Trump Impeachment Inquiry Updates: Sondland to Testify After Initial Refusal

“Throughout our history, Congress, the President, and the courts have insisted upon maintaining the separation between the legislative and impeachment powers of the House and recognized the gravity and accountability that follow impeachment,” she argued, echoing House Judiciary Committee Democrats who have said an impeachment inquiry would have legal powers unavailable to other investigations.

As Democrats consider how wide their inquiry should be, Judge Rao may have given them an invitation to expand the scope of their “compulsory process.”

Maryland’s Republican governor, Larry Hogan, is nobody’s idea of a stalwart supporter of President Trump, but his embrace of the House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry on Thursday night was not helpful to the Republican effort to delegitimize the investigation.

“I think we do need an inquiry because we have to get to the bottom of it,” Mr. Hogan, a moderate Republican, said on P.B.S.’ Firing Line. “I’m not ready to say I support impeachment and the removal of the president, but I do think we should have an impeachment inquiry.”

Along with the governors of Massachusetts and Vermont, Mr. Hogan is part of the “Never Trump” Republican gubernatorial brigade. Mr. Hogan did implore Democrats to use “a fair, objective” process, but he did not say moving forward should depend on new rules.

“I don’t see any other way to get the facts,” he said.

The indictment of two associates of Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, added new details to the narrative at the heart of the impeachment inquiry. The two men, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, helped Mr. Giuliani navigate connections in Ukraine in pursuit of evidence that would undercut the legitimacy of the special counsel’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and lift Mr. Trump against his political rivals heading into 2020.

The two men also appear to have made illegal campaign donations to Representative Pete Sessions, Republican of Texas, from whom Mr. Parnas sought support in pressing the Trump administration to remove the United States ambassador to Ukraine, Marie L. Yovanovitch. Some Trump allies believed Ms. Yovanovitch was trying impede their effort to dig up damaging information about former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter, according to a former Ukrainian official.

Read more: Giuliani’s Ukraine Team: In Search of Influence, Dirt and Money

  • President Trump repeatedly pressured President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to investigate people and issues of political concern to Mr. Trump, including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Here’s a timeline of events since January.

  • 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.

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