“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.”

New York Times: “In the United States, Paul Manafort is facing prosecution on charges of money laundering and financial fraud stemming from his decade of work for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine.”

“But in Ukraine, where officials are wary of offending President Trump, four meandering cases that involve Mr. Manafort, Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman, have been effectively frozen by Ukraine’s chief prosecutor.”

“With one offhand remark, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson left European diplomats befuddled at a gathering in Italy,” Bloomberg reports.

Said Tillerson: “Why should U.S. taxpayers be interested in Ukraine?”

“The question was sure to give pause to any European official fearful that President Donald Trump might ease sanctions and let the former Soviet state slip back into it Russia’s orbit, even as tensions with Moscow are running high.”