Impeachment witnesses say foreign research on opponents not ‘appropriate’

Both witnesses in Thursday’s impeachment hearings testified that it’s not “appropriate” for political parties to pay foreign operatives to investigate their opponents.

The statements came as the House Intelligence Committee’s ranking Republican, California Rep. Devin Nunes, grilled Fiona Hill and David Holmes on their knowledge of research by Democrats into then-candidate Donald Trump in 2016, including the compilation of the Steele Dossier.

Holmes and Hill were asked by Nunes if they think “it’s appropriate for political parties to run operatives in foreign countries to dig up dirt on their opponents?

“No,” responded Holmes, before Hill added, “I do not.”

Hill, the former director for European and Russian affairs on the White House National Security Council, testified under questioning from Nunes that a colleague at Washington’s Brookings Institution think-tank showed her the Steele Dossier one day before it was published by Buzzfeed in 2017.

The Steele Dossier — named for its compiler, former British spy and Hill acquaintance Christopher Steele — was commissioned by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign to examine Trump’s ties to Russia.

Holmes, meanwhile, was quizzed about a separate “black ledger” that Trump’s circle purports was doctored by Ukraine to frame former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort as being on the take from Eastern European interests.

Holmes, a US political affairs counselor in Ukraine, on Thursday testified that the ledger is “credible.”