1/ A federal judge ruled that the former White House counsel must testify before impeachment investigators about Trump’s efforts to obstruct the Mueller investigation. U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson found no basis for Trump’s claim that Don McGahn, who spent 30 hours talking to special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, is “absolutely immune from compelled congressional testimony.� The ruling could also have implications for former national security adviser John Bolton and Bolton’s deputy, Charles Kupperman, were ordered not to appear by the White House. (New York Times / Washington Post / Politico / NPR / Wall Street Journal)

2/ The White House engaged in an extensive effort to come up with an after-the-fact justification for Trump’s decision to withhold nearly $400 million in military aid from Ukraine. The confidential review by the White House Counsel’s Office into Trump’s decision to hold the military aid revealed hundreds of documents that showed an internal debate over whether the move was legal. Among the documents are emails between acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House budget officials from early August – after the hold had already been ordered – attempting to find an explanation for why Trump had blocked the security assistance that Congress had previously approved. The review found that Trump made the decision to hold the aid in July “without an assessment of reasoning or legal justification.� (Washington Post / CNN / New York Times)

3/ The White House arranged a phone call between Rudy Giuliani and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to discuss Giuliani’s packet of unproven allegations about Joe Biden and former American Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. Emails, released as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, show that Giuliani and Pompeo first spoke on March 26 for five minutes. Giuliani then handed over the packet of material to the State Department on March 28 and spoke with Pompeo again on March 29, this time for four minutes. Giuliani’s office worked with Trump’s then-personal assistant, Madeleine Westerhout, to have the State Department put Giuliani in touch with Pompeo. Yovanovitch was recalled from her post weeks later. (CNN / McClatchy DC / CBS News / American Oversight)