President Donald Trump has been accused in a whistleblower complaint of “using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election.”

“In the course of my official duties, I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election,” the whistleblower complaint reads. “This interference includes, among other things, pressuring a foreign country to investigate one of the President’s main domestic political rivals. The President’s personal lawyer, Mr. Rudolph Giuliani, is a central figure in this effort. Attorney General [William] Barr appears to be involved as well.”

The complaint — which was filed Aug. 12 but not released until Sept. 26 — is corroborated by a memo of a July 25 phone call that Trump placed to the recently elected president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky. The memo, which was released by the White House on Sept. 25, confimed that Trump asked Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

“There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great,” Trump told Zelensky, according to the memo, which isn’t a verbatim transcript, but rather the notes taken by assigned staff. “Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it … It sounds horrible to me.” (As we’ve written, Biden’s son wasn’t being prosecuted, and Biden didn’t brag about stopping “the prosecution.”)

Zelensky agreed, and Trump said he would have Giuliani and Barr call him.

Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire called the complaint “unprecedented.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the president’s actions unconstitutional, and called for impeachment hearings.

Ultimately, the House voted to impeach Trump, but the Senate did not convict him.

Here we list some of the key dates in the impeachment of President Donald Trump.

Editor’s Note: This story will be updated as necessary with new entries and information. It was last updated on Feb. 5, 2020.

2018

Jan. 23 — Biden boasts that he threatened Ukraine’s then-president, Petro Poroshenko, and then-prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, to fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who was widely viewed as ineffective at prosecuting corruption, or risk losing $1 billion in loan guarantees from the U.S. “I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,” Biden says in remarks at an event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations. “Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.” Shokin was removed in March 2016.

Late 2018 — Giuliani reportedly Skypes with Shokin, the former Ukraine prosecutor general.

2019

Jan. 23 — Giuliani and two of his associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, participate in a conference call with Shokin, according to notes of the call that were provided by the State Department Office of Inspector General to the House committees conducting the impeachment inquiry.

Jan. 25-26 — Giuliani meets with Yuriy Lutsenko, the Ukraine prosecutor general. Lutsenko would later tell Bloomberg News that the two men talked over the course of two days and spoke about corruption in Ukraine, specifically about the investigations involving Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma, a gas company in Ukraine. Biden’s son, Hunter, was a board member for Burisma from 2014 to 2019. (The House impeachment report would later say that over the two days Giuliani, Lutsenko, Parnas and Fruman discussed whether then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was “’loyal to President Trump,’ as well as investigations into Burisma and the Bidens.”)

Jan. 9 — Lev Parnas, an associate of Giuliani, sends Giuliani a text message saying the U.S. has denied Shokin a visa. In response, Giuliani says, “I can revive it.” The following day, Giuliani texts Parnas and says, “It’s going to work I have no 1 in it.” (Parnes would later say that “no 1” refers to Trump.) And the day after that, Giuliani reassures Parnas that Shokin will get his visa, and also tells Parnas that he gave Parnas’ phone number to Jay Sekulow, another personal attorney for Trump.

February — Giuliani meets again with Lutsenko in Warsaw, where Trump’s lawyer was giving a speech about Iran.

March 20 — Hill.TV airs an interview with Lutsenko, who alleges Yovanovitch gave him a list of people not to prosecute. Yovanovitch is a career diplomat who also served as an ambassador under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. (Less than a month later, Lutsenko would recant this statement, telling TheBabel, an online Ukraine website, that he asked for a do-not-prosecute list but the ambassador did not give him one.)

March 22-26 — Parnas and Robert F. Hyde, a Republican congressional candidate in Connecticut, exchange WhatsApp messages about Ambassador Yovanovitch. At one point, Hyde writes: “Wow! Can’t believe Trumo [Trump] hasn’t fired this bitch. I’ll get right in that.” He also sends Parnas several messages about Yovanovitch’s security detail and her whereabouts.

April 1 — In one of several pieces on Ukraine, The Hill‘s conservative opinion columnist John Solomon writes that Joe Biden, as vice president, pressured Ukraine to fire its prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, in March 2016 at a time when Shokin’s office was investigating Burisma, a private Ukrainian gas company, and its board members, including Hunter Biden. Solomon writes that Ukraine had “reopened” its investigation of Burisma after Biden had bragged about forcing Shokin out of office. (There is no evidence of any wrongdoing by either Biden or his son, or that Hunter Biden was ever under investigation. See “Trump Twists Facts on Biden and Ukraine.”)

April 21 – Comedian Volodymyr Zelensky is elected president of Ukraine. Trump calls to congratulate him on his election victory.

The White House emails the media a statement that says, “President Donald J. Trump spoke today with President-elect Volodymyr Zelenskyy to congratulate him on his victory in Ukraine’s April 21 election.” Trump “expressed his commitment to work together with President-elect Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people to implement reforms that strengthen democracy, increase prosperity, and root out corruption,” according to the statement. (The White House would later release a memo of the call that showed Trump did not discuss his commitment to help root out corruption, or any of the other policy issues mentioned in the April 21 statement. See our Nov. 15 story, “Discrepancy in White House Versions of First Trump-Zelensky Phone Call.”)

April 23 — One day before the State Department asked Yovanovitch to return to the U.S., Giuliani texts Parnas and says, “He fired her again,” referring to Trump and Yovanovitch. Parnas replies, “I pray it happens this time I’ll call you tomorrow my brother.”

May — Undersecretary of Defense for Policy John Rood writes in a letter to congressional committees that he has “certified” that Ukraine “has taken substantial actions to make defense institutional reforms for the purposes of decreasing corruption, increasing accountability, and sustaining improvements of combat capability enabled by U.S. assistance.” The letter says “now that this defense institutional reform has occurred,” the Defense Department can provide support to Ukraine. “Implementation of this further support will begin no sooner than 15 days following this notification.”

This was the second notice sent to Congress regarding $250 million Congress had appropriated for security aid to Ukraine for fiscal 2019. According to an aide to Sen. Dick Durbin, the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee on defense appropriations, the first notice on the Defense Department’s plan for the appropriated money was sent in February. “We don’t typically make these notifications public,” the aide told FactCheck.org.

May — Giuliani meets with “a top Ukrainian anti-corruption prosecutor, Nazar Kholodnytsky, in Paris,” according to the Washington Post. “Kholodnytsky — who was caught on tape advising witnesses in corruption cases how to avoid prosecution — had faced calls to step down from the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch,” the Post reports on Sept. 25.

May 2 — Parnas contacts Zelensky aide Ivan Bakanov to ask for his help in setting up a meeting between Giuliani and Zelensky. According to a translation of their messages, which were written in Russian, Bakanov told Parnas, “I shared the information you provided with Mr. President via the established channel, but I have not yet received confirmation.”

May 6 — The State Department announces that Yovanovitch would be ending her assignment as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine “as planned,” although her term was not yet completed.

May 9 — The New York Times reports that Giuliani planned to travel to Ukraine to encourage Zelensky to “pursue inquiries that allies of the White House contend could yield new information about two matters of intense interest to Mr. Trump.” (One was the origins of the Russia investigation, and the other was Hunter Biden’s involvement with Burisma.)

May 10 — Giuliani writes a letter to Zelensky, congratulating him on his election and asking for a half-hour meeting on May 13 or May 14 with Giuliani and Giuliani’s colleague, Victoria Toensing, an American attorney. Giuliani says he is doing so “in my capacity as personal counsel to President Trump and with his knowledge and consent.”

Giuliani cancels the trip, telling Fox News that he believed that Ukraine’s new president was surrounded by “a group of people that are enemies of the president [of the United States], and in some cases, enemies of the United States and in one case, an already convicted person who has been found to be involved in assisting the Democrats with the 2016 investigation.”

May 11 — Parnas texts a copy of Giuliani’s letter to Zelensky aide Serhiy Shefir.

May 12 — Parnas meets Shefir in Kyiv.

May 14 — Giuliani tells a Ukrainian journalist that Yovanovitch was removed as the U.S. ambassador “because she was part of the efforts against the President.” (This is contained in the whistleblower’s complaint.)

May 16 — Lutsenko, Ukraine’s prosecutor general, tells Bloomberg News that there is no evidence that Hunter Biden violated “any Ukrainian laws — at least as of now, we do not see any wrongdoing.” A former prosecutor said that the investigation of Burisma was dormant when Shokin was removed as prosecutor general in March 2016, Bloomberg reports.

Lutsenko, who has since resigned, says a corruption investigation into leaders of Ukrainian gas companies concerned a potential money-laundering transaction that had occurred before Hunter Biden joined the board. “Biden was definitely not involved,” Lutsenko tells Bloomberg News. “We do not have any grounds to think that there was any wrongdoing starting from 2014.”

May 19 — In a Fox News interview, Trump says Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to fire a prosecutor who “was after his son,” Hunter Biden. (There is no evidence that Hunter Biden was under investigation, or that Joe Biden took any official action on his son’s behalf. See “FactChecking Trump’s Fox News Interview.“)

May 20 — Energy Secretary Rick Perry leads the U.S. delegation to attend Zelensky’s inauguration. Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, and Kurt Volker, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, are members of the delegation.

May 23 — Sondland and other members of the U.S. delegation to Zelensky’s inauguration meet with Trump and share their “positive views” of the new Ukrainian president. They press for Trump to call Zelensky and host an Oval Office visit with him. “However, President Trump was skeptical that Ukraine was serious about reforms and anti-corruption, and he directed those of us present at the meeting to talk to Mr. Giuliani, his personal attorney, about his concerns,” Sondland would later recall in congressional testimony. “It was apparent to all of us that the key to changing the President’s mind on Ukraine was Mr. Giuliani.” (See the entry for Oct. 17.)

May 28 — William Taylor, a career foreign service officer, meets with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to discuss becoming the charge d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine — effectively filling the ambassadorship vacated when Yovanovitch was removed. Taylor expresses concerns about Giuliani’s involvement in Ukraine-U.S. affairs, but accepts the job after receiving assurances from Pompeo that U.S. policy toward Ukraine had not changed. (Taylor discussed this meeting in his Oct. 22 deposition.)

June 12 — Over two days, ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos interviews Trump. In one of the interviews, Trump tells Stephanopoulos that he would be willing to accept what Trump called “oppo research” from a foreign country. “If somebody called from a country, Norway, ‘We have information on your opponent.’ Oh, I think I’d want to hear it,” Trump said.

June 18 — The Defense Department announces it will send the $250 million in security assistance funding to Ukraine.

July 10 — Perry, Sondland and Volker meet with National Security Adviser John Bolton and members of the National Security Council to discuss Ukraine. Perry, Sondland and Volker say they support Trump placing a working phone call to Zelensky, but Bolton and his staff oppose such a call.

July 12 — Robert Blair, an assistant to the president and senior adviser to acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, sends an email to Michael Duffey, the associate director of the Resource Management Organization at the Office of Management and Budget, that says the president is directing a hold on security aid for Ukraine. (Mark Sandy, the deputy associate director for national security at OMB, disclosed the existence of the email at his Nov. 16 deposition before the House committees conducting the impeachment investigation. Sandy testified that Duffey forwarded him a copy of the email.)

July 18 — In a National Security Council video-conference call, an Office of Management and Budget official says that she was instructed by her boss not to approve any additional security aid for Ukraine until further notice. “All that the OMB staff person said was that the directive had come from the President to the Chief of Staff to OMB,” Taylor, the charge d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, would later tell Congress. Mulvaney is the White House acting chief of staff. (Trump would later confirm he blocked the aid, when asked about a Sept. 23 report in the Washington Post, based on three anonymous “senior administration officials,” that Trump ordered Mulvaney to withhold the funding in mid-July.)

July 19 — Duffey tells Sandy that he had informed the Defense Department about the White House directive to hold security aid to Ukraine, but could not give Sandy a reason for the hold. “So, on that day, I emphasized that that would raise a number of questions that we would need to address,” Sandy would later tell House investigators. “And so I advised that we would want to consult with our Office of the General Counsel on those questions first.”

Sondland sends an email to several top Trump administration officials, including Pompeo, Mulvaney and Perry that reads: “I Talked to Zelensky just now… He is prepared to receive Potus’ call. Will assure him that he intends to run a fully transparent investigation and will ‘turn over every stone’. He would greatly appreciate a call prior to Sunday so that he can put out some media about a ‘friendly and productive call’ (no details) prior to Ukraine election on Sunday.” (Sondland released this email at a public hearing on Nov. 20, and he testified that he was referring to the investigations of the 2016 elections and Burisma. “As I communicated to the team, I told President Zelensky in advance that assurances to ‘run a fully transparent investigation’ and ‘turn over every stone’ were necessary in his call with President Trump,” Sondland testified.)

In a three-way text message with Volker and Taylor, Sondland says that a phone call between Trump and Zelensky would soon take place. Volker’s text message says what is “[m]ost impt is for Zelensky to say that he will help investigation — and address any specific personnel issues — if there are any.” (Taylor would later discuss these text messages in his Oct. 22 congressional testimony.)

Volker, texts Giuliani and says he will connect him with “Andrey Yermak, who is very close” to Zelensky. Volker suggests a three-way call between them the following Monday. The Wall Street Journal reported that after the call, according to a text message it was shown by Giuliani, Yermak told Giuliani that he was “sure things will move quickly from today onwards and we will be able to take this relationship to a new level.”

July 22 — Sandy participates in a conference call with the Office of General Counsel at OMB to discuss the legality of the hold.

July 25 — Sandy signs a document that officially placed the first hold on the security aid to Ukraine. There were “at least a half-dozen” holds put in place in August and September, Sandy would later say in his deposition.

A Ukraine Embassy official contacts a staffer at the U.S. Department of Defense about the security aid. (Laura Cooper, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, told Congress in her Nov. 20 testimony: “On July 25th, a member of my staff got a question from a Ukraine Embassy contact asking what was going on with Ukraine security assistance.”)

On the same day, Trump calls Ukrainian President Zelensky. Secretary of State Pompeo is one of the U.S. officials listening in on the call. In a statement, Ukraine’s office of the president says Trump expressed hope that Ukraine can “complete investigation of corruption cases, which inhibited the interaction between Ukraine and the USA.” The White House issued a statement, per Deputy Press Secretary Judd Deere, that said: “Today, President Donald J. Trump spoke by telephone with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine to congratulate him on his recent election. President Trump and President Zelenskyy discussed ways to strengthen the relationship between the United States and Ukraine, including energy and economic cooperation. Both leaders also expressed that they look forward to the opportunity to meet.” (Two months later, under pressure from House Democrats, the White House released a memo of the call in which Trump asked Zelensky to open up a corruption investigation of Joe and Hunter Biden, and to look into CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm the Democratic National Committee hired after its server was hacked during the 2016 election. CrowdStrike determined that Russia was behind the cyberattack. See the Sept. 25 entry.)

Before Trump calls Zelensky, U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker tells Yermak, a top Zelensky aide, in a text message: “Heard from White House – assuming President Z convinces trump he will investigate/’get to the bottom of what happened’ in 2016, we will nail down date for visit to Washington.”

July 26 — Volker visits Kyiv and meets with “President Zelenskyy and a variety of Ukrainian political figures” and provides “advice to the Ukrainian leadership about how to ‘navigate’ the demands that the [U.S.] President [Trump] had made of Mr. Zelenskyy,” according to the whistleblower complaint released Sept. 26.

Sondland calls Trump during lunch at a restaurant in Kyiv, and David Holmes, a political counselor for the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, overhears the president say, “So, he’s gonna do the investigation?” Sondland replies, “He’s gonna do it.” (In his public testimony on Nov. 21, Holmes would later say that after the call Sondland told him Trump is only interested in “big stuff” in Ukraine, by which “he meant ‘big stuff’ that benefits the President, like the ‘Biden investigation’ that Mr. Giuliani was pushing.” For more see the Nov. 15 and 20 entries.)

Aug. 2 — Giuliani travels to Madrid to meet with one of Zelensky’s advisers, Yermak. “The U.S. officials characterized this meeting, which was not reported publicly at the time, as a ‘direct follow-up’ to the President’s call with Mr. Zelenskyy about the ‘cases’ they had discussed,” according to the whistleblower complaint. Giuliani later told the New York Times that he “strongly urged” Yermak to “just investigate the darn things.”

Aug. 10 — In a text message exchange, Volker, the U.S. special envoy to Ukraine, tells Yermak that they should “iron out statement” for Zelensky to make “and use that to get date” for a White House visit for the Ukrainian president. Yermak responds, “Once we have a date, will call for a press briefing, announcing upcoming visit and outlining vision for the reboot of US-UKRAINE relationship, including among other things Burisma and election meddling in investigations.” (Sondland provided a similar WhatsApp message exchange with Yermak to the House intelligence committee during a public hearing on Nov. 20.)

Aug. 11 — Sondland sends an email to Lisa Kenna, executive secretary in the State Department, that is addressed to Secretary of State Pompeo. “Mike – Kurt and I negotiated a statement from Ze[lensky] to be delivered for our review in a day or two. The contents will hopefully make the boss happy enough to authorize an invitation. Ze plans to have a big presser on the openness subject (including specifics) next week.” Kenna responds, “Gordon, I’ll pass to S,” referring to Secretary Pompeo. (The email was also submitted by Sondland during the Nov. 20 hearing.)

Aug. 12 — A whistleblower files a complaint, addressed to chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees, that says: “In the course of my official duties, I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election.”

The complaint alleges that Trump in a July 25 phone call pressured Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, and to look into the origins of the U.S. investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Some White House officials who listened to the call told the whistleblower that they were “deeply disturbed” by the phone call, and were in discussions with White House lawyers “because of the likelihood, in the officials’ retelling, that they had witnessed the President abuse his office for personal gain,” according to the whistleblower complaint. It also lays out a possible “connection” between Trump’s request to investigate the Bidens and the White House’s decision to suspend U.S. security assistance to Ukraine.

Aug. 13 — Volker texts apparent draft language for the Ukrainian statement to Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union. Volker writes: “We intend to initiate and complete a transparent and unbiased investigation of all available facts and episodes, including those involving Burisma and the 2016 U.S. elections, which in turn will prevent the recurrence of this problem in the future.” Sondland responds: “Perfect. Lets send to Andrey after our call.”

Aug. 22 — Sondland sends an email to Pompeo about Trump’s scheduled visit to Poland on Sept. 1. “Should we block time in Warsaw for a short pull-aside for Potus to meet Zelensky? I would ask Zelensky to look him in the eye and tell him that once Ukraine’s new justice folks are in place (mid-Sept) Ze should be able to move forward publicly and with confidence on those issues of importance to Potus and to the US. Hopefully, that will break the logjam.” Pompeo responds, “Yes.” (Sondland submitted the email to the House intelligence committee during the Nov. 20 hearing. Trump would later cancel his trip to Warsaw “due to Hurricane Dorian,” Sondland testified.)

Aug. 26 — Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for the intelligence community, writes to Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire to say that he has reviewed the whistleblower’s complaint and has deemed it an “‘urgent concern’ that ‘appears credible.'” Atkinson informs Maguire that, under the law, he has seven days to forward the complaint to the committee chairmen “together with any comments the Director considers appropriate.”

National Security Adviser John Bolton emails Sondland and asks for Giuliani’s contact information, which Sondland provides. (The email was submitted by Sondland during the Nov. 20 hearing.)

Aug. 29 — The Defense Department confirms there is a hold on the $250 million in military aid appropriated by Congress, an aide to Sen. Durbin told us. This comes one day after Politico reports the Trump administration was “slow-walking” the money.

Politico also reports that the Pentagon “has reviewed the foreign assistance package and supports it,” quoting “a senior Defense Department official.”

Taylor, the charge d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, writes a cable to Secretary of State Pompeo that describes the “folly” in withholding military aid to Ukraine “at a time when hostilities were still active in the east and when Russia was watching closely to gauge the level of American support for the Ukrainian government.” Taylor tells Pompeo that he cannot defend such a policy. (Taylor would later discuss the cable in his Oct. 22 congressional testimony.)

Sept. 1 — Vice President Mike Pence meets with Ukrainian President Zelensky in Poland during an event marking the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.

Sondland tells Zelensky aide Yermak that “resumption of U.S. aid would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the public anti-corruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks.” Sondland would later reveal this “brief pull-aside conversation,” which he said followed the meeting between Pence and Zelensky, in a Nov. 4 supplemental declaration to his Oct. 17 closed-door testimony to House committees. Sondland says there was “some question” about whether the public statement needed to come from Zelensky or the new prosecutor general of Ukraine. But “[s]oon thereafter” Sondland “came to understand” that Zelensky would need to make the statement, information Sondland believed to have come from Giuliani or Volker, who “may have discussed” it with Giuliani.

Sondland would say he doesn’t know “when, why, or by whom” the security aid to Ukraine was frozen, but “in the absence of any credible explanation for the suspension of aid, I presumed that the aid suspension had become linked to the proposed anti-corruption statement.”

“I mentioned to Vice President Pence before the meetings with the Ukrainians that I had concerns that the delay in aid had become tied to the issue of investigations,” Sondland would later say in his opening statement at a Nov. 21 public hearing. Pence “nodded,” in a “sort of duly noted” way, Sondland said. (After the hearing, Pence’s chief of staff denied Sondland’s account, saying Pence “never had a conversation with Gordon Sondland about investigating the Bidens, Burisma, or the conditional release of financial aid to Ukraine based upon potential investigations.”)

Taylor writes in a text message exchange involving Volker and Sondland: “Are we now saying that security assistance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?” Sondland responds: “Call me.”

Sept. 2 — In a press conference, Pence is asked whether he spoke about Biden with Zelensky, and whether the freeze on Ukraine funding had anything to do with “efforts, including by Rudy Giuliani, to try to dig up dirt on the Biden family.” Pence cites the administration’s “great concerns about issues of corruption” in Ukraine and says he “called on [Zelensky] to work with us to engage our European partners to participate at a greater level in Ukraine.” Pence says he did not speak to Zelensky about Biden.

Sept. 3 — A bipartisan group of senators sends a letter to Mulvaney, urging him to release the appropriated aid to Ukraine. “This funding is crucial to the long term stability of Ukraine,” reads the letter from Democratic Sens. Durbin, Jeanne Shaheen and Richard Blumenthal, and Republican Sens. Rob Portman and Ron Johnson.

Sept. 7 — National Security Council aide Tim Morrison tells Taylor about a phone call earlier that day between Sondland and Trump. “According to Mr. Morrison, President Trump told Ambassador Sondland that he was not asking for a ‘quid pro quo.’ But President Trump did insist that President Zelenskyy go to a microphone and say he is opening investigations of Biden and 2016 election interference, and that President Zelenskyy should want to do this himself,” Taylor would later tell Congress.

Sept. 8 — In a phone call, Sondland tells Taylor that Trump, as a businessman, naturally wants something in return from Zelensky in exchange for U.S. security aid. “When a businessman is about to sign a check to someone who owes him something,” Taylor would later recall Sondland telling him, “the businessman asks that person to pay up before signing the check.” In his testimony to Congress, Taylor says he told Sondland “the explanation made no sense: the Ukrainians did not ‘owe’ President Trump anything, and holding up security assistance for domestic political gain was ‘crazy.'”

Sept. 9 — Atkinson, the inspector general of the intelligence community, notifies the House intelligence committee that he received a whistleblower’s complaint relating to an “urgent concern” on Aug. 12. He says he found the information credible, and sent “my determination of a credible urgent concern” along with a copy of the complaint to Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, who had seven days to forward the complaint to Congress. But, contrary to “past practice,” Maguire did not forward the complaint to Congress, believing “the allegations do not meet the definition of an ‘urgent concern’ under the [whistleblower] statute,” Atkinson writes. The inspector general says he will keep the committee apprised of his attempts to resolve the issue.

Three House committees announce investigations into whether Trump and Giuliani tried to pressure Ukraine into conducting “politically-motivated investigations under the guise of anti-corruption activity.”

In text exchange, Taylor writes: “As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.” Sondland responds: “Bill, I believe you are incorrect about President Trump’s intentions. The President has been crystal clear no quid pro quo’s of any kind. The President is trying to evaluate whether Ukraine is truly going to adopt the transparency and reforms that President Zelensky promised during his campaign. I suggest we stop the back and forth by text If you still have concerns I recommend you give Lisa Kenna or S a call to discuss them directly.”

Sept. 11 — The administration releases $391 million in security aid to Ukraine, including $250 million Congress had appropriated for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative for fiscal year 2019 and $141.5 million in security assistance through the State Department.

Sept. 12 — The Senate Committee on Appropriations holds a scheduled hearing in which members consider an amendment to force the administration to release aid to Ukraine. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham tells Durbin, the author of the amendment, that the administration had released the funds the night before “[b]ecause of your amendment. That’s why it was released because I was going to vote for it. So I think they’ve got the message.”

Durbin agrees to withdraw the amendment, which would have tied the release of fiscal 2020 aid to Ukraine to $5 billion in Defense Department funding, once the committee shows a bipartisan consensus to find another way to make sure the money is spent as appropriated.

Sept. 13 — Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House intelligence committee, issues “a subpoena to the Acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Joseph Maguire to compel the production of a whistleblower complaint that the Intelligence Community Inspector General’s (IC IG) determined to be credible and a matter of ‘urgent concern,’ as well as the IC IG’s determination and all records pertaining to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s (ODNI) involvement in this matter, including any and all correspondence with other Executive Branch actors such as the White House.”

Sept. 18 — The Washington Post, citing unnamed sources, reports that the whistleblower complaint involves Trump’s “communications with a foreign leader,” including “a ‘promise’ that was regarded as so troubling that it prompted an official in the U.S. intelligence community to file a formal whistleblower complaint.”

In a pair of tweets, Trump dismisses the report as “another Fake News story.” He says, “I understand that there may be many people listening from various U.S. agencies, not to mention those from the other country itself. No problem! ….Knowing all of this, is anybody dumb enough to believe that I would say something inappropriate with a foreign leader while on such a potentially ‘heavily populated’ call.”

Sept. 19 — Atkinson, the inspector general for the intelligence community, meets for several hours behind closed doors with Schiff, the chairman of the House intelligence committee, to discuss the whistleblower complaint.

The House passes a stopgap spending bill that allows the fiscal 2019 Ukraine funding to be spent beyond fiscal 2019, which ends Sept. 30. The Senate later passes the bill on Sept. 26.

The Washington Post reports that a “whistleblower complaint about President Trump made by an intelligence official centers on Ukraine.”

In a CNN interview, Giuliani admits that he asked Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. “The only thing I asked about Joe Biden is to get to the bottom of how it was that Lutsenko, who was appointed, dismissed the case [against Burisma],” Giuliani tells CNN’s Chris Cuomo. “So you did ask Ukraine to look into Joe Biden?” Cuomo responds. “Of course I did,” Giuliani says.

Sept. 20 — Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump is asked if he has read the whistleblower report. “[E]verybody has read it and they laugh at it,” Trump says. “And it’s another — it’s another media disaster. The media has lost so much credibility in this country. Our media has become the laughingstock of the world.”

Sept. 21 — The Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources, reports that Trump “repeatedly pressured the president of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden’s son,” and urged Zelensky to “work with Rudy Giuliani on a probe that could hamper Mr. Trump’s potential 2020 opponent.”

Sept. 23 — Trump tells reporters, “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?”

Sept. 24 — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announces that the House will begin an impeachment inquiry. “The President must be held accountable,” she says. “No one is above the law.”

Trump confirms he withheld security aid from Ukraine, saying he did so because he wanted European countries to contribute more to Ukraine. (They contribute more than the United States. See “Trump Wrong on European Aid to Ukraine.”)

Sept. 25 — The White House releases a memo of the call, which confirmed that Trump asked Zelensky to investigate the Bidens. The memo isn’t a verbatim transcript, but rather the notes taken by assigned staff.

In the call, Trump complained that the United States is doing “[m]uch more than the European countries are doing and they should be helping you more than they are. Germany does almost nothing for you.” Trump said “the United States has been very, very good to Ukraine. I wouldn’t say that it’s reciprocal necessarily because things are happening that are not good but the United States has been very, very good to Ukraine.”

Zelensky agreed with Trump, saying “the United States is doing quite a lot for Ukraine.” Trump then asked for “a favor,” telling Zelensky he’d like him to look into CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm the Democratic National Committee hired after its server was hacked during the 2016 election. CrowdStrike determined that Russia was behind the cyberattack.

“The other thing, there’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great,” the memo says Trump told Zelensky. “Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it … It sounds horrible to me.” (There is no evidence that Biden “stopped the prosecution” to help his son. See “Trump Twists Facts on Biden and Ukraine.”)

Zelensky responded that he will appoint a new prosecutor who “will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue.” Trump said he would have Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr call Zelensky.

Sept. 26 — The House intelligence committee releases a redacted copy of the whistleblower complaint, and hears testimony from Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence.

Maguire says the whistleblower acted in “good faith” and “did the right thing.” Democrats on the committee press him on why he did not initially turn over the whistleblower’s complaint. Maguire says it was an “unprecedented” situation, and he was concerned about the possibility of “executive privilege,” so he brought the matter to the attention of the White House and then the Department of Justice. He said he did not initially release the complaint based on the advice of lawyers in the Department of Justice.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Lutsenko says of Hunter Biden: “From the perspective of Ukrainian legislation, he did not violate anything.” He went on to say that an investigation of Burisma’s owner involved activities that occurred before Biden joined the company’s board. “Hunter Biden cannot be responsible for violations of the management of Burisma that took place two years before his arrival,” Lutsenko says.

Sept. 27 — Volker, the U.S. special representative for Ukraine negotiations, who is mentioned in the whistleblower complaint, resigns.

Oct. 2 – Sekulow tells former Trump attorney John Dowd in an email that “[t]he president consents to allowing your representation of Mr. Parnas and Mr. Furman.” Igor Fruman is another one of Giuliani’s associates.

The State Department’s inspector general turns over a packet of Ukraine-related documents to congressional investigators during a briefing that the inspector general requested on short-notice in light of the whistleblower’s complaint about the president’s July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president.

“The briefing and documents raise troubling questions about apparent efforts inside and outside the Trump Administration to target specific officials, including former Vice President Joe Biden’s son and then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Masha Yovanovitch, who was abruptly removed as Ambassador in May after a sustained campaign against her by the President’s agent, Rudy Giuliani,” the chairmen of the House intelligence, foreign affairs and oversight committees say in a statement. The packet of documents was in an envelope marked “White House,” the statement says.

In an interview with CNN, Giuliani confirms that he was the source of some of the material in the packet given to committee investigators. He tells CNN that he “routed” an outline of allegations that had been made against the Bidens and Yovanovitch to the State Department in March, and shortly after that he had received a phone call from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “They told me they were going to investigate it,” Giuliani tells CNN.

The material includes memos of Giuliani’s interviews with two former Ukrainian prosecutors general, Shokin and Lutsenko, who provided information to Giuliani on the Bidens and Yovanovitch, according to the New York Times.

Oct. 3 — Trump says that “China should start an investigation into the Bidens,” after telling reporters that Chinese officials would be in Washington to meet the following week. He again says Ukraine “should investigate the Bidens.”

Volker testifies before the House intelligence, oversight and reform, and foreign affairs committees. “I have known former Vice President Biden for 24 years, and the suggestion that he

would be influenced in his duties as Vice President by money for his son simply has no credibility to me,” Volker tells the committees. “I know him as a man of integrity and dedication to our country.”

After the hearing, Democrats on the committees jointly release several text messages they received from Volker regarding his communications with other U.S. officials, Giuliani and an aide to Zelensky. (See entries for July 25, Aug. 10, Aug. 13, Sept. 1 and Sept. 9.)

Oct. 4 — Ukrainian Prosecutor General Ruslan Ryaboshapka announces he will audit 15 previous investigations, including one involving the owner of Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company for which Hunter Biden served as a board member. “The prosecution service is beyond politics,” he says at a news briefing, according to the New York Times. “We are conducting an audit of all cases, including those which were investigated by the previous leadership of the prosecutor’s office.”

Oct. 6 — Andrew P. Bakaj, one of the attorneys representing the whistleblower who filed a complaint on Aug. 12 tweets: “I can confirm that my firm and my team represent multiple whistleblowers in connection to the underlying August 12, 2019, disclosure to the Intelligence Community Inspector General. No further comment at this time.”

Oct. 9 — Parnas and Fruman are detained at Dulles International Airport on an arrest warrant from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

Oct. 10 – In a news conference, Zelensky, the Ukraine president, tells reporters he did not feel pressured on the July 25 call to investigate the Bidens and the origins of the 2016 election or risk losing military assistance. “There was no blackmail,” Zelensky says. “This was not the subject of our conversation.”

In a press availability in Iowa, Vice President Mike Pence is asked several times if he was aware of the president’s request that Ukraine investigate the Bidens. Pence does not answer the question, but he says, “I never discussed the issue of — the issue of the Bidens with President Zelensky.”

The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York announces the indictment of two men, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who had worked with Giuliani to gather information about the Bidens and Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. Parnas and Fruman were indicted on campaign finance-related charges, including allegedly making illegal campaign contributions on behalf “of at least one foreign official – a Ukrainian government official who sought the dismissal of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine,” according to the Justice Department press release.

Michael McKinley, a senior adviser to Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, resigns.

Three House committees issue a subpoena compelling Parnas and Fruman to produce records relevant to the impeachment inquiry. The men, through Dowd, had previously declined a request to voluntarily turn over evidence.

Oct. 11 – Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, testifies before the House intelligence, foreign affairs and oversight committees behind closed doors, even though the White House said it would not cooperate with the impeachment inquiry. In her prepared opening statement, Yovanovitch blames her removal as ambassador on those who were acting for personal gain or private influence. “Although I understand that I served at the pleasure of the president, I was nevertheless incredulous that the U.S. government chose to remove an ambassador based, as best I can tell, on unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives,” she says.

Oct. 14 — Fiona Hill, a former National Security Council aide, reportedly tells congressional investigators that National Security Adviser John Bolton was alarmed by Giuliani’s involvement in Ukraine affairs and his attempts to pressure Ukraine for investigations that would help Trump’s reelection campaign. The New York Times, in an account of her testimony, says Hill quoted Bolton as saying to her: “Giuliani’s a hand grenade who’s going to blow everybody up.”

Oct. 15 — George Kent, deputy assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs in the State Department, testifies in a closed meeting of the committees overseeing the impeachment inquiry.

Oct. 16 –– McKinley, Secretary of State Pompeo’s former senior adviser, privately testifies in the impeachment inquiry.

However, the New York Times — which says it reviewed a copy of McKinley’s remarks — writes that McKinley said this in his opening remarks to the committee: “The timing of my resignation was the result of two overriding concerns: the failure, in my view, of the State Department to offer support to Foreign Service employees caught up in the impeachment inquiry on Ukraine. And, second, by what appears to be the utilization of our ambassadors overseas to advance a domestic political objective.”

Oct. 17 — Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, testifies in a closed session of the three House committees investigating the whistleblower’s complaint.

In his prepared opening statement, Sondland says he called Trump on Sept. 9 after receiving a text message from Taylor, the charge d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, who expressed concern that the Trump administration was holding up security aid to Ukraine until that country agreed to investigations that would help Trump’s reelection campaign. (See the Sept. 9 entry.)

“Taking the issue seriously, and given the many versions of speculation that had been circulating about the security aid, I called President Trump directly,” Sondland says. “I asked the President: ‘What do you want from Ukraine?’ The President responded, ‘Nothing. There is no quid pro quo.’ The President repeated: ‘no quid pro quo’ multiple times. This was a very short call. And I recall the President was in a bad mood.”

Rick Perry resigns as energy secretary “effective later this year,” according to the Department of Energy. No date is given.

Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, who also serves as director of the OMB, tells reporters in a press conference that the administration’s withholding of security aid to Ukraine was tied in part to Ukraine investigating Democrats and the 2016 election: “Did he also mention to me in the past the corruption related to the DNC server? Absolutely,” Mulvaney says, referring to Trump. “No question about that. But that’s it, and that’s why we held up the money.”

Mulvaney repeats that in responses to two follow-ups by reporters. “So the demand for an investigation into the Democrats was part of the reason that he ordered to withhold funding to Ukraine?” a reporter asks. Mulvaney: “The look back to what happened in 2016 — certainly was part of the thing that he was worried about in corruption with that nation. And that is absolutely appropriate.”

Another reporter asks: “But to be clear, what you just described is a quid pro quo. It is: Funding will not flow unless the investigation into the Democratic server happens as well.” Mulvaney responds: “We do that all the time with foreign policy. … And I have news for everybody: Get over it. There’s going to be political influence in foreign policy.”

Later that day, Mulvaney walks back his comments. “Let me be clear, there was absolutely no quid pro quo between Ukrainian military aid and any investigation into the 2016 election,” he said. “The president never told me to withhold any money until the Ukrainians did anything related to the server. The only reasons we were holding the money was because of concern about lack of support from other nations and concerns over corruption.”

Oct. 22 — Taylor, the charge d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, testifies in closed session.

In his prepared opening statement, Taylor says by mid-July it was clear to him “that the meeting President Zelensky wanted [with Trump] was conditioned on the investigations of Burisma and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections.” (Hunter Biden served as a board member of Burisma from 2014 to 2019.) On Sept. 1, Taylor says, he spoke with Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, and learned that military aid for Ukraine also was contingent on “such investigations.”

“During that phone call, Ambassador Sondland told me that President Trump had told him that he wants President Zelenskyy to state publicly that Ukraine will investigate Burisma and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. election,” Taylor’s statement reads. “Ambassador Sondland also told me that he now recognized that he had made a mistake by earlier telling the Ukrainian officials to whom he spoke that a White House meeting with President Zelensky was dependent on a public announcement of investigations — in fact, Ambassador Sondland said, ‘everything’ was dependent on such an announcement, including security assistance. He said that President Trump wanted President Zelensky ‘in a public box’ by making a public statement about ordering such investigations.”

Oct. 23 — Laura K. Cooper, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, testifies in a closed committee hearing over the department’s objections.

Oct. 26 — Philip Reeker, acting assistant secretary of European and Eurasian affairs, testifies.

Oct. 29 — Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, a Ukraine expert on the White House’s National Security Council who listened in on Trump’s July 25 call with Zelensky, testifies in private before the House committees. Vindman says he was concerned by the call and reported those concerns to the NSC’s legal counsel, according to his prepared opening statement.

“I did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen, and I was worried about the implications for the U.S. government’s support of Ukraine. I realized that if Ukraine pursued an investigation into the Bidens and Burisma, it would likely be interpreted as a partisan play which would undoubtedly result in Ukraine losing the bipartisan support it has thus far maintained. This would all undermine U.S. national security,” he told committee investigators.

The New York Times, citing three unnamed sources, reports that Vindman also tells committee investigators that certain words and phrases were omitted from the White House-released memo of the July 25 phone call between Trump and Zelensky.

“The omissions, Colonel Vindman said, included Mr. Trump’s assertion that there were recordings of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. discussing Ukraine corruption, and an explicit mention by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, of Burisma Holdings, the energy company whose board employed Mr. Biden’s son Hunter,” the Times said. The newspaper also reported that Vindman “tried to change the reconstructed transcript made by the White House staff to reflect the omissions. But while some of his edits appeared to have been successful, he said, those two corrections were not made.”

Oct. 30 — Catherine Croft testifies. Croft served as a special adviser for Ukraine under Volker, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine. In her opening remarks, Croft tells the committee that former House Speaker Robert Livingston, who is now a lobbyist, made “multiple calls” to her in an attempt to get Yovanovitch fired as the U.S. ambassador to Urkaine.

“He characterized Ambassador Yovanovitch as an “Obama holdover” and associated with George Soros,” Croft says. “It was not clear to me at the time—or now—at whose direction or at whose expense Mr. Livingston was seeking the removal of Ambassador Yovanovitch.”

Christopher J. Anderson, who preceded Croft as Volker’s special adviser for Ukraine, also testifies. Anderson, who held the Ukraine position from August 2017 until July 12, tells the House committees that Bolton had concerns about Giuliani’s involvement in Ukraine policy. In his Oct. 30 prepared opening remarks, Anderson says he and Volker met with then-National Security Adviser John Bolton on June 13 to discuss improving relations with Ukraine. At that meeting, Anderson said Bolton “cautioned [them] that Mr. Giuliani was a key voice with the President on Ukraine which could be an obstacle” to their efforts in Ukraine.

Parnas, after obtaining a new lawyer, informs the House intelligence committee that he will comply with the subpoena. He also receives court authorization to give the intelligence committee materials that were seized from him by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

Oct. 31 — The House votes 232-196 along party lines to pass a resolution that sets the rules for the next phase of the impeachment inquiry. No Republicans voted for it. Only two Democrats — Reps. Collin Peterson of Minnesota and Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey — voted against it. Rep. Justin Amash, who left the Republican party and is now an independent, voted for it.

Tim Morrison, the outgoing senior director of European affairs at the National Security Council and a deputy assistant to the president, testifies.

In his prepared opening statement, Morrison confirms the “substance” of Taylor’s recollection of their conversations, including Morrison’s assertion that the release of security aid to Ukraine was being tied to Ukraine opening investigations of Burisma and 2016 election interference. Morrison does, however, differ with Taylor’s recounting of a key detail from a conversation Morrison had with Sondland on Sept. 1. “Ambassador Sondland’s proposal to Mr. Yermak was that it could be sufficient if the new Ukrainian prosecutor general — not President Zelensky — would commit to pursue the Burisma investigation,” Morrison says.

Morrison, who listened in to the July 25 phone call between Trump and Zelensky, also says the White House memo of the call “accurately and completely reflects the substance of the call.” He adds that he was “not concerned that anything illegal was discussed,” but he was worried about “how it would play out in Washington’s polarized environment” if it were leaked.

Nov. 6 — David Hale, under secretary of state for political affairs, testifies in a closed-door deposition before the House intelligence committee.

According to a transcript of the deposition, Hale says that Secretary of State Pompeo called Giuliani twice in March to discuss Yovanovitch, and that Pompeo also called Sean Hannity of Fox News to ask for evidence to support allegations that Hannity made about Yovanovitch on his cable show. (Hannity has denied that he ever spoke to Pompeo about Ukraine or Yovanovitch.)

After talking to Pompeo about the call, Hale says he “deduced” that the secretary of state “believed that there wasn’t any evidence to back up these allegations.”

Hale also tells committee members that Yovanovitch emailed him a request for the State Department to release a statement in support of her. However, no such statement was issued, and Hale says the decision not to do so would have been made by “someone more senior to me,” and that Pompeo “most likely would have been the person” to make the decision.

Nov. 7 — Jennifer Williams, special adviser to the vice president on Europe and Russia, testifies in a closed-door deposition before the House intelligence committee.

Williams, who listened in on the July 25 call between Trump and Zelensky, tells the committee that she found the president’s discussion of investigating the Bidens to be “unusual” and “more specific” to Trump’s “personal political agenda” than a “broader foreign policy objective of the United States.”

She also testifies that she learned in an email on July 3 that Ukraine security assistance was being held up, and that an Office of Management and Budget representative told her and others in a July 23 meeting that that guidance came from White House Acting Chief of Staff Mulvaney, who offered no further explanation for the hold.

Nov. 13 – The House committees conducting the impeachment inquiry hold the first public hearing, beginning with two witnesses: Kent, deputy assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs in the State Department, and Taylor, the charge d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine.

In a new disclosure, Taylor says in his opening statement that on July 26 a member of his staff overheard a phone conversation Sondland had with Trump after Sondland had met with Yermark. A “member of my staff could hear President Trump on the phone, asking Ambassador Sondland about ‘the investigations.’ Ambassador Sondland told President Trump that the Ukrainians were ready to move forward. Following the call with President Trump, the member of my staff asked Ambassador Sondland what President Trump thought about Ukraine. Ambassador Sondland responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden, which Giuliani was pressing for.”

Nov. 15 — Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, testifies before the House intelligence committee. In her opening statement, Yovanovitch says Giuliani, the president’s private attorney, spread false statements about her that lead to her removal as ambassador.

“Mr. Giuliani should have known those claims were suspect, coming as they reportedly did from individuals with questionable motives and with reason to believe that their political and financial ambitions would be stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine,” she said. “I have always understood that I served at the pleasure of the President, I still find it difficult to comprehend that foreign and private interests were able to undermine U.S. interests in this way.”

The president tweets, “Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad.”

Trump also posts to Twitter the White House memo of his April 21 congratulatory phone call to Zelensky, who was then-Ukraine’s president-elect. As we wrote, the memo shows that Trump did not broach the subject of corruption in Ukraine during the call, as the White House said he did in a statement that was released to reporters the same day of the call.

The Washington Post, citing an unnamed official briefed on the call, reported that the readout of the call released by the White House in April — which says that Trump discussed working with Zelensky to “root out corruption” — was drafted prior to the call and was never updated to reflect that Trump did not bring up corruption in his conversation with Zelensky.

After Yovanovitch’s public testimony, the House intelligence committee takes a closed-door deposition from Holmes, a political counselor for the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine.

Holmes says that while at a restaurant with Sondland in Kyiv on July 26, he overheard a telephone conversation between Trump and Sondland, who had called the president from his cellphone.

“While Ambassador Sondland’s phone was not on speaker phone, I could hear the President’s voice through the ear piece of the phone. The President’s voice was very loud and recognizable, and Ambassador Sondland held the phone away from his ear for a period of time, presumably because of the loud volume,” Holmes says, according to the deposition transcript. Holmes then explains that he heard Trump ask Sondland if Zelensky is “going to do the investigation,” and that Sondland replied, “He’s going to do it,” and added that Zelensky will “do anything you ask him to.”

Holmes also says that, after the call, Sondland told him that Trump “did not give a shit about Ukraine,” and that Trump’s only concern was “big stuff,” which Sondland said meant the “‘Biden investigation’ that Mr. Giuliani was pushing.”

Nov. 16 — Sandy, the deputy associate director for national security at OMB, tells House committee investigators in a closed-door deposition that two OMB officials, including one in the agency’s legal division, resigned in part because of a “disagreement” over OMB’s process that resulted in a hold on security aid to Ukraine. Sandy says he learned that the directive had come from the president in an email dated July 12, but was not given any reason for it. (See entries from July 12 through July 25 for more information.)

Nov. 19 — In a public congressional hearing, Vindman says he discussed the July 25 call between Trump and Zelensky with two people outside of the National Security Council: Kent, the deputy assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs in the State Department, and an intelligence community official whom Vindman did not identify.

Vindman also testifies that, prior to Trump’s April 21 call with Zelensky, he had drafted talking points for Trump to use that mentioned corruption in Ukraine. However, the White House memo of the call shows that Trump never brought it up.

As he did in a private deposition on Oct. 31, Morrison, the former National Security Council aide, testifies that the placement of the July 25 call record in a highly classified electronic filing system was initially a “mistake” and an “administrative error.” He says that’s what he was told by National Security Council legal adviser John Eisenberg, who later agreed with Morrison that access to the call record should be restricted to prevent the call’s content from being “leaked.”

Nov. 20 — Sondland publicly testifies before the House intelligence committee.

In his opening statement, Sondland says that he, Energy Secretary Perry and Ambassador Volker “worked with Mr. Rudy Giuliani on Ukraine matters at the express direction of the President of the United States.”

He says it’s “absolutely false” to suggest “that we were engaged in some irregular or rogue diplomacy.”

“I have now identified certain State Department emails and messages that provide contemporaneous support for my view,” he says. “These emails show that the leadership of State, NSC, and the White House were all informed about the Ukraine efforts from May 23, 2019, until the security aid was released on September 11, 2019.”

Sondland also reiterates his earlier testimony that a White House meeting was dependent on the Ukrainian president announcing investigations into Burisma and the 2016 presidential election.

“[A]s I testified previously, Mr. Giuliani’s requests were a quid pro quo for arranging a White House visit for President Zelensky,” he said. “Mr. Giuliani demanded that Ukraine make a public statement announcing investigations of the 2016 election/DNC server and Burisma. Mr. Giuliani was expressing the desires of the President of the United States, and we knew that these investigations were important to the President.”

Nov. 21 — Fiona Hill testifies at a public hearing of the House intelligence committee. She debunked the theory that Ukraine, and not Russia, conducted a campaign to interfere in the 2016 elections. “This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.” (In his July 25 call with Zelensky, Trump asked Ukraine to investigate CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm hired by the DNC after its server was hacked during the 2016 election. As we have written, Trump’s interest in CrowdStrike appears to be based on conspiracy theories that maintain it was Ukrainians who hacked the DNC and then framed it on the Russians.)

Holmes testifies about, among other things, the July 26 conversation he overheard between Sondland and Trump talking about “the investigation.” Holmes says after the call Sondland told him that Trump is only interested in “big stuff” in Ukraine, by which “he meant ‘big stuff’ that benefits the President, like the ‘Biden investigation’ that Mr. Giuliani was pushing.” (For more see the Nov. 15 entry.)

Dec. 2 — The ranking Republican members of three House committees release a minority report that says the president did nothing wrong. “The evidence presented does not prove any of these Democrat allegations, and none of the Democrats’ witnesses testified to having evidence of bribery, extortion, or any high crime or misdemeanor,” the Republican report says.

Dec. 3 — The House intelligence committee releases a draft impeachment inquiry report that concludes Trump abused “the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election.”

“The evidence is clear that President Trump used the power of his office to pressure Ukraine into announcing investigations into his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, and a debunked conspiracy theory that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 election,” the report says. “These investigations were designed to benefit his 2020 presidential reelection campaign.”

Dec. 5 — House Speaker Pelosi announces that she has directed the Judiciary Committee chairman to draft articles of impeachment. “Sadly, but with confidence and humility … today, I am asking our chairman to proceed with articles of impeachment,” she says.

Dec. 10 — House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler announces that his committee will introduce two articles of impeachment against the president: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

“It is an impeachment offense for the president to exercise the powers of his public office to obtain an improper personal benefit while ignoring or injuring the national interest,” Nadler says. “That is exactly what President Trump did when he solicited and pressured Ukraine to interfere in our 2020 presidential election, thus damaging our national security, undermining the integrity of the next election and violating his oath to the American people.”

Dec. 13 — The House Judiciary Committee votes along party lines, 23-17, to approve two articles of impeachment against Trump.

Dec. 16 — The House Judiciary Committee formally presents a 658-page report, “Impeachment of Donald J. Trump President of the United States,” charging the 45th president with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

The New Yorker publishes an article that quotes Giuliani as saying, “I believed that I needed Yovanovitch out of the way,” referring to the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. “She was going to make the investigations difficult for everybody.”

Dec. 17 — On the eve of a House vote on two articles of impeachment, Trump sent a six-page letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, claiming the impeachment “represents an unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of power.”

Dec. 18 — House votes 230-197 on the first article of impeachment (“abuse of power”) and 229-198 on the second article (“obstruction of Congress”).

Jan. 6 — Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, says he will testify during the Senate impeachment trial, if issued a subpoenaed. “I have concluded that, if the Senate issues a subpoena for my testimony, I am prepared to testify,” he says in a statement.

Jan. 14 — Schiff sends Nadler a letter notifying him that he is transmitting to the House Judiciary Committee “two flash drives of additional records and other materials related to the impeachment inquiry” that were obtained from Parnas, Giuliani’s associate. “This evidence was produced to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence pursuant to duly authorized subpoenas and shared with the Committee on Oversight and Reform and the Committee on Foreign Affairs,” Schiff says.

For example, Parnas produced notes — with multiple spelling errors — he wrote on stationery from the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Vienna, Austria. One reads, “get Zalensky to Annonce that the Biden case will Be Investigated” and “start commun with Zalensky without (Pinchuk or Kolomoiski.)

Schiff’s letter to Nadler says, “Victor Pinchuk and Ihor Kolomoisky are prominent and politically-connected Ukrainian oligarchs.”

Jan. 15 — Pelosi names the seven House members who will serve as managers during Trump’s impeachment trial, and the House votes to formally send the impeachment articles to the Senate.

House impeachment investigators release more documents obtained from Parnas, including photos and WhatsApp messages.

Parnas is interviewed by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on her primetime show.

He tells her Trump was aware of everything he was doing. “He was aware of all of my movements. I wouldn’t do anything without the consent of Rudy Giuliani, or the president. I have no intent, I have no reason to speak to any of these officials. I mean, they have no reason to speak to me,” he says.

Parnas also claims his and Giuliani’s efforts were not about corruption in Ukraine. “[I]t was never about corruption, it was strictly about Burisma, which included Hunter Biden and Joe Biden,” he says.

Jan. 16 — The Government Accountability Office releases a report that concludes the Trump administration broke the law by withholding the congressionally appropriated aid to Ukraine. According to GAO: “Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law. OMB withheld funds for a policy reason, which is not permitted under the Impoundment Control Act (ICA). The withholding was not a programmatic delay. Therefore, we conclude that OMB violated the ICA.”

Jan. 21 — The Senate votes 53-47 for a resolution that sets the rules for the impeachment trial. All 53 Senate Republicans support the measure, which will allow 24 hours of open arguments for each side. The resolution limits the arguments for each side to a maximum of three days.

Jan. 24 — The House impeachment managers end their opening arguments.

Jan. 26 — The New York Times reports that Trump told Bolton, his national security adviser at the time, that he would freeze security aid to Ukraine until it agreed to investigate the Democrats, including former Vice President Joe Biden. The Times cited people who had read drafts of a manuscript for Bolton’s book as its source.

Jan. 28 — Trump’s legal defense team ends its opening arguments.

Jan. 29 — The next phase of the impeachment trial begins. Under the rules, the senators have 16 hours to ask questions of the House impeachment managers and the president’s defense team through Chief Justice John Roberts.

Jan. 31 — A Senate motion to call witnesses fails, 49-51. Only two Republicans, Sens. Mitt Romney and Susan Collins, join the 45 Democrats and two independents who voted for the motion.

Feb. 5 — The Senate votes to acquit Trump on both impeachment counts: 53-47 on obstruction of Congress and 52-48 on abuse of power. No Republicans vote for conviction on the obstruction charge. Romney votes to convict Trump on the abuse of power charge, saying the president “is guilty of an appalling abuse of the public trust.” Romney is the only Republican who votes to convict.

April 3 — Trump fires the inspector general for the intelligence community, Michael Atkinson, who had informed Congress about the whistleblower complaint that led to Trump’s impeachment.

Updated, Jan. 22, 2020: We removed a July 3, 2019, entry of a text message from Parnas to Giuliani that said “trying to get us Mr Z,” which Schiff claimed was a reference to “President Zelensky.” Politico reported that it appears the text message referred to Ukrainian oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma, not Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president.