Sen. Chris Murphy, whose name came up during Wednesday's public impeachment testimony, said he believes the evidence that was presented by U.S. diplomat Bill Taylor and State Department official George Kent was "devastating" to President Donald Trump.
"This additional evidence that was presented yesterday that, in fact, the president, of course, was personally directing this extortion scheme just heightens the need to have an impeachment process that eventually may lead to a trial in the U.S. Senate," the Connecticut Democrat told MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
"This is really about setting a precedent, and Republicans have to ask themselves, do they really want a Democratic president to be able to have a green light to use taxpayer dollars in order to try to dig up evidence that destroys Republicans in the future?" Murphy added.
Once it's telegraphed that it is permissible for a president to "use the massive powers of his or her office in order to try to win re-election or destroy people who don't agree with him or her, then I don't know how you correct for that and put it back together," Murphy said. "Republicans will rue the day that they normalize this behavior, in the way that they're doing now."
Murphy, along with Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., traveled to Ukraine in September, where they met with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Sept. 5, putting the Connecticut senator in the timeline leading up to the White House's decision to release aid funds to Ukraine.
Taylor, who hosted the meeting, testified Wednesday that the Ukraine president's first question was about the security aid funds that had been put on hold.
On Sept. 9, the intelligence community inspector general Michael Atkinson alerted Congress about the whistleblower's complaint about the July 25 call between Trump and Zelenskiy. The Ukraine president decided, meanwhile, to announce an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden during a Sept. 13 interview with CNN, as had reportedly been demanded, but the White House released the funds on Sept. 11, and Zelenskiy's interview was canceled.