Republicans shift defense of Trump while he attacks another witness

On a day of back-and-forth on Twitter and the morning television talk shows that are a staple of Sundays in Washington, Speaker Nancy Pelosi invited Mr. Trump to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, while the president’s allies shifted their emphasis away from the defense they offered last week, when they stressed that witnesses had only secondhand information against him.

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That argument may not work much longer, because lawmakers are about to hear from crucial witnesses who had direct contact with the president, including Gordon D. Sondland, a donor to and an ally of Mr. Trump who served as his liaison to Ukrainian officials while the president withheld — but later released — $391 million in military aid to Ukraine…

Ms. Williams is not the only witness who listened in on the call expected to testify this week. Others include Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, the National Security Council’s top expert on Ukraine, who has told investigators he was so alarmed by the call that he immediately reported it to council lawyers. But Mr. Sondland’s appearance is the most anticipated.

He has given somewhat contradictory accounts. While he had said in a text message that Mr. Trump did not seek “quid pro quo’s of any kind,” he has also given a written statement to investigators in which he acknowledged that he told a top Ukrainian official that “resumption of the U.S. aid would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the public anticorruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks.”

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