“That sounds like something I would say. That’s how Trump and I communicate. A lot of four-letter words. In this case three letters.”

— Ambassador Gordon Sondland, confirming he told President Trump that Ukraine President Zelensky “loves your ass, he’ll do whatever you want” while talking to him on a cell phone at a Kiev restaurant.

New York Times: “Gordon Sondland, the diplomat at the center of the House impeachment inquiry, kept Secretary of State Mike Pompeo apprised of key developments in the campaign to pressure Ukraine’s leader into public commitments that would satisfy President Trump.”

“Mr. Sondland informed Mr. Pompeo in mid-August about a draft statement that Mr. Sondland and another American diplomat had worked on with the Ukrainians that they hoped would persuade Mr. Trump to grant Ukraine’s new president the Oval Office meeting he was seeking.”

Los Angeles Times: “The defense funding for Ukraine remains in U.S. accounts, according to the document. It’s not clear why the money hasn’t been released, and members of Congress are demanding answers.”

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman testified that after he reported his concerns on President Trump’s July 25 call with the Ukrainian president, he was excluded from several meetings he usually would have attended in his capacity as the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, CNN reports.

Said Vindman: “It was out of the course of normal affairs.”

President Trump’s call to the cell phone of a U.S. ambassador — a call that included a discussion of “investigations” Trump was asking Ukraine to launch into his Democratic rivals — was at risk of being monitored by Russia, a State Department official told House impeachment investigators, Politico reports.

Said David Holmes: “We generally assume that mobile communications in Ukraine are being monitored.”

David Holmes, a senior political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, testified that Ukrainian officials “came to understand what was required” in order to get military assistance and a meeting with President Trump, the Washington Post reports.

“When President Trump’s advisers suggested that Beijing resume buying around $20 billion in American farm products as part of a trade deal, Mr. Trump wasn’t satisfied. In a dramatic public retelling in the Cabinet Room, he said he pressed his team to more than triple that figure, then trimmed that a little and asked for up to $50 billion in annual purchases,” the New York Times reports.

“Mr. Trump has brought his characteristic love of show business to trade talks with China, injecting public drama into typically staid proceedings.”

“But more than a year and a half into the biggest trade war in modern history, Mr. Trump’s approach has not yet produced the grand finale he hoped for. Instead, the president’s cliffhanger tactics appear to have made it even harder to bring complex trade talks to a close and exacerbated economic uncertainty across the globe.”

Former Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was greeted with a standing ovation from the crowd at a Washington, D.C., jazz club over the weekend, days after her dramatic testimony in the House impeachment probe.

“Despite his denials, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was feeling pressure from the Trump administration to investigate Joe Biden before his July phone call with President Trump that has led to impeachment hearings,” the AP reports.

“In early May, staff at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, including then-Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, were briefed on a meeting Zelensky held in which he sought advice on how to navigate the difficult position he was in… He was concerned that Trump and associates were pressing him to take action that could affect the 2020 U.S. presidential race.”

“The briefings show that U.S. officials knew early that Zelensky was feeling pressure to investigate Biden, even though the Ukrainian leader later denied it in a joint news conference with Trump in September.”

A CBS News investigation uncovers a possible pay-for-play scheme involving President Trump’s ambassador nominee to the Bahamas.

“North Korea on Monday responded to a tweet by President Trump that hinted at another summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, saying it has no interest in giving Trump further meetings to brag about unless it gets something substantial in return,” the AP reports.

An overwhelming 70% of Americans think President Trump’s request to a foreign leader to investigate his political rival, which sits at the heart of the House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry, was wrong, a new ABC News/Ipsos poll finds.

A slim majority of Americans, 51%, believe Trump’s actions were both wrong and he should be impeached and removed from office. But only 21% of Americans say they are following the hearings very closely.

“A U.S. ambassador set to testify this week in the House impeachment inquiry kept several Trump administration officials apprised of his effort to get Ukraine to launch investigations that President Trump would later discuss in a July call with his Ukrainian counterpart,” emails reviewed by the Wall Street Journal show.

“Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union who will be one of eight witnesses to testify in the inquiry’s second week of open hearings, is one of several people who has linked a holdup of security aid to Ukraine over the summer with investigations that Mr. Trump sought.”

“Mr. Sondland kept several top officials—including acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and Energy Secretary Rick Perry—apprised of that push, according to the emails reviewed by the Journal, in the weeks leading up to Mr. Trump’s July 25 phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart that spurred a whistleblower complaint and, ultimately, the impeachment probe.”

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) said Sunday that the Trump administration officials who provided information to the anonymous whistleblower about the president’s efforts to pressure Ukraine “exposed things that didn’t need to be exposed,” the Washington Post reports.

Said Johnson: “This would have been far better off if we would’ve just taken care of this behind the scenes. We have two branches of government. Most people, most people wanted to support Ukraine. We were trying to convince President Trump.”

The report into possible Russian interference that British prime minister Boris Johnson’s government is refusing to publish said that the Kremlin may have affected the 2016 Brexit referendum, the Times of London reports.

The report also criticized British intelligence services for not devoting enough resources to combating the threat of the Russian government.

“Timothy Morrison, a former White House national security official, told House investigators in sworn testimony that he feared leaks of the contents of the July 25 call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky would be damaging, so he recommended restricting access to the transcript,” the Washington Post reports.

“Morrison, an expert on Russia and Ukraine who served on the National Security Council before leaving the job at the end of October, said he knew immediately after listening to the call where Trump asks Zelensky to investigate the Bidens that they needed to keep it under wraps.”

Also important: CNN reports Morrison said Sondland “believed and at least related to me that the President was giving him instruction.”