Dealbook: Impeachment Briefing: What Happened Today

OCTOBER 1, 2019

Welcome to the Impeachment Briefing, a special edition of the Morning Briefing that explains the latest developments in the House impeachment inquiry against President Trump.

This newsletter will go out in the early evening (Eastern time), though we may tweak that depending on the news. If you're not interested in receiving the Impeachment Briefing, you can unsubscribe through the link at the bottom of this email, and it won't affect your regular Morning Briefing subscription.

Today, we're going to catch you up on the latest news, and set the stage for the coming days, when the impeachment fight is likely to heat up.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo clashed with House Democrats from Italy, where he and his wife, Susan, arrived for a visit today.Yara Nardi/Reuters

What happened today

The White House and House Democrats clashed over attempts to interview American diplomats who are witnesses in the growing Ukraine investigation. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the interview request was "an act of intimidation" and did not allow enough time for a proper response.
Lawmakers accused Mr. Pompeo of "intimidating department witnesses in order to protect himself and the president," and argued that blocking the diplomats would obstruct Congress's work — an action Democrats view as an impeachable offense itself.
Given the bombshell news of recent weeks, this was a relatively small skirmish — but one that outlines the contours of the growing battle over Congress's access to witnesses and documents.
The House has already issued a subpoena to Mr. Pompeo for documents related to the Ukraine investigation. The Wall Street Journal reported that Mr. Pompeo was among the officials who listened in on Mr. Trump's conversation with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.

What to expect this week

Speaker Nancy Pelosi will hold a news conference Wednesday to outline the immediate steps Democrats plan to take during the House's two-week break, which lasts until Oct. 15.
Kurt Volker, the former United States special envoy to Ukraine, will give a deposition Thursday.
The inspector general of the national intelligence community, Michael Atkinson, will testify behind closed doors in front of the House Intelligence Committee on Friday.

The whistle-blower

Mr. Trump kept his focus on the whistle-blower whose complaint helped mobilize House Democrats, saying today that he wanted to "interview" him, a day after saying the White House was seeking to identify him — an action legal experts said could constitute an illegal reprisal.

[Read the whistle-blower's complaint, annotated by our reporters.]

The White House has known for weeks that a C.I.A. officer lodged concerns about Mr. Trump's dealings with Ukraine. Still, Mr. Trump's fixation on discovering and discussing the identity of the whistle-blower, whose anonymity is protected by law, was seen as a brazen move for a president under scrutiny for abuse of power.

Representative Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said the whistle-blower would testify "very soon."

The tally in Congress

Congress won't be back for another two weeks. But The Times has asked every member of the House whether they support an impeachment inquiry. As of this morning, this was the count:

If the House votes on articles of impeachment, a simple majority, or 218 votes, will be needed to impeach.

Impeachment primers

What else we're reading

The first polls since the start of the inquiry have found that public support for impeachment is growing.
Our colleagues wrote about the secret computer system where the White House stored the rough transcript of Mr. Trump's call with the Ukrainian president. Using that system wasn't necessarily an abuse of power.
The Wall Street Journal explored the tense relationship between Rudy Giuliani and the attorney general: "Attorney General William Barr called President Trump in April with a question: What was Rudy Giuliani doing?"
In The Times Magazine, Amanda Hess profiled Rachel Maddow, whose career seems to have been building toward this moment: "She lends her viewers a cozy sense of mastery over a political situation that feels unmanageable. If today's dominant political recreational metaphor is that of the three-dimensional chess game, Maddow is hunched over in the corner of the rec room, methodically putting together a jigsaw puzzle."
In one of our most-read Op-Eds today, Will Wilkinson of the libertarian Niskanen Center argues that Mr. Trump has disqualified himself from running in the 2020 election.
The Washington Post on how the sexy peach emoji joined the resistance: Thank Lizzo and the ancient Sumerians.