The House of Representatives Intelligence Committee is holding its last public hearing this week as part of hearings of public testimony in the investigation into President Trump's removal, or what is known as Ukraine Gate.

David Holmes, a political adviser at the US Embassy in Ukraine, and Fiona Hill, former director for Europe and Russia at the National Security Council, testified before the committee.

David Holmes said he realized months ago that Trump's special lawyer Rudy Giuliani was playing a "direct role in our diplomacy toward Ukraine," and that political considerations promoted by Rudy Giuliani overshadowed US policy priorities toward Ukraine.

He said he had made sure that the Ukrainian president was asked by the Trump administration to televised an investigation into Biden and his son, and that Trump had stipulated that he should meet with the Ukrainian president at the White House to open an inquiry on Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential candidate.

He said he had heard Trump ask US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sundland over the phone whether Ukrainian officials would conduct investigations, and that Ambassador Sundland had told Trump that the Ukrainian president would do anything Trump wanted.

Snowland was quoted as asserting that President Trump was more interested in the investigation into Biden and his son than in Ukraine.

A fantasy
In testimony before the White House, the former director of Europe and Russia at the National Security Council, Fiona Hill, said what some are saying is that Ukraine intervened in the US elections in 2016 and not Russia is just a fantasy.

Hill said Russia was working to "weaken and interfere in our elections while Ukraine remains a strategic ally to undermine the legitimacy of the US presidency," stressing the need to be wary of Russian plans "to interfere in our upcoming elections."

Witch hunt
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday called for an end to congressional hearings as part of an investigation to isolate him, cynically calling them "witch hunt and offending the country."

This coincided with the acknowledgment by US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sundland during his testimony in the House that Trump ordered him to work with his lawyer Rudy Giuliani on the issue of Ukraine, and that the latter wanted to urge Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinski to investigate Trump's political rivals.

Trump said on Twitter as he flew to Texas on the presidential plane that Sundeland, on the contrary, had acquitted him, and demanded an immediate end to the investigation to isolate him. "The campaign of chasing the isolation is over now," he said.

Speaking to reporters earlier at the White House, Trump repeated sections of Sundeland's testimony to confirm his opinion. "What do you want from Ukraine?" Sundown said. "My answer was this: I don't want anything, tell Zielinski to do the right thing." "I think it means it's over," he said. Trump also sought to distance himself from Sundeland and said, "I don't know him well."

A State Department spokeswoman said Ambassador Sundland had never told Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that President Trump had linked aid to Ukraine to her investigation with Joe Biden's son.