh in on the hearings from the White House.
Reporters will be allowed to observe and potentially ask questions when Trump and Erdogan meet in the Oval Office in the early afternoon, and the two leaders are scheduled to hold a joint press conference at 3 p.m.
The president has lashed out with regularity against the House impeachment inquiry, likening to a “hoax” and a “lynching.” He has deployed a dizzying array of arguments to try and discredit witnesses, claiming that he does not know them, that they are “Never Trumpers” and that there should be no public hearings.
Trump has also teased the release this week of a rough transcript of an April call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. White House aides believe that document will be more favorable to Trump than the memo depicting his July 25 call with Zelensky, which sparked the formal impeachment inquiry.