[NB: Updates to this post will appear at the bottom. /~Rayne]
First of the day’s hearings begin at 9:00 a.m. ET and the second at 2:30 p.m. Here’s the schedule according to NPR:
Wednesday, first panel at 9 a.m. ET
- Gordon Sondland. Once a top donor to the president’s inaugural committee, Sondland has faced intense scrutiny about his closed-door testimony after he sent the committee a three-page amendment reversing his initial account. In that addendum, Sondland said he personally told a top aide to Zelenskiy that the release of U.S. aid to Ukraine was linked to investigations.
Wednesday, second panel at 2:30 p.m. ET
- Laura Cooper, a deputy assistant secretary at the Defense Department, who in closed-door testimony said that Ukrainians raised the administration’s delay of $391 million in security assistance in August. She said that she spoke to Volker about the issue and that he told her he was working with Ukrainians to make a statement disavowing election interference.
- David Hale, the undersecretary of state for political affairs at the State Department. He testified behind closed doors on Nov. 6, and Republicans asked for him to appear in the public hearings.
Until now Republicans had been most worried about hotelier Gordon Sondland’s testimony, out of all the witnesses called to testify before the House Intelligence Committee.
New reports say Sondland will admit there was a quid pro quo and implicate then-National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo along with Trump.
The opening of the hearing appears a little disordered even now because the GOP members didn’t appear to know in advance this was the tack Sondland would take.
~ ~ ~
For folks who can stream, catch today’s hearings at:
For folks who can’t stream, you can follow these live Twitter threads:
Marcy’s live twitter thread
Brandi Buchman-Courthouse News’s thread
Looks like Courthouse News’s Adam Klasfeld is also covering this hearing.
Paul McLeod-BuzzFeed is tweeting from the hearing room.
My Trump-Russia Twitter list which includes most of the above folks.
See also CNN’s live update page for today’s hearings.
~ ~ ~
Pam Bondi has already made a boo-boo defending Trump this morning:
Hired to bolster White House communications on impeachment, Pam Bondi goes on TV and repeatedly calls the US ambassador to the EU the US ambassador to Ukraine. (This distinction is pretty important here.) https://t.co/xuCUgfPsiH
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) November 20, 2019
Not off to a good start.
Buckle up, Sondland’s begun.