“Associates of a Ukrainian oligarch fighting extradition to the U.S. were working to dig up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden last summer in an effort to get Rudy Giuliani’s help in the oligarch’s legal case,” Bloomberg reports.

“Dmitry Firtash, charged with conspiracy by the U.S. and living in Vienna, shuffled lawyers in July to add Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing, vocal supporters of President Donald Trump who had worked with Giuliani. Around that time, some of Firtash’s associates began to use his broad network of Ukraine contacts to get damaging information on Biden.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) writing in the Washington Post:

“Withdrawing U.S. forces from Syria is a grave strategic mistake. It will leave the American people and homeland less safe, embolden our enemies, and weaken important alliances. Sadly, the recently announced pullout risks repeating the Obama administration’s reckless withdrawal from Iraq, which facilitated the rise of the Islamic State in the first place.”

“A career State Department official overseeing Ukraine policy told congressional investigators this week that he had raised concerns in early 2015 about then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son serving on the board of a Ukrainian energy company but was turned away by a Biden staffer,” the Washington Post reports.

“George Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of state, testified Tuesday that he worried that Hunter Biden’s position at the firm Burisma Holdings would complicate efforts by U.S. diplomats to convey to Ukrainian officials the importance of avoiding conflicts of interest.”

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) suggested that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan might have given President Trump an ultimatum — and that Trump caved, the Washington Post reports.

“Here is a U.S. senator — and a Republican one — suggesting not just that Trump got out-negotiated, but that he basically got told what was going to happen and ran away. Romney is entertaining the idea that a relatively small country forced the hand of the United States and also dictated to the supposed dealmaker in chief.”

Aa rally in Dallas, President Trump “justified the idea of removing American troops from Syria by saying he did not want to deplete the U.S. military anymore or continue to entangle the U.S. in what he called ‘the endless wars,'” Politico reports.

“It was good to let Turkey attack the Kurds, longtime U.S. allies in the fight against ISIS, Trump said, because ‘sometimes you have to let them fight like two kids. Then you pull them apart.’”

“Fighting continued Friday morning in a northeast Syrian border town at the center of the fight between Turkey and Kurdish forces, despite a U.S.-brokered cease-fire that went into effect overnight,” the AP reports.

“Shelling and gunfire could be heard in and around Ras al-Ayn as smoke billowed from locations near the border with Turkey and the Turkish town of Ceylanpinar. The fighting died down by mid-morning while smoke continued to rise.”

“All roads lead to Putin.”

— Speaker Nancy Pelosi, quoted by USA Today, describing what she told President Trump at a White House meeting yesterday.

“Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said Thursday that President Trump did not withhold military aid to Ukraine as part of a quid pro quo to get that country to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden,” CNBC reports.

“Instead, Mulvaney told reporters, that the withholding of aid this summer was due in part because Trump wanted Ukraine to investigate the possibility that elements in that country somehow had interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to Trump’s detriment.”

New York Times: “It was the first time a White House official has publicly acknowledged what a parade of current and former administration officials have told impeachment investigators on Capitol Hill.”

Vice President Mike Pence announced from Ankara on Thursday that Turkey has agreed to cease its military operation in northern Syria until Kurdish forces can withdraw from the area, Axios reports.

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said during a press briefing Thursday that next year’s G7 summit will be hosted at the Trump National Doral Miami resort, Axios reports.

Philip Bump: “There are a number of remarkable lines in the letter President Trump sent to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan this month. But it’s a relatively unremarkable one that may be the most revealing.”

“‘I have worked hard to solve some of your problems,’ Trump writes at the beginning of the second paragraph. It’s not as splashy as ‘Don’t be a fool!’ but it’s more interesting. What, exactly, are those problems Trump has been working to solve?”

“Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, told House impeachment investigators Thursday that President Trump urged him to work with his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani on matters related to Ukraine, the Washington Post reports.

“The revelation came as Sondland, a key figure in the probe, appeared behind closed doors to testify about Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden at a time when nearly $400 million in military aid was being withheld.”

Politico: “Sondland’s testimony has the potential to be the most devastating yet for Trump’s defenders.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan put President Trump’s extraordinary letter ‘in the bin,” the BBC reports.

“On Wednesday, the U.S. military said two F-15E jet fighters carried out an airstrike to destroy an ammunition-storage facility, latrines, tents and other parts of the Syria headquarters of the American campaign to destroy Islamic State after pulling its forces from the base,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The decision to target the base, which included warehouses used to train-and-equip the Kurdish-led fighters, came after Turkish-backed forces moved on the facility on Tuesday.”

“European Union and U.K. negotiators agreed on a draft of a new Brexit deal, clearing a major hurdle to Britain’s exit from the bloc and setting up a crucial vote in the U.K. Parliament,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“After days of intense talks, the two sides struck a compromise agreement Thursday intended to ensure a border doesn’t appear on the island of Ireland after Brexit. It was the main sticking point in negotiations aimed at smoothing Britain’s split with its largest trading partner.”