The basics: Who, what, when and how to watch.
Who: Ms. Hill and Mr. Holmes will testify during a morning session. There is no afternoon session scheduled.
What: The House Intelligence Committee, led by its chairman, Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, will continue to examine the case for impeaching Mr. Trump. The Republican minority, led by Representative Devin Nunes of California, will again work to poke holes in testimony implicating the president.
When and Where: The morning proceedings start at 9 Eastern in the House Ways and Means Committee chambers. It will most likely last until the afternoon.
How to Watch: The New York Times will stream the testimony live, and a team of reporters in Washington will provide real-time context and analysis of the events on Capitol Hill. Follow along at nytimes.com, starting a few minutes before 9.
Hill can detail how Bolton saw Giuliani as a ‘hand grenade’ meddling in Ukraine policy.
Fiona Hill, the former senior expert on Russia and Europe at the National Security Council who is testifying in the impeachment inquiry on Thursday, has told House investigators that John R. Bolton, Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, was alarmed about a pressure campaign on Ukraine that was being led by Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer.
In previous closed-door testimony, Ms. Hill described in detail a July 10 White House meeting during which Gordon D. Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, told Mr. Bolton that he was working with Mr. Giuliani to press Ukraine to investigate Democrats in exchange for a White House meeting for the country’s new president.
Mr. Bolton was so disturbed that he abruptly ended the meeting and instructed Ms. Hill to tell the National Security Council’s top lawyer about what Mr. Sondland, Mr. Giuliani and Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, were up to, Ms. Hill has testified. Mr. Bolton told Ms. Hill that he was not “part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up.”
Later, Ms. Hill said that Mr. Bolton told her that “Giuliani’s a hand grenade who’s going to blow everybody up.”
Ms. Hill left the White House before the July 25 call between Mr. Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. But Democrats believe her account could be crucial in helping to establish that top White House officials like Mr. Bolton felt the pressure campaign was inappropriate, and that Mr. Mulvaney was deeply involved in it.
Mr. Sondland said in Wednesday’s hearing that Ms. Hill’s account of the July 10 meeting did not “square with my own.”
An embassy official who overheard a Trump-Sondland phone call is expected to recount a memorable conversation.
William B. Taylor Jr., the top diplomat in Ukraine, testified last week that he had only recently become aware of a cellphone call between Mr. Trump and Mr. Sondland overheard by one of his aides. On Thursday, that aide, David Holmes, who works in the United States Embassy in Kyiv, will testify in a public session.
In closed-door testimony, Mr. Holmes told lawmakers that he overheard Mr. Trump, who was speaking loudly, asking Mr. Sondland whether Mr. Zelensky was “going to do the investigation.” Mr. Sondland, a wealthy hotelier and political donor turned ambassador, told Mr. Trump that Mr. Zelensky “loves your ass,” and would conduct the investigation and do “anything you ask him to,” according to Mr. Holmes’s statement.
In Mr. Holmes’s account, Mr. Sondland later told him that Mr. Trump cared only about “big stuff that benefits the president” like the “Biden investigation” into the son of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Mr. Sondland largely confirmed that account on Wednesday but said he did not recall specifically mentioning Mr. Biden.
Democrats believe the conversation helps establish that the president was preoccupied with persuading Ukraine to publicly commit to investigations that benefited him politically. They want Mr. Holmes to describe the scene in detail.
Before then, catch up on some important background on the impeachment inquiry.
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Mr. Trump repeatedly pressured Mr. Zelensky to investigate people and issues of political concern to Mr. Trump, including the former vice president. Here’s a timeline of events since January.
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A C.I.A. officer who was once detailed to the White House filed a whistle-blower complaint on Mr. Trump’s interactions with Mr. Zelensky. Read the complaint.