Our live coverage of the impeachment probe has ended for the day. Read below for the latest news.
House investigators, bracing for more witnesses to defy their demands at the behest of the White House, are now signaling they are prepared to begin the next phase of their impeachment inquiry even if their subpoenas are ignored across the board.
Democrats have lined up an ambitious schedule next week and are eager to secure the testimony of former national security adviser John Bolton, who was concerned about the push for Ukraine to investigate President Trump’s political rivals at a time when vital aid to the country had been held up by the White House, according to sworn testimony from key witnesses.
But the testimony of Bolton and at least 10 other key witnesses is far from assured, forcing Democrats to make a decision: Fight to secure testimony that could add more evidence to their case and will take time to play out, or urgently take the matter to the public as they begin their historic pursuit to potentially make Trump just the third President in history to get impeached.
A number of House Democrats told CNN that it’s time for that next step, saying they’ve already built enough evidence to advance the proceedings to the public stage.
When President Trump declared in September he hoped the world would read his phone call with Ukraine’s President, some of his advisers cringed. The transcript, they believed, would not provide the instant vindication Trump hoped.
One month, more than a dozen witnesses and a formal vote on impeachment proceedings later, the move is still a sore spot. Some aides wonder why the transcript was released at all. And the document’s rollout has been viewed in some corners as a disaster.
But if the resentments are still percolating, the precedent was set. As the impeachment crisis enters a new phase, Trump has established himself as the sole architect of his defense. Instead of working to craft a coherent strategy, officials are now aiming simply to adapt to the President’s lead.
Putting the impeachment inquiry in perspective: A year away from his election reckoning, Trump this week became the fourth US president subjected to formal House impeachment investigation opened by vote. A string of witnesses, some still working at the White House, have come forward to the investigative committees to detail what they describe as concerning behavior toward Ukraine.
At the White House and Trump campaign headquarters, the impeachment developments have become all-consuming. A half-hearted attempt to wall off the matter inside the West Wing has largely been abandoned. Policy items the President once hoped to complete this fall, such as drug price reforms and some type of gun control action, have been put aside.
Some of Trump’s allies, including Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, have encouraged him to leave the impeachment matter to lawyers and communications specialists. Instead of trying to ignore the matter, however, aides say they are following the lead of the President, who has railed against impeachment at nearly every public appearance since September and tweets about it every day.
It is completely unclear which, if any, of the following witnesses will show up for their depositions in the impeachment inquiry. The most obvious questions would go to John Eisenberg, the National Security Council attorney who heard Vindman’s concerns and then placed the call transcript in a more secure location.
Here’s the full lineup as of now the Democrats are summoning next week.
Witnesses expected to testify in closed session on Monday:
Witnesses expected to testify on Tuesday:
Witnesses expected to testify Wednesday, an official working on the inquiry tells CNN’s Manu Raju:
Witnesses scheduled to testify on Thursday:
Energy Secretary Rick Perry will not participate in a closed-door deposition with impeachment investigators but would consider testifying in an open hearing, according to the Department of Energy.
But, Hynes added, “If the committee is interested in conducting a serious proceeding they are welcome to send for the Secretary’s consideration an invitation to participate in an open hearing where the Department’s counsel can be present and the American people can witness.”
Perry had been asked to appear before the three committees conducting the impeachment inquiry on Wednesday.
Perry and the impeachment inquiry: Perry, who plans to leave his post at year’s end, had been under scrutiny over his role in the Trump administration’s dealings with Ukraine.
A whistleblower complaint, which prompted the House impeachment inquiry, alleged that President Trump abused his official powers “to solicit interference” from Ukraine in the upcoming 2020 election, and that the White House took steps to cover it up. Trump has denied doing anything improper.
A White House-released rough transcript of a July 25 call showed that Trump had asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, who had been on a board of a Ukrainian natural gas company.
Trump told House Republicans in early October that Perry had urged him to make the July call to Zelensky to discuss a liquefied natural gas project, The Washington Post reported.
Here are the latest developments in the impeachment inquiry into President Trump:
