Watch Live: Impeachment Inquiry Hearings

• Democrats in the House are preparing to conduct the first public hearings in the impeachment inquiry, with three witnesses set to testify Wednesday and Friday.
• On Monday, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney abandoned efforts to join a lawsuit over congressional subpoenas, signaling he would open a separate case.
• A top Pentagon official told lawmakers the Defense Department was left in the dark about a decision to delay military aid to Ukraine.

On Wednesday, the House Intelligence Committee will hold a hearing with Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, and George Kent, a high-level State Department official. Both raised concerns over the administration’s attempts to pressure Ukraine into investigating supposed Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election and a company that had employed Hunter Biden, former Vice President Joe Biden’s son.

On Friday, the committee will hear from Marie Yovanovitch, a longtime U.S. diplomat who was ousted as ambassador to Ukraine earlier this year as a result of a campaign to discredit her, led by Mr. Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.

The committees leading the impeachment inquiry on Monday released transcripts of closed-door hearings with three witnesses, including Laura Cooper, a Pentagon official who oversees a U.S. military aid program to Ukraine. That program was delayed for months over the summer, allegedly as leverage to pressure the Ukrainian government to announce investigations. Cooper said the funds “were held without explanation,” and officials “began to raise concerns about how this could be done in a legal fashion.”

Trump says he’ll release transcript of other call with Zelensky “by week’s end”

7:22 a.m. President Trump says he’ll release the transcript of his call with Ukraine’s president “before week’s end,” something he suggested he might do last week.

The phone call is a precursor to his now-infamous July 25 call with Ukraine’s president that set into motion the ongoing impeachment inquiry.

“I will be releasing the transcript of the first, and therefore more important, phone call with the Ukrainian president before week’s end!” the president tweeted early Tuesday morning.

The president continues to insist his July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was “perfect,” a line most Republicans have declined to replicate.

On Monday, the president seemed to launch a new line of attack against Democrats’ swiftly moving inquiry — that transcripts in closed-door depositions where Republicans were present are made-up, something no other public official has suggested.