Sorry I’m so far behind in getting these recaps out! Suddenly, there’s twice as much political news write about and twice as much drama. I’m almost caught up though.

In the interest of keeping track of events, here’s another helpful timeline of events surrounding Ukraine, this one starting with January of this year.

And here’s what happened on the impeachment front for the week ending November 10…

General Happenings:

1. High-level Ukraine officials warned Zelensky to avoid the appearance of taking sides in U.S. politics, but still debated whether it was in Ukraine’s best interest to comply with Trump’s demands. This is documented in a series of WhatsApp threads.

• • Zelensky knew how important that military aid was. So in the end, he scheduled an interview on CNN with Fareed Zakaria for September 13 to make Trump’s requested announcement about the investigations.
  • However, word about the whistleblower report began leaking and Trump released the military aid under public pressure on September 11.
  • Since the point was now moot, Zelensky canceled the interview.
  • If not for the whistleblower, the extortion of investigations for military aid would’ve worked and we would never have heard a thing about it. We would’ve been left with the impression that Ukraine thought Joe Biden did something corrupt, though.
  • This is the textbook definition of getting caught in the middle of committing a crime, which is still a crime, in case you were wondering.

2. House Democrats list these areas of focus for impeachment:

• • Whether Trump asked a foreign leader to open investigations to benefit himself, personally or politically
  • Whether he used the power of the Office of the President to pressure Ukraine
  • Whether the Trump administration tried to hide information from Congress about Trump’s actions.

3. Two U.S. Senators told Zelensky that only Trump could release the aid.
4. Four White House officials defy their subpoenas to testify before the impeachment panel: White House Counsel John Eisenberg, Robert Blair (a senior adviser Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney), Office of Management and Budget official Brian McCormack, and White House lawyer Michael Ellis.

• • Eisenberg says he didn’t have enough time to prepare (over the weekend) and Trump told him not to cooperate.
  • Eisenberg is also the guy who decided to move the call summary to the classified N.I.C.E. server. After the call, he also told Alexander Vindman not to discuss the call with anyone outside the White House.
  • Others who fail to appear include Energy Secretary Rick Perry, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought, and State Department counselor T. Ulrich Brechbuhl.

5. Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) says open hearings will begin next week.
6. GOP leaders claim that Democrats are releasing the transcripts selectively. All the major transcripts are released in full this week.
7. Charles Kupperman’s lawsuit asking a judge to decide whether executive privilege takes priority over a congressional subpoena isn’t set to be heard until the second week of December. This will delay some testimonies, including John Bolton’s.

• • But then, House Democrats withdraw their subpoena for Kupperman’s testimony and ask the judge to dismiss Kupperman’s lawsuit over it. They say it’s to avoid delays in the impeachment hearings. Don McGahn’s case is similar and should wrap up sooner, setting an earlier precedent.

8. Without even having heard or read all the evidence (if he’s read any at all), Mitch McConnell says the Senate would acquit Trump if the impeachment hearing were held today. He also points out that a delayed trial will keep the Senators who are running for president off the campaign trail.

• • If it comes to it, the Senate will likely model the trial after Clinton’s.
  • Senator Lindsey Graham refuses to read any of the transcripts, saying he’s ”written the whole [impeachment] process off” as “a bunch of B.S.” I say that’s just lazy.

9. Earl Matthews, a senior NSC advisor who attended key Ukraine meetings and traveled to Ukraine with John Bolton, resigns. He hasn’t been tapped for testimony in the impeachment probe that we know of.
10. Trump says he doesn’t know much about Yovanovitch, but he says Zelensky isn’t a fan of hers either.
11. A note here on what Zelensky might or might not think. It’s very apparent from the transcript of the phone call that Zelensky knows what he needs to say. And that included supporting what Trump thinks is true and not ever negating what Trump says. So it’s hard to know just what Zelensky thought of Yovanovitch.
12. The GOP has provided evolving excuses for people refusing to testify:

• • First, they argued that since there wasn’t a House vote, the proceedings weren’t official, so people didn’t have to testify.
  • After the House voted on impeachment hearings, the GOP argued that senior officials have absolute immunity.
  • But when lower-level staffers were subpoenaed, the GOP argued that they must have their own agency’s lawyers present (which is a violation of House rules, which are the same rules the Benghazi hearings were held under).

13. Trump concurs with Republican leaders that written answers from the whistleblower aren’t sufficient and that they must testify in person. If you remember, Trump refused to answer questions in person to Robert Mueller and instead submitted his answers in writing.
14. The impeachment panel requests an interview with Mick Mulvaney, but we know he won’t show.
15. The whistleblower’s lawyer sends a cease and desist letter to the White House to get Trump to stop trying to out the identity of the whistleblower. He says Trump’s rhetoric is putting the whistleblower and their family in physical danger.
16. House Republicans intend to subpoena the whistleblower, but it’s not likely Democrats will allow it over concerns for the whistleblower’s safety.
17. Trump asks Attorney General William Barr to publicly say that Trump didn’t do anything wrong and absolve him of any guilt. Barr declines.
18. One of the whistleblower’s lawyers does seem to be a never Trumper. Mark Zaid’s tweets from 2016 and early 2017 resurface where he says that a coup against Trump has started and that impeachment will follow. He also tweeted, “we will get rid of Trump.”

• • Zaid also wrote an article in 2018, though, defending Trump from charges that his actions were treasonous.
  • This isn’t relevant. As far as we know, neither the whistleblower nor any of the witnesses who have since come forward have previous relationships with Zaid that we know of.

19. CIA Director Gina Haspel has so far refused to guarantee that she’ll protect the whistleblower (who, from most accounts, works in her agency).
20. The transcripts released this week show that during the time Republican House Members were complaining that they couldn’t get into the impeachment depositions, very few of them were attending the depositions they were allowed to attend. They went so far as to storm the SCIF to protest that they couldn’t be there, but they weren’t taking advantage of their ability to attend.
21. Bolton’s lawyer says that Bolton is aware of many relevant meetings and conversations related to withholding aid from Ukraine and that House investigators don’t know about those conversations yet.
22. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) opens an investigation into whether withholding military aid to Ukraine violates appropriation laws. It’s possible that the administration’s failure to notify Congress was a violation of the legal notification requirements.
23. Republicans temporarily switch in Ohio Representative Jim Jordan to the House Intelligence Committee so he can participate in the impeachment hearings.

Republican’s Witness List:

Here’s the list of people House Republicans want to testify at the impeachment hearings. Democrats are reviewing the list, but have said they’ll likely not allow Hunter Biden or the whistleblower to testify (for the whistleblower’s protection). One of the rules for witnesses is that they must be able to speak to the three areas of impeachment outlined in the previous section.

• Hunter Biden, former board member of Burisma Holdings
• Devon Archer, former board member of Burisma Holdings
• Alexandra Chalupa, former Democratic National Committee staffer
• David Hale, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs
• Tim Morrison, former senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council
• Nellie Ohr, former contractor for opposition research firm Fusion GPS
• Kurt Volker, former U.S. envoy to Ukraine
• The anonymous whistleblower
• “All individuals” the whistleblower relied on to draft the complaint

More Trouble for Parnas, Fruman, and Giuliani:

1. Lev Parnas is playing ball and wants to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry.
2. Parnas says he delivered a message to the newly elected Zelensky back in May that Zelensky had to announce investigations into the Bidens or Mike Pence wouldn’t come to his inauguration and the U.S. would freeze aid. This contradicts the accounts from both Trump and Ukrainian officials, though no one disputes Parnas met with Zelensky’s officials.
3. Parnas and Fruman pushed former Ukraine President Poroshenko to make the same announcement back in February about investigations into Burisma, the Bidens, and the 2016 election. This would be in exchange for a state visit.

David Hale Deposition:

1. David Hale, undersecretary of state for political affairs, is the only witness to appear by Wednesday out of the several subpoenaed. We have yet to see any of his testimony, but he’s expected to say that Pompeo hesitated to support Marie Yovanovitch because he was worried it would delay military aid to Ukraine further.
2. Hale tried to distance himself from this whole thing by removing himself from email threads concerning Yovanovitch.

Jennifer Williams Deposition:

1. Jennifer Williams is a national security aide to Mike Pence; she’s an advisor to the vice president on Europe and Russia.
2. Williams is the third person who listened in on the call between Trump and Zelensky to testify.
3. Williams testifies despite the White House trying to prevent it.
4. There isn’t much information on her testimony, but we can assume it’ll be released as part of the open House hearings.

Transcripts Released:

1. The House releases redacted transcripts of the testimony from eight witnesses who testified in closed-door hearings.

• • Caveat: I haven’t read every page — there are thousands to go through. I also tried not to include any information I’ve reported previously, which came from their opening statements; but this was a lot of information to sift through.
  • One thing that’s hard to ascertain is what the Republican strategy is in their lines of questioning, which often seem meandering or irrelevant. They do complain a lot about the process.

Marie Yovanovitch:

1. Yovanovitch thought Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman wanted her removed from her post because they were seeking to do business in Ukraine.
2. Representative Mark Meadows (R-NC) opened a line of questioning that seemed to be aimed at highlighting her Ukrainian background, including questioning her about where her nickname, Masha. Except Yovanovitch is Russia, not Ukrainian, and Masha is a Russian nickname.
3. Yovanovitch felt threatened after reading Trump’s transcript, where he told Zelensky that she is “going to go through some things.”
4. The smear campaign against her included Donald Trump Jr., who tweeted about her in March.
5. She documented her concerns to the Undersecretary for Political Affairs. When she asked why there was no followup, she was told, “there was caution about any kind of a statement because it could be undermined… by the president.”
6. She was told that Mike Pompeo or someone in State would reach out to Sean Hannity to find out where the smears against her were coming from.
7. Sondland told her she needed to tweet support for the president in order to save her job.
8. Her testimony indicates that the State Department isn’t serving at the pleasure of the president; they’re serving in fear of the president.
9. Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan told her she hadn’t done anything wrong after she was recalled from Ukraine.

Kurt Volker:

1. Volker vouched for Joe Biden’s integrity and said he didn’t find it credible that Biden would be influenced in his duties as Vice President by anything like money or benefits for his son, Hunter.
2. He said that Giuliani and Trump were pushing debunked theories that were just not credible.
3. He said he didn’t think Giuliani was interested in possible money laundering or criminal activity by Burisma; Giuliani was interested in the Bidens.
4. Volker pushed Giuliani to stop believing former Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko.
5. Volker says the quid pro quo was never communicated to him.

Gordon Sondland:

1. Sondland verified there was a quid pro quo and that there’s no other credible explanation. But he doesn’t connect it to Trump.
2. He said that he told a top Ukrainian official that “resumption of U.S. aid would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the public anti-corruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks.”
3. He suggested that the kind of quid pro quo being discussed here is definitely bad and probably illegal.
4. He claimed he didn’t know Burisma was related to the Bidens at all. Giuliani had been linking the two together since mid-May, so either he wasn’t speaking with Giuliani (which we know he was) or he’s misstating the facts here.
5. But this week, Sondland revises his previous testimony to the House impeachment panel. He says now that he’s been reminded, he does remember that he knew U.S. military aid to Ukraine was contingent upon a public pledge to open the investigations Trump wanted and that, yes, there was a quid pro quo linking the aid and the investigations.

• • Sondland says he told Ukraine official Andriy Yermak that Ukraine would not likely receive the needed aid until the investigations were publicly announced.
  • Sondland also talks about a September 1 meeting with Zelensky and Mike Pence, where Zelensky expressed his concern over the suspension of military aid.

William Taylor:

1. Bill Taylor says it was his “clear understanding” that Trump’s withholding of Ukraine aid was conditioned on the Ukrainian president announcing investigations into Trump’s rivals, including Joe Biden.
2. Gordon Sondland told him that Trump was “adamant” that Zelensky publicly announce the investigations into the Bidens and the 2016 U.S. election meddling.
3. BTW, Taylor is a Vietnam War vet, and he has served in every administration since 1985.
4. Taylor was skeptical of accepting the job offered by Pompeo because he was worried that Giuliani would undermine relations between our countries.
5. He first heard about the conditions on military aid to Ukraine from National Security Council official Tim Morrison.
6. His understanding is that Giuliani started the whole idea of getting Zelensky to say out loud that he was investigating Burisma and the 2016 elections.
7. Defense, State, CIA, and NSC officials wanted to meet with Trump, but they were too busy looking into the possibility of buying Greenland at Trump’s behest.
8. Taylor said that it was the “unanimous opinion of every level of inter-agency discussion” that the military aid be released to Ukraine, and high-level officials worked to convince Trump of that.

Mike McKinley:

1. McKinley says he asked Mike Pompeo three times to put out a statement in defense of Marie Yovanovitch. Pompeo claims he never heard McKinley say anything about it.
2. McKinley says Yovanovitch did excellent work in Ukraine.
3. He confirms that he left, in part, because of the State Department’s failure to support its ambassadors and because of the apparent use of overseas ambassadors to advance domestic political objectives.
4. McKinley spoke with Mike Pompeo about this after Trump’s call with Zelensky, but Pompeo never gave any indication that he was listening in that call.

Alexander Vindman:

1. Again, Vindman said that Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney orchestrated the plan to restrict aid to Ukraine on the condition that Zelensky publicly announce investigations into the Bidens.
2. He learned this from Gordon Sondland, who explicitly used the word “Bidens.”
3. This expert on Ukraine said he didn’t know of any factual basis for the assertions about Yovanovitch. He also didn’t know of any factual basis for the theories about Ukraine interfering in the 2016 elections.
4. One of the assertions against Yovanovitch is that she’s an associate of George Soros. The horror.
5. There are some key words missing from the transcript released by the White House.
6. He said there is no doubt that Trump was pushing a foreign government to investigate his political rivals.

Fiona Hill:

1. The transcripts show that Matt Gaetz once again crashed the secure room where impeachment depositions were being held. When Adam Schiff noticed the face that didn’t belong in the room, he asked Gaetz to leave. At that point, Jim Jordan jumped in to defend Gaetz. After much back and forth, Schiff paused the hearing, The transcript picks up two hours later to show the parliamentarian supporting Schiff’s request that Gaetz leave.
2. Hill suggests that Sondland isn’t telling the truth about Oval Office conversations.
3. Hill said the accusations against Yovanovitch were a mishmash of conspiracy theories.
4. Hill said that John Bolton thought Mick Mulvaney and Gordon Sondland were making an improper arrangement to put together a meeting at the White House because it was predicated upon Ukraine meeting the demands for investigations.
5. Hill said there was a good chance that Russia actually did have “kompromat” on Trump. She didn’t comment on the type of compromising material but did say that most information gathered by the Kremlin is factual. She said kompromat was likely being gathered on multiple people, including Hillary Clinton.

George Kent:

1. Kent criticized Giuliani, saying that he was engaged in a smear campaign of lies and slander against Marie Yovanovitch and that Giuliani’s assertions about Yovanovitch were without basis and untrue.
2. He said that the people spreading these falsehoods about Yovanovitch clearly had questionable motives.
3. At a meeting, Kurt Volker asked a Ukrainian official, Andriy Yermak, about an investigation Zelensky had opened into former Ukraine president Petro Poroshenko that Volker didn’t think was appropriate. Yermak responded with, “What? You mean the type of investigations you’re pushing for us to do on Biden and Clinton?”
4. In that same meeting, Volker made a suggestion about starting the investigations in that same meeting with Yermak, to which Bill Taylor responded, “don’t do that.”
5. Kent said that what Trump wanted was for Zelensky to say out loud and in public “investigations, Bidens, and Clinton.”
6. Kent said that former Prosecutor General Shokin, who Biden helped remove, was impeding reform and had repeatedly undermined U.S. efforts and assistance there. He also said that he brought up the appearance of the conflict of interest with Hunter Biden joining the Board of Burisma.
7. Kent decided to memorialize these meetings because he felt that something possibly illegal was going on.
8. Kent characterized what Trump did as undermining the rule of law.
9. He said that Mick Mulvaney placed the hold on the military aid.