The latest on the Trump impeachment inquiry

House impeachment investigators have asked Energy Secretary Rick Perry to testify in the probe into President Trump, an official working on the impeachment inquiry told CNN.

Perry is scheduled to testify on Wednesday.

Department of Energy spokesperson Shaylyn Hynes said Perry will not participate in the closed-door deposition.

“The secretary will not partake in a secret star chamber inquisition where agency counsel is forbidden to be present,” Hynes said. “If the committee is interested in conducting a serious proceeding they are welcome to send for the secretary’s consideration an invitation to participate in an open hearing where the Department’s counsel can be present and the American people can witness.”

Here’s who else is scheduled to testify in closed sessions that day:

It is unclear if any or all of these witnesses will show up to the sessions. 

The official said the House committees are in ongoing discussions with other witnesses.

In the latest episode of “The Daily DC: Impeachment Watch” podcast, CNN’s Vicky Ward covers: 

Ward is joined today by “SE Cupp Unfiltered” host S.E. Cupp and CNN legal analyst Jennifer Rodgers.

Listen to the podcast here.

Reps. Jim Jordan (L) and Mark Meadows (R) speak to reporters on Oct. 31 in Washington, DC.

As House Democrats build their case for impeaching President Trump through a succession of closed-door depositions, a pair of Trump’s closest allies on Capitol Hill are quietly offering guidance to the White House lawyers responsible for crafting the President’s defense strategy.

Reps. Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan, members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus who have attended the depositions, have been informally helping attorneys in the White House Counsel’s office sort through publicly reported aspects of the testimony to the extent they can, according to four administration officials.

The conversations are primarily aimed at helping White House lawyers get a better grasp of the allegations being leveled at Trump and potential weak points as the White House begins to craft a legal strategy to defend Trump during his impeachment trial, two administration officials said.

White House lawyers have not been permitted to attend the closed-door depositions – a top GOP complaint about the impeachment inquiry – and people familiar with the matter said the conversations are aimed at helping the White House gauge the seriousness of leaked allegations from the testimony that have painted a damning picture of the President’s conduct.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Meadows said he has only shared “broad characterizations” and is “not sharing specifics” of the testimony with the White House, pointing to House rules preventing him from disclosing details of the testimony, which are held in secure rooms called Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities, or SCIFs. When some witnesses — such as US ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland — have backed up aspects of the President’s defense of his conduct, he has pointed that out.

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the National Security Council’s top Ukraine expert, testified this week that he was told not to talk with anyone about the July 25 call between President Trump and the Ukrainian president, according to a source familiar with the testimony.

Vindman testified that he was concerned about the July call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and he took those concerns to National Security Council lawyer John Eisenberg, who told him not to discuss the call, the source said.

Eisenberg and NSC lawyers moved the transcript of the call onto a higher security system than what’s typically used for presidential calls — a decision that’s among the issues Democratic impeachment investigators are probing.

Politico first reported that Eisenberg told Vindman not to discuss the call.

Vindman told lawmakers that while he was concerned about the call, he testified the rough transcript released by the White House was mostly accurate, but he proposed two edits to include a reference to Burisma and Vice President Joe Biden’s tapes that were not included. 

Tim Morrison, another NSC official on the July call, testified Thursday that his concern was over the call leaking, but he did not think there was anything wrong with Trump’s call. Sources told CNN Thursday Morrison was involved with discussions to move the call to the more secure system.

Six witnesses are currently scheduled to testify in the ongoing House impeachment investigation on Monday and Tuesday of next week.

It is still unclear if any of the witnesses on Monday will actually be testifying. 

The following witnesses are expected to testify in closed-door sessions on Monday:

The following witnesses are expected to testify on Tuesday:

Some context: Eisenberg, alongside former national security adviser John Bolton, has emerged as a key figure in the testimony provided by administration officials so far detailing President Trump’s approach to Ukraine.

The top national security lawyer at the White House, Eisenberg was approached by several officials — including Russia director Fiona Hill and the top Ukraine expert Alexander Vindman — with concerns about apparent attempts to coerce Ukraine’s new president into opening investigations into Trump’s political rivals.

Eisenberg was responsible for the decision to place the rough transcript of Trump’s phone call with Ukraine’s president in a highly secure server. And he was among those inside the White House who first learned a whistleblower had filed a complaint about the Ukraine matter.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said it was “certainly possible” that President Trump would ultimately be impeached by the House.

She reiterated that Trump is in charge of his own defense against an impeachment inquiry in the House of Representatives. 

“We have many people working on that,” Conway said, “but we have overstuffed portfolios here to begin with working on the business of America which does not include impeachment.”

She added that she assumed that it would be a “press and comms,” the “legal team” and “other people involved.” 

“But the President has been quite transparent in his daily explanation of what he thinks of the entire process and substance,” Conway said.

She went on to accuse Democrats of “lying to their constituents.” 

“They said they were coming here to reduce drug prices and get some infrastructure going, and help in Syria, but they’re not,” she said. “They’re trying to investigate and impeach the President. They’ll need to go home and answer for that.”

Congress is in recess, but the impeachment inquiry into President Trump continues.

Here’s what’s happening today:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, one of the frontrunners in the Democratic presidential nomination, was asked on the campaign trail if impeachment moves to a trial in Senate how her campaign will adapt. Warren responded, “I’ll be there.”

Warren has called for President Trump’s impeachment. She said today that he “clearly broke the law with Ukraine.”

“This man has made clear that if he is given the chance, he will do anything — including break the law — to try to save his own skin,” Warren said about Trump. “That’s why it’s time for accountability, and the tool in the Constitution of the United States for accountability is impeachment.”

Reminder: A trial in Senate will only happen if the House first votes to impeach Trump. If that happens, sitting senators — like Warren — would serve as jurors in an impeachment trial.

The House passed a resolution formalizing procedures of the impeachment inquiry into President Trump yesterday.

About the vote: It was not a vote to impeach Trump — rather, it was a vote to formalize the impeachment proceedings. A vote to impeach Trump would happen after the House Judiciary Committee votes on the articles of impeachment. The House is still conducting its investigation.

What we know about the timing:  House Democrats are discussing a time frame that would include public impeachment hearings before Thanksgiving, multiple Democratic sources have told CNN, though the timing remains fluid.

Rep. Jerry Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, told CNN earlier this week that it’s “possible” a vote could be held in his committee on articles of impeachment before Christmas.

If the articles are approved, they are given special status on the House floor. It requires a simple majority of voting lawmakers to approve them. This full House vote would be the vote to impeach the President.

Remember: The impeachment process can take months. Only three US presidents have faced impeachment. They are…

You can read more about the impeachment process here.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi gavels the close of a vote by the U.S. House of Representatives on a resolution formalizing the impeachment inquiry into President Trump

In an interview with Bloomberg TV today, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was asked if the impeachment inquiry will remain focused on the Ukraine matter, or if it will expand beyond that to other questions about President Trump’s behavior. She said it will be up to the committees of jurisdiction.

“There were 11 obstruction of justice provisions in the Mueller report,” she added later. “Perhaps some of them will be part of this, but again that will be part of the inquiry to see where we go.”

She also hit Republicans for not supporting the probe.