WASHINGTON—Democrats have argued that the nearly one-month pause between the House vote to impeach President Trump and its transmission of the articles of impeachment to the Senate allowed the party to gather additional evidence and strengthen its case for the president’s removal.
“Time has been our friend in all of this, because it has yielded incriminating evidence, more truth into the public domain,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday.
Republicans have countered that Mrs. Pelosi undercut the Democrats’ argument that the impeachment was an urgent matter by holding on to the articles, and argue she gained little with the delay.
Regardless of where the political advantage lies, new information suggests the effort to press Ukraine to announce investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden, his son Hunter, and a discredited theory that Ukraine—not Russia—had meddled in the 2016 election reached further into the president’s inner circle than previously known. The information has also shed light on the way White House officials sought to withhold military assistance to Ukraine as part of that pressure campaign.
What has emerged:
Giuliani associate makes a splash
Lev Parnas, who assisted Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani in his push for the Ukrainian investigations, in recent days has turned over documents to the House Intelligence Committee that reveal new details about the extent of their efforts.
In prime-time interviews last week, Mr. Parnas, who has been indicted on campaign-finance charges in a separate matter, said Mr. Trump knew what he was doing and “was aware of all of my movements.”
Some individuals in Mr. Trump’s orbit have surfaced in the documents Mr. Parnas furnished to the House. One is a co-chairman of the Republican National Committee and friend of Mr. Trump’s son who exchanged with Mr. Parnas links to articles and tweets suggesting Ukraine interfered in the 2016 U.S. election.
Documents released by the House on Tuesday included a letter in which Mr. Giuliani said he was seeking a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with Mr. Trump’s “knowledge and consent.” Mr. Zelensky didn’t end up taking the meeting, fearful of getting sucked into a U.S. political drama.
Cybersecurity firm says Russians hacked Ukrainian gas company
U.S. cybersecurity firm Area 1 said last week that hackers believed to be affiliated with Russia’s military breached the Ukrainian gas company where Hunter Biden had served on the board.
The attempts to hack Burisma Holdings began last November, as the House was holding its impeachment hearings, according to Area 1. Burisma features in the impeachment matter because witnesses have said Mr. Trump’s associates wanted Ukraine to investigate the company to dig up damaging information on the Bidens.
Congress’s watchdog finds hold on Ukraine funds broke the law
Congress’s nonpartisan watchdog agency, the Government Accountability Office, released a report finding that the Trump administration lacked the legal authority to put the Ukraine security assistance on hold.
GAO wrote that the White House Office of Management and Budget improperly froze the money for policy reasons, in violation of federal law requiring the president to spend funds appropriated by Congress except under limited circumstances.
“Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law,” GAO wrote.
A spokeswoman for OMB said the office disagreed with GAO’s opinion and said it had authority “to ensure taxpayer dollars are properly spent consistent with the President’s priorities and with the law.”
Connecticut Republican’s texts suggest he had ambassador under surveillance
Among the disclosures in the trove of documents released by Mr. Parnas through the House: A long-shot Connecticut Republican House candidate who runs a landscaping business suggested in text messages to Mr. Parnas that he had then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch under surveillance.
The information prompted Ukraine’s Interior Ministry to launch its own probe of “whether there were any violations of Ukrainian and international laws…or [if it was] just bravado and fake talk in an informal conversation between two U.S. citizens.”
Federal Bureau of Investigation personnel also visited Robert Hyde’s Connecticut home and business last week, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Hyde has said his texts to Mr. Parnas were a joke and that he didn’t monitor the ambassador’s movements. Mr. Parnas has said he didn’t believe Mr. Hyde was surveilling Ms. Yovanovitch.
OMB directed officials to ‘hold off’ releasing Ukraine funds after Trump-Zelensky call
In December, the Defense Department released a batch of emails including one sent July 25 by a senior official at the White House Office of Management and Budget asking Pentagon officials to hold off releasing funds for Ukraine pending the administration’s review.
The official, OMB Associate Director for National-Security Programs Michael Duffey, sent the email less than two hours after Mr. Trump pressed his Ukrainian counterpart to undertake the investigations into Mr. Biden and alleged election interference—two investigations that could benefit him politically.
Mr. Trump had ordered nearly $400 million in aid to Ukraine frozen weeks before the phone call, The Wall Street Journal has reported. The assistance was ultimately released.
‘I am speechless’
Emails released by an independent group showed a senior Pentagon official clashing with the White House last summer over the decision to freeze security aid to Ukraine. The official warned that the hold could complicate the administration’s ability to distribute the money before the congressionally mandated deadline.
In emails to officials at the White House Office of Management and Budget, Elaine McCusker, the acting Pentagon comptroller, raised concerns about the legality of the hold.
Her frustrations escalated in early September. After she warned OMB that the U.S. might not be able to spend $120 million by the end of the fiscal year because of the hold, Mr. Duffey responded with a letter blaming the Defense Department for not doing enough to prepare to spend the funds if they were released.
“You can’t be serious,” Ms. McCusker replied. “I am speechless.”
Bolton willing to testify—if subpoenaed
On Jan. 6, former national-security adviser John Bolton said he would testify in a Senate trial if subpoenaed by lawmakers. That is a big if. Only a handful of Senate Republicans have said they would be interested in hearing from witnesses during the trial, and the White House has said it doesn’t believe witness testimony will be necessary.
Fiona Hill, a former National Security Council Russia expert, testified she attended a July 10 White House meeting with senior Ukrainian officials, Mr. Bolton and other U.S. officials in which the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, raised the issue of Ukraine launching the investigations in exchange for Mr. Trump meeting with Ukraine President Zelensky. Ms. Hill testified that “Ambassador Bolton immediately stiffened” and ended the meeting.
Mr. Bolton then instructed Ms. Hill to report to a White House lawyer that he was “not part of this drug deal that Sondland and [acting White House chief of staff Mick] Mulvaney are cooking up,” Ms. Hill testified.
Mr. Bolton’s lawyer has suggested his client’s testimony would be tantalizing. In a letter to the House lawyer in November, he said Mr. Bolton knows about “many relevant meetings and conversations” that had not yet been made public.
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Write to Rebecca Ballhaus at Rebecca.Ballhaus@wsj.com
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