WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on the public impeachment hearings into President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine (all times local):
8:30 p.m.
The House Intelligence Committee has concluded a five-hour hearing with two former Trump administration officials.
Kurt Volker, the former U.S. special envoy to Ukraine, and Tim Morrison, a former deputy national security adviser, both testified that they did not believe President Donald Trump had engaged in a quid pro quo, linking military aid to Ukraine with an investigation of Joe Biden.
But Volker spoke up for Biden in Tuesday’s impeachment hearing, rejecting “conspiracy theories” embraced by Trump and some of his allies. Volker said he has known Biden as an honorable man for more than two decades.
Rep. Devin Nunes, the panel’s top Republican, blasted the hearing as part of a “Ukraine hoax.’’ The panel’s chairman, Rep. Adam Schiff said Volker has debunked once and for all any conspiracy theory about Biden
__
8 p.m.
A top diplomat says he now remembers a top Ukrainian official taking issue with advice he offered cautioning against political investigations.
Kurt Volker, the former special envoy to Ukraine, says that during a September dinner with Andriy Yermak, he’d discouraged Ukraine from trying to prosecute the country’s previous president. Volker says he warned it would sow deep societal divisions.
Volker says Yermak quipped in response, “You mean like asking us to investigate Clinton and Biden?”
Volker claims he didn’t “quite understand” the remark and was “kind of puzzled” by it.
Volker says he accepted the idea of Ukraine going along with a push by President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, to investigate the Ukraine gas company Burisma and the 2016 elections. But he says he was unaware of a connection to Joe Biden, whose son served on Burisma’s board.
__
6:40 p.m.
Former National Security Council aide Tim Morrison says one of his colleagues warned him about President Donald Trump’s European Union ambassador, Gordon Sondland, and even coined a name for her concerns: “the Gordon problem.”
Morrison is testifying Tuesday in House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry.
Other witnesses have testified that Sondland talked directly to Trump as the president pushed Ukraine to investigate Democrats. Sondland, who testifies Wednesday, tried to negotiate with the Ukrainians for the investigations.
Sondland also clashed with some in the White House as he took a leading role in Ukraine policy, including former adviser Fiona Hill, who Morrison said coined the phrase.
After talking to Hill, Morrison said he kept track of what Sondland was doing and “didn’t necessarily always act” on what he suggested.
___
5:30 p.m.
Former Ukraine envoy Kurt Volker says he felt a discussion of investigations was “inappropriate” in a July meeting between Ukrainian and U.S. officials at the White House.
Testifying during a House impeachment hearing on Tuesday, Volker confirmed others’ testimony that President Donald Trump’s European Union ambassador, Gordon Sondland, raised the investigations “in a generic way” to the Ukrainians and that then national security adviser John Bolton immediately ended the meeting.
The meeting happened two weeks before a call in which Trump asked Ukraine’s president to investigate Democrats. That call is central to the impeachment probe.
Other witnesses have testified that the investigations were discussed further in a second meeting that day. Volker said he doesn’t recall that discussion.
___
5:20 p.m.
A former White House national security official says his boss told him to “tell the lawyers” about two worrisome conversations in which a diplomat told him about blocking military aid to Ukraine.
Tim Morrison testified at Tuesday’s House impeachment hearing about two September exchanges with Gordon Sondland.
Sondland is an envoy overseeing European Union policy who was also helping shape U.S. policy toward Ukraine.
Morrison says Sondland said he’d told a Ukrainian official that his government would have to announce investigations into President Donald Trump’s Democratic political foes to free up the U.S. military assistance.
Morrison says Sondland also told him there was no “quid pro quo,” but that Ukraine needed to announce those investigations to get the aid.
Morrison says his boss, then White House national security adviser John Bolton, told him to tell their lawyers about Sondland’s remarks.
___
5:15 p.m.
Former U.S. special representative to Ukraine Kurt Volker is testifying in the impeachment inquiry that President Donald Trump told him he should talk to his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani about the new Ukrainian president. But he “didn’t take it as an instruction.”
The exchange with Trump happened soon after Volker and other officials returned to Washington from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s inauguration in May. Volker and others spoke highly of Zelenskiy and urged Trump to host him for a White House meeting.
But Trump pushed back and said the diplomats should talk to Giuliani.
Volker recalled that Trump said he hears “terrible things” about Zelenskiy and he should talk to Giuliani.
Volker testified that he “understood from that context that that’s where he hears it from” and he “didn’t take it as an instruction.”
___
4:50 p.m.
A former top national security adviser to President Donald Trump says a rough transcript of Trump’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was placed on a highly classified system by mistake.
The official, Tim Morrison, is testifying Tuesday in the House impeachment inquiry. He says he and a top White House lawyer, John Eisenberg, agreed that access should be restricted to officials with high-level security clearances.
But Morrison says he later learned that the rough transcript of the call was placed on a highly classified server typically reserved for national secrets.
Morrison says the placement on the more secure server “was a mistake. It was an administrative error.”
Morrison says nothing on the call warranted placement on the server.
___
4:40 p.m.
The vice president’s national security adviser is pushing back after a subordinate said she had concerns about President Donald Trump’s call with the Ukrainian president.
Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg says of the July 25 conversation: “I heard nothing wrong or improper on the call. I had and have no concerns.”
He released a statement after the testimony of Jennifer Williams, who was detailed to Vice President Mike Pence’s staff from the State Department. Williams testified Tuesday that she found the call “unusual” since it “involved discussion of what appeared to be a domestic political matter.”
Williams said she never raised the call with her superiors, since Kellogg was also listening in on the call.
___
4:30 p.m.
Former Ukraine envoy Kurt Volker is testifying in a House impeachment hearing that Republican criticism of former Vice President Joe Biden is “not credible.”
Republicans, including President Donald Trump, have questioned the role of Biden and his son Hunter, who served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.
Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate the Bidens in a July phone call that is at the heart of the impeachment probe.
Volker testified Tuesday that Biden “respects his duties of higher office” and it is not credible that he would act in any way other than in the national interest.
___
4 p.m.
Tim Morrison, who recently left his National Security Council post, has told Congress that he is taking no position on whether President Donald Trump should be impeached.
But Morrison says his fears that a July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy would become politicized “have been realized.”
Testifying in the impeachment inquiry, Morrison says he has no wish to question anyone else’s character or integrity, but to offer his own recollections and judgments. He says any disagreement with other officials who listened to the July 25 call is the result of honest disagreements.
Morrison says his recent resignation from the Trump administration was voluntary, adding that he felt no pressure to resign and did not receive any retaliation for his closed-door testimony to Congress last month.
___
3:50 p.m.
The former special envoy to Ukraine is testifying that he should have realized that President Donald Trump was holding up military aid to Ukraine as a way to pressure the country to investigate his political rivals.
Kurt Volker is appearing Tuesday in the House impeachment inquiry.
Several other officials have said they understood the connection between investigations and the hold-up on aid, and Volker said that in retrospect, he should have too.
He said he understands now, thanks to hindsight and the testimony of other witnesses, that Trump was using the aid to pressure Ukraine to investigate Democrat Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
Volker is one of several witnesses this week.
___
3:45 p.m.
The former special envoy to Ukraine says he had only one in-person meeting with President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.
Kurt Volker is telling House impeachment investigators Tuesday that Giuliani raised the idea that Vice President Joe Biden was compromised because his son was on the board of a Ukraine gas company.
Volker says he considered that idea a conspiracy theory and rejected it. He says he’s known Biden for more than two decades and believes him to be an honorable man.
Volker also says he was not aware of and never participated in an effort to get Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. He did not listen to the July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
___
3:10 p.m.
Tuesday’s second impeachment hearing is beginning, this time with witnesses Tim Morrison and Kurt Volker.
Morrison is a former top aide on the National Security Council and Volker is a former envoy to Ukraine.
Both have already testified behind closed doors in House Democrats’ impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump and his dealings with Ukraine.
On Tuesday morning, the House Intelligence Committee heard from two aides who listened into Trump’s July call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
___
2:10 p.m.
White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham is slamming the first round of interviews in Tuesday’s impeachment hearings.
The public heard Tuesday from Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who serves on the National Security Council, and Jennifer Williams, a career foreign service officer detailed to Vice President Mike Pence’s office.
Grisham is insisting the public “learned nothing new in today’s illegitimate ‘impeachment’ proceedings,” and is characterizing the witnesses’ testimony as little more than “personal opinions and conjecture.”
She’s also charging the proceedings “further” expose that Democrats are “blinded by their hatred for Donald Trump and rabid desire to overturn the outcome of a free and fair election.”
Trump has also been weighing in with a constant stream of retweets criticizing the process and attacking Vindman, who still works for the White House.
__
2 p.m.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff says President Donald Trump’s pressure on Ukraine for political investigations was “a failed effort to bribe Ukraine.”
Trump urged the investigations as the U.S. withheld military aid from the country. Closing a Tuesday morning impeachment hearing, Schiff criticized Republicans for arguing that because the aid was eventually released, “this makes it OK.”
Schiff said, “it’s no less odious because it was discovered.”
Democrats are investigating Trump’s dealings with Ukraine in their impeachment probe. Republicans say they don’t have enough evidence to prove high crimes and misdemeanors.
California Rep. Devin Nunes said in his closing statement that Democrats “poison people with nonsense.” Nunes is the top Republican on the intelligence panel.
The committee is scheduled for another hearing Tuesday afternoon.
__
1:50 p.m.
A White House aide says he knew he was “assuming a lot of risk” by reporting his concerns about a July 25 phone call between President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s new president.
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman was asked during Tuesday’s impeachment hearing whether he understood he was taking on the “most important person” when he did it.
Vindman earlier in his opening statement told his father, an immigrant from Ukraine, not to worry about his coming forward, that he would be fine because in the U.S. it was OK to speak out.
Vindman and others said it was improper for Trump to ask Ukraine’s president to investigate the family of Democrat Joe Biden and a debunked theory that Ukraine had meddled in the 2016 elections.
He said he felt comfortable speaking out, because: “Here, right matters.”
The statement was met with brief applause.
___
1:20 p.m.
Ukraine’s president says his country is tired of hearing about a probe into the son of former Vice President Joe Biden.
In a phone call on July 25 that triggered the congressional impeachment inquiry, President Donald Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Biden’s son and his involvement with Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company.
Responding to a question from a reporter Tuesday, Zelenskiy said that everybody in the country is tired of hearing about Burisma.
He said Ukraine is an independent country with its own “problems and questions.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko said the last thing the country needs is to be dragged into the U.S. political drama.
___
12:45 p.m.
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman is telling Congress that the “favor” that President Donald Trump requested from the president of Ukraine on a July call was more than just a request.
Vindman testified in the House impeachment hearing Tuesday that in his military culture, a request is considered an order when a superior asks you to do something.
Republicans challenged that thinking, implying that Trump was not demanding that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy do the investigations on the phone call. Trump asked for the investigations as the U.S. withheld military aid for the country.
Republican Rep. Chris Stewart of Utah said “the two people who were speaking to each other didn’t interpret this as a demand.”
Vindman said the context of the call “made it clear that this was not simply a request.”
___
12:20 p.m.
President Donald Trump slammed the ongoing impeachment hearings as a “disgrace” and “kangaroo court,” while acknowledging he watched part of the third day of public hearings.
Trump made the comments at the start of a Cabinet meeting and as the House impeachment panel listened to testimony from National Security Council aide Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and Jennifer Williams, an aide to Vice President Mike Pence.
Trump said he caught some of Tuesday’s testimony from Vindman, a Ukraine specialist, who says Trump inappropriately pressured Ukraine’s president to open an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son’s dealings in Ukraine
The president dismissed Vindman’s testimony, and praised Republican lawmakers for “killing it.”
Trump said, “I don’t know Vindman,” “I never heard of him.”
___
12:05 p.m.
An aide to Vice President Mike Pence is responding to the president’s tweet going after her before her public testimony Tuesday in the House impeachment inquiry.
Jennifer Williams, a career State Department official detailed to Pence’s office, says Trump’s tweet accusing her of being a “Never Trumper” caught her by surprise.
She’s told the committee she “was not expecting to be called out by name.”
Trump had tweeted Williams should meet with “the other Never Trumpers, who I don’t know & mostly never even heard of, & work out a better presidential attack!”
Williams said she was confused by the attack and “would not” consider herself a “Never Trumper.”
Alexander Vindman, an Army officer at the National Security Council, was asked the same question Tuesday.
He responded: “I’d call myself never partisan.”
___
12 p.m.
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman says there is no ambiguity that President Donald Trump wanted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to commit to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden on a July phone call.
Vindman testified in a House impeachment hearing that there was no ambiguity about Trump’s use of the word “Biden” in the phone call, which is at the heart of the Democrats’ impeachment probe. Trump asked Zelenskiy to investigate the former vice president and his son, Hunter Biden, who was linked to a gas company in Ukraine.
In contrast, the hearing’s other witness said Vice President Mike Pence did not request the investigations in his own conversations with Zelenskiy.
Jennifer Williams, a State Department employee detailed to Pence’s office, said he never brought up the investigations.
___
11:25 a.m.
A U.S. official says the Army and local law enforcement are providing security for the Army officer who is testifying Tuesday during the House impeachment hearing.
The official says that the Army did a security assessment in order to make sure that Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and his family are secure, so the officer didn’t have to worry about that as the proceedings go on.
Vindeman is testifying about his service as a National Security Council aide and his concerns surrounding President Donald Trump’s Ukraine pressure campaign.
The official said the Army is prepared to take additional steps if needed, which could include moving Vindman and his family to a more secure location on a base.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal security issues.
- Lolita C. Baldor
___
11:20 a.m.
A key witness in the impeachment inquiry has told lawmakers that he was offered the post of Ukraine’s defense minister three times but rejected the suggestion.
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the National Security Council’s director for Ukraine, said he was made the offer while attending the inauguration of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as part of the official U.S. delegation.
Vindman says “I immediately dismissed these offers.” He says two American officials witnessed the exchange with a top adviser to Zelenskiy, and that he notified his chain of command and counterintelligence officials about the offer upon returning to the U.S.
Vindman is testifying before the House Intelligence Committee about his concerns about President Donald Trump’s decision to press Ukrainian officials to launch an investigation of his political opponents.
___
11 a.m.
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman is declining to tell lawmakers who in the intelligence community he may have spoken to after he listened in to a July call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
In response to questions from California Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, Vindman testified he would not answer on the advice of his lawyer and the recommendation by the committee’s chairman, Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff.
Schiff said Nunes’ questioning was an attempt to out a whistleblower who first revealed the essence of the call and whose formal complaint triggered the impeachment probe. The whistleblower based the complaint on conversations with people who were familiar with the call.
Schiff said “these proceedings will not be used to out the whistleblower.”
___
10:50 a.m.
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman says he heard envoy Gordon Sondland describe “specific investigations” as a requirement for Ukraine’s president to get a coveted White House visit.
Testifying at Tuesday’s impeachment hearing, Vindman said the conversation took place at the White House on July 10.
He says Sondland referred to “specific investigations that Ukrainians would have to deliver in order to get these meetings.” Those desired investigations were into the 2016 U.S. presidential election and also into Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son.
Vindman says he told Sondland that the request for investigations was inappropriate and had nothing to do with national security policy.
___
10:45 a.m.
Lt. Col Alexander Vindman says he doesn’t “take it as anything nefarious” that a transcript of President Donald Trump’s July call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was put on a highly secure server.
Testifying at Tuesday’s impeachment hearing, Vindman said there was a discussion among lawyers in the White House about the best way to manage the transcript because it was “viewed as a sensitive transcript.”
On the July 25 call, Trump asked Zelenskiy to do him a favor and investigate his Democratic rival Joe Biden and his son. At the time, the U.S. was holding up military aid to Ukraine.
Vindman said the rough transcript of the call was segregated to a small group to prevent leaks.
___
10:15 a.m.
An aide to Vice President Mike Pence has told the House Intelligence Committee she will submit a classified memo about a September call between Pence and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as part of the impeachment investigation.
Asked by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff if she took notes of the call and if there was anything she wanted to share that is relevant to the impeachment probe, Jennifer Williams testified that she would follow the advice of her lawyer who advised her not to answer. The lawyer said the vice president’s office said the call was classified.
Williams told the committee behind closed doors this month that the call was “very positive” and the two men did not discuss Trump’s push for investigations of Democrats.
___
10:10 a.m.
The White House is responding to Tuesday’s House impeachment proceedings in real time, stepping up pushback after facing criticism that it wasn’t doing enough to defend the president.
The White House sent out five “rapid response” emails to reporters before the witnesses were even sworn in for questioning. And the notes continued throughout the proceedings to defend President Donald Trump and try to undermine the credibility of the witnesses appearing.
Administration officials were also participating Tuesday in an event for regional reporters.
Press secretary Stephanie Grisham tweeted that, “While the dems cry impeachment we are speaking to the country w regional media interviews focused on @POTUS balanced trade agenda.”
Trump has been silent on Twitter so far, but has a Cabinet meeting scheduled later Tuesday morning.
___
9:38 a.m.
A White House aide tells lawmakers that what he heard on a July phone call between President Donald Trump and the new Ukrainian president was “improper.”
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman is testifying Tuesday in a public hearing in the House impeachment inquiry into Trump’s pressure on Ukraine to investigate his Democratic political rivals as he withheld aid to the East European nation.
Vindman is a U.S. Army officer detailed to the National Security Council. He listened in on the July 25 call at the center of the impeachment inquiry. Trump asked the new Ukrainian president to look into whether Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election and wanted the country to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
Vindman said it was “improper” for Trump to demand a foreign government investigative a U.S. citizen and political opponent.
Vindman is one of several witnesses coming before the committee this week. He and the other witnesses have already testified behind closed doors.
Trump has denied doing anything wrong.
___
9:30 a.m.
The top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee is blaming the media for the impeachment drive against President Donald Trump.
Devin Nunes spent his opening statement at the third day of impeachment hearings excoriating journalists, saying “the media of course are free to act as Democratic puppets … at the direction of their puppet masters.”
Absent from Nunes opening remarks Tuesday was any significant defense of Trump as he faces the starkest test of his presidency. The Democratic-led House is investigating his pressure campaign against Ukraine to open a probe into Joe Biden and his son.
At the center of the impeachment drive is Trump’s July 25th call to Ukraine’s president, when he mentioned Biden and a discredited theory that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.
__
9:05 a.m.
An adviser to Vice President Mike Pence says she found a July phone call between President Donald Trump and the Ukraine leader “unusual” since it “involved discussion of what appeared to be a domestic political matter.”
Jennifer Williams was at the witness table Tuesday as the House intelligence public hearing got underway. The House impeachment inquiry is looking into the Trump administration’s interactions with Ukraine.
She listened to the July 25 call between Trump and Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy. She says that after the call, she provided an update in the vice president’s daily briefing book indicating that the conversation had taken place.
Williams says she did not discuss the call with Pence or any of her colleagues in the office of the vice president or the National Security Council.
The House intelligence panel is holding public hearings into Trump’s pressure on Ukraine to investigate his Democratic political rivals while also withholding aid to the Eastern European nation.
__
9:05 a.m.
An adviser to Vice President Mike Pence says she was told that White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney had directed that a hold on military aid to Ukraine should remain in place.
Jennifer Williams is testifying Tuesday in the House impeachment inquiry into the Trump administration’s interactions with Ukraine.
Williams says she attended meetings earlier this year in which the hold on Ukraine security assistance was discussed.
She says representatives of the State and Defense departments advocated that the hold on the aid should be lifted, and that budget officials said that Mulvaney had directed that it remain in place.
Williams says she learned on Sept. 11 that the hold had been lifted. She says she’s never learned what prompted that decision.
The House intelligence panel is conducting public hearings into President Donald Trump’s pressure on Ukraine to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter, while also withholding security aid to the Eastern European nation.
__
Please read our comment policy before commenting.