The Trump Impeachment Inquiry: Latest Updates

The White House formally called the impeachment inquiry illegitimate, after blocking a witness earlier in the day.

In an expansive letter to House Democratic leaders, the White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, called the House’s impeachment inquiry illegitimate, saying the administration will not cooperate unless and until the House votes to open an investigation.

Mr. Cipollone complained that the process implemented by the House’s committee chairmen is unfair, echoing the talking points of congressional Republicans.

“You have designed and implemented your inquiry in a manner that violates fundamental fairness and constitutionally mandated due process,” the White House counsel declared. He added, “Put simply, you seek to overturn the results of the 2016 election and deprive the American people of the President they have freely chosen.”

Earlier in the day, the Trump administration directed Gordon D. Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union, not to speak with investigators for three House committees.

The decision to block Mr. Sondland, a top American diplomat involved in its pressure campaign on Ukraine, hours before he was scheduled to sit for a deposition in the basement of the Capitol, is certain to provoke an immediate conflict. House Democrats have repeatedly warned that if the administration tries to interfere with their investigation, it will be construed as obstruction, a charge they see as potentially worthy of impeachment.

On Tuesday morning, Mr. Trump attacked the impeachment inquiry.

Trump’s Ukraine call was “crazy” and “frightening,” a White House official said the next day, according to the whistle-blower.

A White House official who listened to President Trump’s July phone call with Ukraine’s leader described it as “crazy,” “frightening,” and “completely lacking in substance related to national security,” according to a memo written by the whistle-blower at the center of the Ukraine scandal, a C.I.A. officer who spoke to the White House official.

The White House official was “visibly shaken by what had transpired,” the C.I.A. officer wrote in his memo, one day after Mr. Trump pressured President Volodymyr Zelensky.

A palpable sense of concern had already taken hold among at least some in the White House that the call had veered well outside the bounds of traditional diplomacy, the officer wrote.

“The official stated that there was already a conversation underway with White House lawyers about how to handle the discussion because, in the official’s view, the president had clearly committed a criminal act by urging a foreign power to investigate a U.S. person for the purposes of advancing his own re-election bid in 2020,” the C.I.A. officer wrote.

— Nicholas Fandos

Read more: Trump’s Ukraine Call Was ‘Crazy’ and ‘Frightening,’ Official Told Whistle-Blower

Giuliani gets a Senate microphone for his (unfounded) Ukraine theories.

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a staunch ally of President Trump, said Tuesday he will invite Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, to lay out his Ukraine theories before the committee.

Mr. Giuliani has led the push to enlist the Ukrainians to help investigate the business dealings of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s son and has embraced a conspiracy theory that Ukraine — not Russia — meddled in the 2016 election. Mr. Trump picked up on that theory in his now-infamous call to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, in July when he asked about a “server” that could be in Ukraine.

The hearing promises to be something of a counterweight to the House impeachment inquiry.

“Given the House of Representatives’ behavior, it is time for the Senate to inquire about corruption and other improprieties involving Ukraine,” Mr. Graham said.

With Democrats on the panel, the gambit might not be a slam dunk. Mr. Graham promised, “I will offer to Mr. Giuliani the opportunity to come before the Senate Judiciary Committee to inform the committee of his concerns,” to which Senator Kamala Harris, Democrat of California, responded, “Good. I have questions.”

Senate Intelligence Committee concludes again: Russia sought to elect Trump.

The Senate Intelligence Committee, striving to maintain bipartisan comity amid growing impeachment tensions, concluded on Tuesday that Moscow used social media in 2016 to boost Mr. Trump, damage Hillary Clinton and sow discord in the electorate.

The committee’s second report on Russia’s intervention in the election reached familiar conclusions through its 85 pages: Moscow’s Internet Research Agency targeted African Americans more than any other group, “engaged with unwitting Americans to further its reach beyond the digital realm,” with protests and petition, and is still at it.

“Russia is waging an information warfare campaign against the U.S. that didn’t start and didn’t end with the 2016 election,” said Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, the committee’s Republican chairman. “Their goal is broader: to sow societal discord and erode public confidence in the machinery of government.”

But the timing is auspicious, coming out as allies of Mr. Trump seek again to cloud voters’ understanding of Russia’s actions and shift blame onto Ukraine through unfounded conspiracy theories.

Rick Perry gets roped into the Ukraine matter.

When Energy Secretary Rick Perry led an American delegation to the inauguration of Ukraine’s new president in May, he took the opportunity to suggest the names of Americans the new Ukrainian government might want to advise and oversee the country’s state-owned gas company.

Mr. Perry’s focus during the trip on Ukraine’s energy industry was in keeping with a push he had begun months earlier under the previous Ukrainian president, and it was consistent with United States policy of promoting anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine and greater energy independence from Russia.

But his actions during the trip have entangled him in a controversy about the pressure campaign waged by President Trump and his allies to pressure Mr. Zelensky to investigate Mr. Trump’s rivals.

Mr. Perry’s trip raised questions about whether he was seeking to provide help to certain Americans interested in gaining a foothold in the Ukrainian energy business at a time when the new Ukrainian government was looking to the United States for signals of support in its simmering conflict with Russia.

— Kenneth P. Vogel, Matina Stevis-Gridneff and Andrew E. Kramer

Read more: Rick Perry’s Focus on Gas Company Entangles Him in Ukraine Case

Catch up on impeachment: What you need to know about the inquiry.

• President Trump repeatedly pressured President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to investigate people and issues of political concern to Mr. Trump, including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Here’s a timeline of events since January.

• A C.I.A. officer who was once detailed to the White House filed a whistle-blower complaint on Mr. Trump’s interactions with Mr. Zelensky. Read the complaint.