Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) defended Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs George Kent and Ambassador William Taylor for not having firsthand accounts on President Trump's phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.
"I guess to close, primer on hearsay, I think the American public needs to be reminded that countless people have been convicted on hearsay because the courts have routinely allowed and created, needed exceptions to hearsay," Quigley said on Wednesday.
"Hearsay can be much better evidence than direct, as we have learned in painful instances and it's certainly valid in this instance," he added.
When asked about the quid pro quo accusation that the whistleblower filed a complaint on by Daniel Goldman, the lead counsel for House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA), Taylor said, "What I can do here for you today is tell you what I heard from people. In this case, it was what I heard from Ambassador [Gordon] Sondland. He described conditions for the security assistance and the White House meeting in those terms. That is — they were dependent upon, conditioned upon pursuing these investigations."
Both Kent and Taylor reaffirmed during their testimony that they were not on the July 25 phone call and only heard the accusations of Trump leveraging military aid for Ukraine in exchange for an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and Hunter Biden from other people.
When Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) questioned Taylor, he made note how he got his "clear understanding" from "six people having four conversations in one sentence" as part of an addendum that U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland added to his testimony.