House impeachment investigators have a busy week coming up. There are no hearings or depositions scheduled for Monday, but Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday will bring public hearings with eight different witnesses, all current or former members of the Trump administration, and all with information to contribute about Donald Trump’s efforts to extort Ukrainian officials into interfering in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland is the week’s likely headliner, as the person whose phone call with Trump was overheard by multiple staffers, with Trump demanding to know whether Ukraine would be launching “investigations.” The big question with Sondland is whether he will continue to see Trump as his most important master or whether he will develop a longer-term sense of self-preservation as he faces potential fallout for lying to Congress. But Sondland is by no means the only important source of information this week.
Tuesday morning
- Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, the National Security Council’s top Ukraine expert, who was among those listening to the July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and subsequently raised concerns with NSC lawyers.
- Jennifer Williams, an aide to Mike Pence whom Trump attacked by tweet over the weekend as a “Never Trumper.”
Tuesday afternoon
Wednesday morning
Wednesday afternoon
- Laura Cooper, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian affairs.
- David Hale, undersecretary of state for political affairs.
Thursday
Key unknowns remain exactly what stunts Republicans will get up to to disrupt the proceedings and give Fox News alternative headlines to the damning information being revealed, and whether Trump will suddenly decide he needs the second part of his completely routine physical.