The Latest on President Donald Trump and House impeachment investigation (all times local):
5:20 p.m.
White House aide Tim Morrison details several key moments in President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine in a new transcript released Saturday by impeachment investigators.
Jennifer Williams, a special adviser to Vice President Mike Pence for Europe and Russia who is a career Foreign Service officer, arrives for a closed-door interview in the impeachment inquiry on President Donald Trump's efforts to press Ukraine to investigate his political rival, Joe Biden, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2019. (AP PhotoJ. Scott Applewhite)
Morrison recalls conversations with Trump’s European Union ambassador, Gordon Sondland. Morrison said he was “uncomfortable” with what Sondland was telling him, that Trump wanted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to announce investigations that would help him politically.
Sondland told Morrison after one of his conversations with Trump that there was “was no quid pro quo, but President Zelenskiy must announce the opening of the investigations and he should want to do it.”
Morrison reported at least two of his conversations to National Security Council lawyers.
Tim Morrison, a former senior National Security Council official, arrives at the Capitol to review his previous testimony in the impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump, in Washington, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2019. (AP PhotoJ. Scott Applewhite)
4 p.m.
More transcripts are being released in the Trump impeachment inquiry.
House investigators on Saturday released hundreds of pages from closed-door interviews with two key government witnesses in the impeachment probe of President Donald Trump.
Jennifer Williams, a special adviser to Vice President Mike Pence for Europe and Russia who is a career foreign service officer, departs after a closed-door interview in the impeachment inquiry on President Donald Trump's efforts to press Ukraine to investigate his political rival, Joe Biden, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2019. (AP PhotoJ. Scott Applewhite)
The transcripts are of testimony by Jennifer Williams, a special adviser for Europe and Russia to Vice President Mike Pence, and Tim Morrison, the former senior director of European affairs at the National Security Council.
Democrats leading the investigation are pushing out transcripts ahead of a rush of public hearings scheduled for next week.
The probe revolves around Trump’s push for Ukraine’s new president to conduct investigations of Democratic rival Joe Biden and his son, while the White House was withholding military aid to the country.
10 a.m.
House impeachment investigators are hearing from a White House budget official in closed-door testimony at the Capitol.
Lawmakers convened Saturday to interview Mark Sandy. He’s the first official from the Office of Management and Budget to defy President Donald Trump’s instructions not to testify. Like other witnesses in the investigation, Sandy was expected to receive a congressional subpoena to appear.
Investigators are eager to hear from Sandy as they scrutinize the administration’s decision to withhold military aid from Ukraine.
The holdup of that assistance came as Trump was asking Ukraine’s new president to investigate Democrats and Trump political rival Joe Biden. That request is central to the impeachment inquiry. Trump says he did nothing wrong.
More public hearings in the House are scheduled for this coming week.