Washington has been roiled by revelations about President Trump’s contacts with the Ukrainian president. A whistle-blower complaint alleges that Mr. Trump tried to press Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election by investigating a rival, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. The report prompted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to announce a formal impeachment inquiry against the president.
Here’s a roundup to help you catch up with the news.
The Latest
The White House declassified the whistle-blower’s complaint, which also claims that the White House scrambled to “lock down” records of the Ukraine call, in particular the official complete transcript. Read the full text of the complaint.
Mr. Trump brought up the matter with a crowd of staff from the United States Mission to the United Nations on Thursday, saying that he wanted to know who had provided information to the whistle-blower and that whoever did so was “close to a spy.” Spies were dealt with differently “in the old days,” he added.
Joseph Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence, answered questions from the House Intelligence Committee about his handling of the whistle-blower’s complaint and his decision not to forward it to Congress.
Read our live coverage of the day’s developments.
What We Know So Far
Mr. Trump had a phone conversation with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in July in which he pressed him to investigate leading Democrats as “a favor.” The call came as Mr. Trump was withholding nearly $400 million in aid to Ukraine. In the call, he alluded to the aid, but did not explicitly link his request to unfreezing it.
After news of the whistle-blower’s complaint emerged, the White House released a reconstructed transcript of the conversation.