“The former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine whose abrupt ouster in May has become a topic of interest for House impeachment investigators said Friday that her departure came as a direct result of pressure President Trump placed on the State Department to remove her,” the Washington Post reports.

The New York Times says Yovanovitch “delivered a scathing indictment of his administration’s conduct of foreign policy, warning that private influence and personal gain have usurped diplomats’ judgment, threatening to undermine the nation’s interests and drive talented professionals out of public service.”

“Ms. Yovanovitch’s searing account, delivered at the risk of losing her job, could lend new momentum to the impeachment inquiry that imperils Mr. Trump.”

Yahoo News: “The Pentagon was confused. Hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine had been appropriated in late 2018 by Congress, intended to help fend off aggression by neighboring Russia. But well into 2019, as summer was edging toward autumn, the funds had still not moved.”

“Department of Defense officials began to worry that the funds would never make it to Ukraine, since the appropriations would expire with the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. They even began to prepare a legal challenge to the freezing of the funds, leading to an unprecedented fight within the Trump administration.”

“The White House gave a politically appointed official the authority to keep aid to Ukraine on hold after career budget staff members questioned the legality of delaying the funds, a shift that House Democrats are probing in their impeachment inquiry,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“President Trump’s order to freeze nearly $400 million in aid to Ukraine in mid-July is at the center of House Democratic efforts to investigate allegations that Mr. Trump used U.S. foreign-policy powers to benefit himself politically.”

“American diplomats who had pushed for the Trump administration to restore security funding to Ukraine were advised by the White House to play down the release of the money when it was finally approved,” the New York Times reports.

Said Brad Freden, acting deputy assistant secretary in a September 12 email: “Keep moving, people, nothing to see here…”

“The money is now at the heart of an impeachment inquiry by House Democrats into whether President Trump withheld a total of $391 million in funding as he sought damaging information on his political opponents from Ukraine’s newly-elected leader.”

“President Trump ordered the removal of the ambassador to Ukraine after months of complaints from allies outside the administration, including his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, that she was undermining him abroad and obstructing efforts to persuade Kyiv to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“State Department officials were told this spring that Ms. Yovanovitch’s removal was a priority for the president… Secretary of State Mike Pompeo supported the move.”

“President Trump’s rationale for why he withheld congressionally approved aid to Ukraine changed overnight,” Vox reports.

“On Monday, Trump told reporters that his decision to withhold aid to Ukraine — a decision seemingly at the heart of a whistleblower complaint roiling Washington — was over his concerns to ensure that the country’s new government was doing everything possible to root out corruption. But asked a similar question on Tuesday, Trump’s talking point suddenly changed to his frustrations about European countries not spending enough on foreign aid.”

Watch the video.

Jonathan Chait: Trump: I’d Like to Change My Ukraine Plea to “Not Guilty”

“President Trump told his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to hold back almost $400 million in military aid for Ukraine at least a week before a phone call in which Trump is said to have pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate the son of former vice president Joe Biden,” the Washington Post reports.

“Officials at the Office of Management and Budget relayed Trump’s order to the State Department and the Pentagon during an interagency meeting in mid-July… They explained that the president had ‘concerns’ and wanted to analyze whether the money needed to be spent.”

“Administration officials were instructed to tell lawmakers that the delays were part of an ‘interagency process’ but to give them no additional information — a pattern that continued for nearly two months, until the White House released the funds on the night of Sept. 11.”

Rudy Giuliani said he can’t be “100% certain” that President Trump did not threaten to withhold foreign aid when Trump reportedly urged Ukraine’s president to investigate the son of Joe Biden, CNBC reports.

Asked what he told the Ukrainian president about Joe Biden and son, Hunter, President Trump told ABC News, “You’re going to see.”

He added: ““We’re supporting a country; we want to make sure that country is honest. It’s very important to talk about corruption. If you don’t talk about corruption, why would you give money to a country that you think is corrupt? … So it’s very important that, on occasion, you speak to somebody about corruption.”

Aaron Blake: “Trump makes no mention about the Bidens, but he’s essentially doing what Giuliani did Thursday: He’s laying a preemptive defense for if it comes out that Trump did offer Ukraine something or threatened (explicitly or implicitly) to withhold something — such as $250 million in aid, which Trump did withhold for a time — in exchange for Ukraine investigating the Bidens.”

“Ukraine wants to stay out of a domestic political battle in Washington and any attempt by either side to take advantage of Ukraine would damage relations,” a top official in President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s administration told Reuters.

“Ahead of a meeting with President Donald Trump this week, Zelenskiy is caught in a fight between Republicans and Democrats over allegations that Trump pressured Zelenskiy to investigate Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden.”

“President Trump told reporters on Sunday that he would consider releasing a transcript of his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which is said to be the subject of an intelligence community whistleblower complaint,” The Hill reports.

Said Trump: “We’ll make a determination about how to release it, releasing it, saying what we said.”

He defended his conversation with Zelensky as “perfect.”

President Trump appeared to acknowledge that he had discussed former Vice President Joe Biden in a July 25 phone call with Ukraine’s president that is the subject of a congressional investigation, Bloomberg reports.

Said Trump: “The conversation I had was largely congratulatory, was largely corruption, all of the corruption taking place. It was largely the fact that we don’t want our people, like Vice President Biden and his son, creating to the corruption already in the Ukraine.”

“President Trump in a July phone call repeatedly pressured the president of Ukraine to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son, urging Volodymyr Zelensky about eight times to work with Rudy Giuliani, his personal lawyer, on a probe,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

Washington Post: “The disclosure comes amid new details about the White House’s role in preventing Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire from complying with Congressional demands for the material in the complaint.”

“White House Counsel Pat Cipollone has been engaged in the matter since shortly after the whistleblower action surfaced, officials said, helping to identify legal obstacles to the sharing of information that could be politically damaging to Trump.”

Daily Beast: “Ukraine is ready to investigate the connections Joe Biden’s son Hunter had with the Ukrainian natural-gas company Burisma Holdings, according to Anton Geraschenko, a senior adviser to the country’s interior minister who would oversee such an inquiry.”

Said Geraschenko: “Clearly, Trump is now looking for kompromat to discredit his opponent Biden, to take revenge for his friend Paul Manafort, who is serving seven years in prison.”