Impeachment inquiry latest: Gordon Sondland, Ambassador to E.U., blocked from testifying to Congress by Trump administration – live updats – CBS News

Key facts and latest news

• At the direction of the State Department, the testimony of U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland before Congress was canceled hours before he was to testify Tuesday morning. President Trump said he would “love” to send Sondland to testify, but not before what he called a “totally compromised kangaroo court.”
  
• Democrats are weighing extreme measures to conceal the whistleblower’s identity in a potential interview in part because they fear at least one Republican on the committee might reveal the individual’s identity to the White House.
• The House committees leading the impeachment probe issued subpoenas to the Pentagon and White House budget office, demanding documents about freezing military aid to Ukraine.
• On a July call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Mr. Trump urged Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden. Before the call, the president instructed acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to hold off on releasing military aid to Ukraine that had been appropriated by Congress.
• Soon after the July call, White House officials moved a record of the call to a highly classified computer system, severely restricting who could access it.

Washington — U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, who was scheduled to be interviewed by Congress Tuesday as part of the ongoing impeachment inquiry, was ordered not to appear for his deposition by the the State Department, according to a statement issued by his attorney. Sondland was mentioned in the original whistleblower complaint and a key witness to the Trump-Ukraine dealings.

Sondland’s lawyer, Robert Luskin said in the statement that Sondland “is profoundly disappointed that he will not be able to testify today” and went on to say that the ambassador had traveled from Brussels for the testimony and made arrangements with the Joint Committee staff to appear. Sondland “believes strongly that he acted at all times in the best interests of the United States” and remains ready to testify “on short notice,” Luskin said.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff told reporters on Tuesday that Sondland was in possession of documents on his “personal device” related to Ukraine which the State Department is withholding from the committee.

“The failure to produce this witness, the failure to produce these documents, we consider yet additional strong evidence of obstruction of the constitutional functions of Congress,” Schiff said.

Meanwhile, the House Intelligence Committee is considering “extraordinary moves” to protect the whistleblower’s identity in a still-unscheduled upcoming interview, according to one lawmaker.

“We have to take all precautions, because we cannot burn his or her identity,” Democratic Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi told CBS News.

The potential measures — including obscuring the whistleblower’s appearance and voice — were first reported by The Washington Post on Monday.

The measures being considered by the committee are extremely rare. A Senate Intelligence Committee aide said they could not think of a time when its committee had taken such steps to protect an interviewee’s identity. The person said the closest parallel may have been when the chair and vice chair offered to fly to London to interview Christopher Steele, the author of a dossier detailing ties between the Trump campaign and Russia who had legal concerns about traveling to the U.S.

The aide said that the measures “speak to concerns about the ranking member and his intentions.” In other words, Democrats are worried that Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the committee, will share the whistleblower’s identity with the White House.

On the Senate side, “I can’t think of a time when we needed to conceal someone’s identity from the other party,” the aide said.

Nunes relinquished his leadership of the House committee’s Russia probe after he was accused of coordinating with the White House to disclose classified information aimed at embarrassing the previous administration.

The three House committees leading Democrats’ impeachment probe issued new subpoenas to the secretary of defense and acting White House budget director, requesting documents about the decision to freeze military aid to Ukraine over the summer. — Nancy Cordes and Grace Segers