HERE'S THE DEAL
IMPEACHMENT EDITION

A busy week is ahead.  So we are adding an extra “Impeachment Brief” to help you keep up with all the details. 

New this morning: A poll from the PBS NewsHour, NPR and Marist shows that days into public impeachment hearings, nearly half of Americans want Congress to impeach President Donald Trump and remove him from office.

Directly ahead: Three days of hearings with nine witnesses. We’ve outlined who they are and when to expect them below, under “legal and political” fight.  And keep reading for what we’ve learned since our last update.

Two more closed-door witnesses

• David Holmes, a U.S. official at the embassy in Kyiv, confirmed to lawmakers Friday that he overheard a phone call in which President Trump told Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, he wanted Ukraine to launch investigations.

• Holmes also testified that Sondland told other Americans about the need for an investigation into the Bidens. That contradicts Sondland’s testimony, in which he said he did not know an investigation into the Burisma energy company was connected to the Bidens.

• Mark Sandy, a deputy at the Office of Management and Budget testified behind closed doors Saturday that the orders he received to freeze aid money to Ukraine were unusual and unexplained, according to the Washington Post and others.

More transcripts released

• House Democrats released transcripts over the weekend of the full testimony of Jennifer Williams, an adviser to Vice President Pence, and Tim Morrison, the senior director for Russia and Europe on the National Security Council staff.

• Williams outlined changing directives about whether Vice President Mike Pence would attend Ukrianian President Zelensky’s inaugural in May. (He didn’t.)

• Tim Morrison detailed the role of Gordon Sondland, as he saw it, saying Sondland was part of a different channel of policy making and bragged about his ability to contact the president.  

• Morrison also criticized fellow National Security Council staffer Alexander Vindman as not always “exercising the best judgment” when it came to policy.

This week’s public hearings 

• Again, nine witnesses will testify over three days. Below, we’ve linked any transcripts of their closed-door testimony available.

• This morning, lawmakers will hear publicly from: Williams with the vice president’s office and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman who works for the National Security Council.

• This afternoon’s public hearing will be with: former Ukraine envoy Kurt Volker and Morrison, who focused on Russia and Europe for the National Security Council.

• Wednesday morning, just one witness: Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union.

• Wednesday afternoon the witnesses will be: David Hale, the number three official at the State Department and Laura Cooper, deputy assistant secretary of defense.

• Thursday will be a single panel with two witnesses side-by-side: Fiona Hill, who held Morrison’s job with the National Security Council immediately before him and Holmes, a U.S. official in Kiev, who testified behind closed doors this weekend. 

President Trump tweets he is willing to testify in writing

• The president tweeted yesterday that he likes the concept of testifying to the impeachment investigation in written form, an idea mentioned by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on a Sunday news show.

• House Democratic aides told NewsHour and other outlets that they do not believe the president intends to cooperate, based on the White House orders and statements forbidding staffers from testifying. 

Democrats investigating if President Trump lied to Mueller

• House Democrats told a court Monday that they are investigating whether President Trump lied to special prosecutor Robert Mueller, in written testimony he submitted. 

• Multiple Democratic sources told NewsHour that new questions were raised by last week’s testimony of Rick Gates, former deputy campaign manager to then-candidate Trump, in the trial of Trump confidante Roger Stone. Gates testified that he overheard Trump speak with Stone about Wikileaks.

• In President Trump’s written testimony, he wrote he did not recall speaking with Stone about Wikileaks. 

• Democrats are raising this as part of a lawsuit aiming to force the Department of Justice to hand over more Mueller-related material.

Supreme Court temporarily freezes order about Trump’s taxes

• Chief Justice John Roberts issued a stay Monday, temporarily blocking an appeals court order that an accounting firm hand over President Trump’s past tax records to a House committee.

• House Democrats agreed with the decision which gives both sides time to prepare their cases. Democrats are seeking the president’s tax records as part of an investigation of his finances, which Speaker Pelosi has said is included under the umbrella of potential impeachment questions.