On the evening of September 24, 2019, Pelosi announced that six
committees of the House of Representatives would begin a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump. Pelosi accused Trump of betraying his
oath of office,
U.S. national security, and the integrity of the country's elections. The six committees charged with the task are those on
Financial Services,
the Judiciary,
Intelligence,
Foreign Affairs,
Oversight and Reform, and
Ways and Means. debate on the whistleblower complaint against President Trump on September 25, 2019 Maguire, who had delayed the whistleblower complaint from reaching Congress, testified publicly before the House Intelligence Committee on September 26. Maguire defended his decision not to immediately forward the whistleblower complaint to Congress and explained that he had consulted the
White House Counsel and the
Office of Legal Counsel at the
Justice Department (DOJ), but was unable to determine whether the document was protected by
executive privilege. Democrats on the committee questioned his actions, arguing that the law demands the forwarding of such complaints to the committee. Maguire countered that the situation was unique since the complaint involves communications of the president. Members of the House Intelligence Committee also asked Maguire why he chose to consult with White House lawyers when he was not required to do so by law, to which he responded that he believed "it would be prudent to have another opinion." In a private conference call with Democratic lawmakers on September 29, Pelosi laid out how three of these House committees would begin investigating the President's alleged abuse of power. The House Intelligence Committee would focus on the contents of the whistleblower complaint and whether the complaint may have been wrongfully hidden from Congress, while the Foreign Affairs Committee would focus on interactions the
State Department may have had with the president's personal attorney Giuliani, and the Oversight and Reform Committee would investigate whether White House classification systems were used to secure potentially damaging records of phone calls between the president and other world leaders.
Requests for evidence and White House refusal On September 27, 2019, a subpoena was issued by the House to obtain documents Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo had refused to release earlier. Said documents include several interactions between Trump, Giuliani, and Ukrainian government officials. The documents were requested to be filed with the involved committees probing the issue; the failure to do so "shall constitute evidence of obstruction of the House's impeachment inquiry", as stated in a letter written to Pompeo. The subpoena came after several requests by the House to receive the documents from the Secretary which he did not fulfill. Several members of the House involved with the impeachment inquiry sent him subsequent letters stating that they will be meeting with members of the State Department who may provide further information. The following week, a subpoena was also issued to Giuliani for production of documents. On October 4, 2019, the House Intelligence Committee issued subpoenas both to the White House and to Vice President
Mike Pence for documents related to the whistleblower complaint. The White House documents requested include audio tapes, transcripts, notes, and other White House documents related to the whistleblower controversy. On October 8, 2019, in a letter from White House Counsel
Pat Cipollone to House Speaker Pelosi and the three committee chairmen conducting the impeachment investigation, the White House announced that it would not cooperate with the investigation. In the letter, Cipollone said the investigation "violates the Constitution, the rule of law, and every past precedent" and that "The President cannot allow your constitutionally illegitimate proceedings to distract him and those in the Executive Branch." The letter went on to say "[the investigation's] unprecedented actions have left the President with no choice. To fulfill his duties to the American people, the Constitution, the Executive Branch, and all future occupants of the Office of the Presidency, President Trump and his Administration cannot participate in your partisan and unconstitutional inquiry under these circumstances." House Speaker Pelosi responded to the letter saying "The White House should be warned that continued efforts to hide the truth of the president's abuse of power from the American people will be regarded as further evidence of obstruction." House Democrats have suggested that defiance of their investigation could provide evidence for a separate article of impeachment on obstruction. In past impeachment probes, Congress has treated an obstruction of DOJ and Congressional investigations as an article of impeachment, either along with other alleged offenses (Johnson, Nixon) or even as its sole basis for articles of impeachment (Clinton). Giuliani's attorney, Jim A. Sale, sent a letter to the House Intelligence Committee on October 15, 2019, stating that Giuliani would not provide documents subpoenaed by the committee. Citing
attorney–client and
executive privilege, the letter characterized the subpoena as "beyond the scope of legitimate inquiry".
Subpoenas for documents Requests and subpoenas to appear Depositions Initial depositions were taken before the Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, and Oversight
House committees, meeting jointly in a secure room, a
Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) in the basement of the
U.S. Capitol. Only members of the three committees (47 Republicans and 57 Democrats) were permitted to attend. Witnesses were questioned by staff lawyers, and committee members were allowed to ask questions, with equal time being given to Republicans and Democrats. Transcripts were expected to be released and public hearings to be held at some time in the future. Transcripts began to be released in early November, and public hearings were scheduled to begin on November 13. On the morning of the Cipollone letter on October 8, 2019,
Gordon Sondland had been scheduled to testify before the House committees regarding his involvement in the withholding of aid from Ukraine. However, he was instructed not to attend at the last minute by the State Department upon Trump's command.
Early depositions: October 11–17, 2019 's opening statement to her testimony before three House committees, October 11, 2019
Marie Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine, testified on October 11, 2019, in defiance of the White House, although she remained an employee of the U.S. State Department until her voluntary retirement some months later. Yovanovitch told House committees she was "incredulous" at having been dismissed in May. She described the State Department as "attacked and hollowed out from within". During his July 25 phone call with Zelensky, Trump called Yovanovitch "bad news" and mentioned that "[s]he's going to go through some things". A former adviser to the president on Russian affairs,
Fiona Hill, testified before congressional investigators on October 14, 2019. She told the House committees that Giuliani circumvented State Department officials and diplomats, and that she had confronted Ambassador Sondland, who was assisting Giuliani in his efforts to pressure Ukraine into beginning investigations that would personally benefit Trump. After a meeting in which Sondland announced that there were "[Ukrainian] investigations that were dropped [and] need to be started up again" and under instruction from
John Bolton (the
National Security Advisor from April 2018 to September 2019), Hill expressed her and Bolton's concerns about Giuliani's activities to
John Eisenberg, an attorney for the NSC. Hill testified that she, Bolton, Volker, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and that Bolton was furious after the meeting when he told her he was "not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up". Kent is the second current State Department official to defy White House instructions and comply with House subpoenas to testify before the committees. According to Representative
Gerry Connolly (D-Virginia), Kent testified that, during a meeting at the White House on May 23 organized by Mulvaney, Sondland, Volker, and Perry, who called themselves the "three amigos", had declared that they were now responsible for Ukrainian affairs. Connolly also said Kent testified that he had been directed to "lay low" and to focus on foreign relations with the five other countries in his purview. McKinley testified that he had resigned from his position out of frustration with the Trump administration and the recall of Ambassador Yovanovitch was the "last straw". In his opening remarks, he said "[t]he timing of my resignation was the result of two overriding concerns: the failure, in my view, of the State Department to offer support to
Foreign Service employees caught up in the impeachment inquiry on Ukraine and, second, by what appears to be the utilization of our ambassadors overseas to advance a domestic political objective." McKinley said he was "disturbed by the implication that foreign governments were being approached to procure negative information on political opponents". Sondland claimed he was ignorant of Giuliani's intentions and had no choice but to work with the president's personal attorney. According to
The New York Times, this conflicts with previous testimony given during the inquiry in which other State Department officials testified that Sondland was "a willing participant who inserted himself into Ukraine policy even though the country is not in the purview of his posting, and was a key player in [Trump]'s efforts to win a commitment from the new Ukrainian government to investigate his political rivals."
Bill Taylor 's opening statement to his testimony before three House committees, October 22, 2019 On October 22, 2019,
Bill Taylor, the senior U.S. diplomatic official in Ukraine, testified to Congressional investigators. Taylor testified that he had learned in mid-July 2019 that a potential White House meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy "was conditioned on the investigations of Burisma and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections", and that he later was told, in September 2019, that U.S. military aid to Ukraine was also dependent on such investigations—including into the Bidens. Taylor testified that, alongside the "regular, formal diplomatic processes" with Ukraine led by himself, there was a "highly irregular", "informal channel of U.S. policy-making" concerning Ukraine. The informal channel began in May 2019, being "guided" by Giuliani, and also involving Volker, Sondland and Perry. Taylor said that by August 2019 he had realized the informal channel "was running contrary to the goals of longstanding U.S. policy", while the formal channel wanted "a strong U.S.–Ukraine partnership". According to Taylor, the informal channel had "driven" the idea of a White House meeting between the presidents being conditional on the investigations. Taylor noted that, during a June 2019 call between himself, Zelensky, Sondland, Volker and Perry; Sondland had said "he did not wish to include most of the regular interagency participants" and that "he wanted to make sure no one was transcribing or monitoring." As for Trump's July 2019 call with Zelensky, Taylor said he did not receive any report regarding the call from the White House even though he was scheduled to meet Zelenskyy a day later. According to Taylor, he wrote a first-person cable to Secretary Pompeo on advice from Bolton: "I wrote and transmitted such a cable on August 29, describing the 'folly' I saw in withholding military aid to Ukraine at a time when hostilities were still active in the east and when Russia was watching closely to gauge the level of American support for the Ukrainian government. I told the secretary that I could not and would not defend such a policy." Taylor reported that Pompeo gave no reply to his cable. testified in closed session before three Congressional committees. Cooper's testimony, originally scheduled for that morning, was delayed by roughly five hours when a group of House Republicans led by
Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) stormed the SCIF where impeachment inquiry committee meetings are being held, and refused to leave, at one point ordering pizza. The group protested what they asserted were secret Democratic hearings closed to Republicans, although 48 Republicans who are members of the three committees jointly holding the hearings were entitled to attend the hearings and some had done so. Thirteen of those members participated in the protest. Democrats responded with criticism over the interruption and accused the Republicans of violating the rules governing the SCIF, which prohibit cell phones in the area. After the protest ended, Cooper completed her testimony which lasted approximately 3.5 hours. She was expected to speak about how the process works for transferring military aid to Ukraine. The next day it was revealed that her attorney had received a letter from the Pentagon telling her not to testify, citing an administration-wide policy against cooperating with the probe. The House Judiciary Committee asked to see secret
grand jury information that had been used in compiling the Mueller Report. The DOJ refused to turn it over, arguing that secrecy of grand jury material must be preserved and that the impeachment inquiry was invalid. On October 25, 2019, Federal Judge
Beryl A. Howell ruled that the inquiry is valid and that the DOJ must forward the information to the committee within the week. DOJ attorneys had previously asserted that congressional investigators had "not yet exhausted [their] available
discovery tools", arguments Howell said "smack of farce", as the administration had openly said it would
stonewall the investigation. Some legal analysts noted that a White House counsel letter to Democratic leaders days earlier stating the administration would not cooperate with the impeachment inquiry—which was widely derided as more of a political rather than a legal argument— may have backfired by contributing to Howell's rationale for her decision.
Charles Kupperman, Trump's deputy national security advisor from January to September 2019, filed a lawsuit on October 25, 2019, in which he asked a federal judge to rule which conflicting order he should follow: a subpoena from the House or an order from the White House not to appear. His attorney said that as a private citizen Kupperman is not able to choose which directive to obey, adding that "Constitutional disputes between the Legislative and Executive Branches should be adjudicated by the Judicial Branch". The subpoena was withdrawn on November 6, but the judge indicated the case will go on. He had released his opening statement the day before. Vindman testified: "In Spring of 2019, I became aware of outside influencers promoting a false and alternative narrative of Ukraine inconsistent with the consensus views of the interagency, [which was] harmful to U.S. national security [and also] undermined U.S. government efforts to expand cooperation with Ukraine." Vindman said that, additionally, he was concerned by two events, both of which he objected to senior officials in real-time, and which he reported to the NSC's lead attorney. The first event occurred at a July 10 meeting between Ukraine's then
Secretary of National Security and Defense Council Oleksandr Danlylyuk, and then U.S. National Security Advisor Bolton, at which Ambassadors Volker and Sondland, and Secretary Perry were in attendance. At the meeting, Sondland asked Ukraine to launch investigations into the Bidens to get a meeting with President Trump. Vindman states that Bolton cut the meeting short, and that both he and Fiona Hill told Ambassador Sondland his comments were inappropriate, and that he reported the concerns to the NSC's lead counsel. The second event occurred on a July 25 phone call between President Trump and Zelensky. Vindman states, "I was concerned by the call. I did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen, and I was worried about the implications for the U.S. government's support of Ukraine. I realized that if Ukraine pursued an investigation into the Bidens and Burisma, it would likely be interpreted as a partisan play which would undoubtedly result in Ukraine losing the bipartisan support it has thus far maintained. This would all undermine U.S. national security." Vindman also reported this event to Eisenberg, the NSC's lead counsel. Trump had previously characterized the released transcript as "an exact word-for-word transcript of the conversation". Vindman also testified that the "rough transcript" of the July 25 phone call omitted President Zelenskyy stating the name Burisma (the natural gas company on whose board Hunter Biden sat), and substituted it with the phrase "the company that you mentioned in this issue".
October 30–31, 2019 On October 30, 2019,
Catherine Croft, a State Department Ukraine expert and NSC staff member testified. She noted in her opening statement that she was aware of Giuliani's communication with Volker, though she was not involved with those discussions, that former Republican lawmaker
Bob Livingston repeatedly called her to promote the removal of Ambassador
Yovanovitch. She added: "On July 18, I participated in a sub-Policy Coordination Committee video conference where an
[Office of Management and Budget (OMB)] representative reported that the White House Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, had placed an informal hold on security assistance to Ukraine. The only reason given was that the order came in the direction of the President."
Christopher J. Anderson, a career Foreign Service officer who succeeded Croft as an adviser to Volker, was also deposed the same day. In his opening statement, Anderson said he and Volker had attempted to satisfy Giuliani while at same time assisting the Ukrainian government to fight corruption and build a relationship with the U.S. However, their efforts repeatedly conflicted with Giuliani's. Morrison also discussed the July 2019 Trump–Zelenskyy call, having listened to the call himself. He told lawmakers he "promptly" brought concerns about the call to White House lawyers because he worried a summary would be leaked with negative consequences, but he said he did not necessarily think anything illegal was discussed.
White House officials refuse to be deposed Democrats had hoped to hear from four current White House officials on November 4, including John Eisenberg, deputy counsel to the president for National Security Affairs;
Michael Ellis, senior associate counsel to the president;
Robert Blair, a top aide to the chief of staff; and Brian McCormack, an official with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Like former deputy national security adviser Charles Kupperman, Blair is waiting for the courts to solve a conflict between the White House prohibition and a congressional subpoena. The case is scheduled to be decided in December; the same month, Blair was promoted. Michael Duffey, OMB's associate director for National Security Programs, and acting OMB Director
Russell Vought, did not appear for scheduled closed-door depositions on November5 and 6, respectively. Ulrich Brechbuhl, Counselor of the State Department, defied the subpoena for November6 and traveled to Europe with Pompeo instead. Bolton said he would not voluntarily testify on November 7, and was expected to legally challenge a subpoena, House investigators subsequently withdrew the subpoena.
November 6–8, 2019 On November 6, 2019, David Hale, the undersecretary of State for political affairs, testified for several hours on the subject of the ouster of Yovanovitch. Jennifer Williams, a special advisor to United States Vice President Mike Pence on European and Russian affairs, who happened to be listening in on the July 25 call, testified on November 7, 2019.
November 15–16, 2019 On November 15, David Holmes, a U.S. Department of State foreign service officer who works at the U.S. embassy in Ukraine, and serves as an aide to Bill Taylor, testified in a closed-door session before three House committees that he and two unnamed aides overheard a phone conversation between Ambassador Sondland and President Trump, while at a restaurant in
Kyiv, and immediately following a private meeting between President Zelenskyy and Sondland, where Trump asked Sondland about whether or not the Ukrainian President had agreed to investigate the Bidens. Holmes' statement provided the first testimony under oath that Trump directly and contemporaneously requested investigations of Joe and Hunter Biden and Burisma, with Trump allegedly asking "so he's gonna do the investigation?", refuting the potential defense that Trump had not been involved, and that Sondland might have been acting without the president's knowledge. Further, Holmes' deposition raised questions about the credibility, accuracy, and truthfulness of Ambassador Sondland's previous sworn deposition, furthering the possibility that Sondland either perjured himself or needed to clarify his original sworn statement. Third, Holmes' statement provided the first characterization of the actual language and degree of Trump's interest in having Ukraine investigate the Bidens, with Sondland saying to Trump about Zelenskyy that "he loves your ass" and "will do anything you ask him to", and Sondland later telling Holmes that President Trump "doesn't give a shit about Ukraine" and "only cares about the big stuff"—namely, investigations into the Bidens. The phone call being made in a public restaurant in Kyiv on unencrypted cell phones with
Russian intelligence agents potentially listening to the conversation raised security concerns to some former diplomats and military officials. The circumstances of the call, along with later subpoenaed phone records included in the House Intelligence Committee's impeachment inquiry report, which also appeared to be unencrypted, led
John Sipher, former deputy chief of Russia operations for the
CIA, to comment to the Washington Post that Trump and Giuliani have effectively "given the Russians ammunition they can use in an overt fashion, a covert fashion or in the twisting of information". In his deposition, Sandy acknowledged that Trump did enact an unusual freeze in aid to Ukraine. Sandy testified that two OMB employees had recently resigned while expressing concerns about the
Impoundment Control Act hold on aid to Ukraine.
Resolution to begin public hearings On October 29, 2019, Representative
Jim McGovern (D-Massachusetts) introduced a resolution (H. Res. 660), referred to House Rules Committee, which set forth the "format of open hearings in the House Intelligence Committee, including staff-led questioning of witnesses, and [authorization for] the public release of deposition transcripts". It also proposed the procedures for the transfer of evidence to House Judiciary Committee as it considers articles of impeachment. The resolution was debated in Rules Committee the next day and brought to a floor vote on October 31. It was adopted with a vote of 232 to 196, with two Democrats and all Republicans voting against the measure. The transcripts revealed that Yovanovitch first learned, from Ukrainian officials in November or December 2018, of a campaign by Giuliani and Lutsenko to remove her from her post. The transcript of Sondland's deposition on October 17 included an addendum filed by the ambassador on November 4. In the addendum, he said he had "refreshed [his] recollection" having now reviewed the testimonies of Taylor and Morrison which contradicted his original testimony. Sondland had originally claimed he "never" believed there were any preconditions for the release of military aid to Ukraine and that he "was dismayed when it was held up", but "didn't know why". In his new four-page sworn statement published along with the transcripts, Sondland confirmed that he had told President Zelensky's aide, Yermak, during a meeting on September 1, that the release of aid was predicated on the Ukrainian president's committing to an investigation of Burisma. The transcript of Ambassador Taylor's deposition was also released on November 6. During his deposition on October 22, he described the campaign, led by Giuliani, to instigate investigations into the Bidens in Ukraine. Taylor said it was his "clear understanding, security assistance money would not come until the [Ukrainian] president committed to pursue the investigation". The following day saw the release of Kent's testimony transcripts in which he said, "[President Trump] wanted nothing less than President Zelensky to go to a microphone and say investigations, Biden and Clinton". Following public release of the transcripts, Trump asserted they had been "doctored" by Schiff and encouraged Republicans to "put out their own transcripts!" == Related judicial proceedings ==