This week, further testimony in the impeachment  probe brought the fifth and sixth public confirmation of a quid pro quo  between Trump and Ukraine, including so far William Taylor, Gordon  Sondland, Sen. Ron Johnson, Mick Mulvaney, Alexander Vindman and Tim  Morrison. By week’s end, Senate Republicans discussed shifting their  defense of Trump to acknowledging his quid pro quo, but saying it was  not illegal — differing from House Republicans who continued to deny it,  and Trump who maintained he had a “perfect” call and tested out new  explanations for what occurred. Allegations of a possible White House  cover up of Trump’s July 25 call also surfaced in this week’s testimony.

The House of Representatives took its first  full, public vote on impeachment, passing a resolution to proceed with  public hearings, and setting out ground rules to proceed. In the  meantime, aspects of the Mueller probe came back into the spotlight as  ongoing court cases played out, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would  not rule out including new information in the impeachment inquiry.

Trump tried to pivot and focus attention on a  successful raid that killed the head of ISIS, seeking to turn it into a  Hollywood story to distract attention and legitimize his haphazard  foreign policy. This week hundreds of U.S. troops abandoned Kurdish  allies in Syria, while hundreds of others moved back to Syria to protect  oilfields not owned by the U.S. Trump attended his first Major League  Baseball game for the World Series, and was treated to boos when he was  announced, and chants of “Lock him up!” an inning later.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-155/