The House committees involved in the impeachment probe issued subpoenas to the White House on Friday evening.
Earlier Friday Trump wouldn't say if his administration would comply with subpoenas. And late on Friday night, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo missed a subpoena deadline from the three committees.
That's as the New York Times reported that there may be a potential second whistleblower. A second intelligence official with concerns and more direct knowledge regarding President Donald Trump's dealings with Ukraine is considering filing a complaint, The New York Times reported Friday
The texts say it all
Don't listen to Trump. Don't listen to Democrats.
We went through the release of Kurt Volker's text messages, line by line, and they pretty clearly show that the phone call where Trump pushed Zelensky for investigations of the Russia investigation and Bidens was not a one-off. It was part of a coordinated campaign.
The political appointees, US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland seemed to realize when career diplomat Bill Taylor texted: "Are we now saying that security assistance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?"
Sondland responded: "Call me."
Watch, read, listen
CNN is nearly wall-to-wall on this momentous story on TV. Watch
We are up-to-the minute with the latest on impeachment at CNN.com. Read
David Chalian is podcasting weekdays on the politics of the inquiry. Listen
The Latest
New key player -- Meet Bill Taylor, the official who was nervous about injecting US politics in Ukraine security aid. Full cast of characters
Another big deposition -- Sondland is now expected to testify on Tuesday in front of the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees.
House gives VP Mike Pence Oct. 15 deadline for docs. LINK
Today's closed-door testimony: The intelligence community inspector general provided documents to the House Intelligence Committee showing efforts to corroborate the whistleblower complaint concerning Trump's pressure on Ukraine. LINK
Jared Kushner and Mick Mulvaney -- The President's adviser/son-in-law and the acting White House chief of staff are now running Trump's impeachment defense. LINK
Rick Perry says he's talked to every major player in this story -- "God as my witness," a Biden never came up, Corruption, yes. Bidens no, he tells CBN. LINK
Trump says he's just fighting corruption. He's not
From CNN's Marshall Cohen -- Trump's latest defense -- that he's just an apolitical anti-corruption crusader -- doesn't hold up under scrutiny. New documents unearthed from the impeachment inquiry, and many of Trump's past comments, undermine his claims that this isn't about Biden or 2020 politics.
Here are just a few reasons:
Trump hasn't publicly raised these issues before with Ukraine.
So far, the supposed anti-corruption campaign is only focused on Biden.
Trump defended his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who made millions from Ukraine's corrupt former president.
Trump has praised other world leaders mired by more well-founded corruption scandals, like Russia's Vladimir Putin and Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu.
Volker's side
The messages were provided by Kurt Volker, who was the volunteer special envoy to Ukraine. He's since resigned.
In testimony, Volker told the Impeachment probe that Trump was convinced Ukraine "tried to take me down" in 2016
He argued there was no focus on Biden in the text messages. True, Biden's name does not come up.
But the name of the company that employed his son is all over the place and investigating Burisma is listed as a prerequisite for Trump to meet the Ukrainian President.
Volker portrayed himself as someone trying to divert the influence of Giuliani and get Trump serious about Ukraine, according to CNN's Jeremy Herb.
Jake Tapper reports that Volker is also leaving his full-time role as director of the McCain Institute, which the institute has denied in a statement.
Romney takes a lonely stand with Sasse
Turning on Trump will be a fraught endeavor for any Republican. The lawmakers who have actually done it either didn't seek reelection (Jeff Flake) or left the party (Justin Amash).
Not Mitt Romney. While he didn't exactly endorse impeachment, he did say on Twitter today that he's apalled. And that's something.
Romney: When the only American citizen President Trump singles out for China's investigation is his political opponent in the midst of the Democratic nomination process, it strains credulity to suggest that it is anything other than politically motivated. By all appearances, the President's brazen and unprecedented appeal to China and to Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden is wrong and appalling.
Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, who sometimes pipes up as a Trump critic, gave a very strong statement to the Omaha World-Herald.
"Americans don't look to Chinese commies for the truth. If the Biden kid broke laws by selling his name to Beijing, that's a matter for American courts, not communist tyrants running torture camps."
GOP positioning
How Republicans ultimately land on Trump's behavior is the ultimate key to his presidency. They have the votes to protect him from impeachment in the Senate, but that assumes the party stays with him. As CNN's Chris Cillizza wrote, the real issue isn't Trump, it's his party.
Cillizza: Trump's behavior -- while hugely unorthodox, erratic and unpresidential -- isn't actually all that surprising. This is who he is -- and is reflective of the sort of campaign he ran for president and how he has acted once in the office. What is surprising, or shocking might be the better word for it, is the fact that Republican elected officials seem willing to not just condone this sort of behavior but even defend it.
Marco Rubio told reporters in Florida he thinks Trump was just kidding around by asking China and Ukraine to investigate Biden.
Ron Johnson, the Wisconsin senator who today contorted himself to admit to the Wall Street Journal that he had directly asked Trump back in August whether he was holding up Ukraine funding to push investigations there. He had heard from Sondland that the aid was tied to an investigation.
Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, is raising money off the fight, pointing out, probably accurately, that he's standing between Trump and impeachment.
Lindsey Graham is leading the charge to defend Trump and is demanding a House vote to officially begin impeachment proceedings. Pelosi skipped that step.
What do the people want?
CNN's political forecaster, Harry Enten, wrote about all the numbers, but here's the nut of it.
TRUMP -- In an average of polls taken since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a formal inquiry last week, 51% support an impeachment inquiry. A minority, 44%, are against it.
CLINTON -- At no point during the impeachment proceedings against Clinton did anywhere close to a plurality of Americans want Clinton impeached and removed from office. Right now, you could argue that we're already at that point with Trump.
NIXON -- The 46% in favor of impeaching and removing Trump now is greater than the 43% who favored it during a similar point in the Nixon impeachment process. It wasn't until right before Nixon resigned that close to a majority wanted him out.
The China side of things
The focus remains on Ukraine, where Trump admits to having pressured Zelensky.
Less clear is where his public call for China to investigate Hunter Biden will lead. Trump is in the midst of high stakes trade talks with China. His top economic adviser, Peter Navarro, got testy when asked about it by CNN's Jim Sciutto.
Navarro said he won't "confirm or deny" whether he "personally" raised investigating Joe Biden or his son during contacts with Chinese officials.
"Me, personally? Now, here's the thing, I will never talk about what happens inside the White House," Navarro said during the contentious exchange which he said was an "interrogation."
What are we doing here?
The President has invited foreign powers to interfere in the US presidential election.
Democrats want to impeach him for it.
It is a crossroads for the American system of government as the President tries to change what's acceptable for US politicians. This newsletter will focus on this consequential moment in US history.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/05/politics/impeachment-tracker-october-4/index.html
2019-10-05 06:26:00Z
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