What to Watch For in Day 5 of the Trump Impeachment Hearings

The final House impeachment hearing of the week gets underway Thursday morning with joint testimony by Fiona Hill, a former Europe and Russia expert at the White House, and David Holmes, an embassy official in Kyiv.

Ms. Hill is expected to describe her concerns about the Ukraine pressure campaign and those of John R. Bolton, the former national security adviser. Mr. Holmes will be asked about a cellphone conversation he overheard in which President Trump asked an ambassador about investigations he wanted Ukraine to announce.

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.

Ms. Hill is expected to testify that Mr. Bolton expressed serious concerns about the pressure campaign on Ukraine led by Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, who was pushing Ukraine to investigate Democrats. In previous, closed-door testimony, she described a July 10 White House meeting during which Gordon D. Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, raised the investigations in front of Ukrainian officials and said there was a deal to grant their new president a White House meeting with Mr. Trump if he agreed to announce them.

Disturbed, Mr. Bolton abruptly ended the meeting and instructed Ms. Hill to tell White House lawyers about what Mr. Sondland, Mr. Giuliani and Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, were up to. Mr. Bolton told Ms. Hill that he was not “part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up,” she testified. Later, Ms. Hill said that Mr. Bolton told her that “Giuliani’s a hand grenade who’s going to blow everybody up.”

Mr. Sondland said in Wednesday’s hearing that Ms. Hill’s account of the July 10 meeting does not “square with my own.”

Mr. Holmes will testify that he overheard a phone call between Mr. Trump and Mr. Sondland during a lunch in Kyiv. In closed-door testimony, Mr. Holmes told lawmakers last week 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 told him that Mr. Trump cares 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 Mr. Trump wanted.

  • Both witnesses have already appeared for closed-door depositions in the inquiry. Read transcripts or key excerpts from their testimony here: Ms. Hill, Mr. Holmes.

  • 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.

  • 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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