President Donald Trump and his defenders are treating the White House’s summary of his July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as the only relevant piece of evidence. During the first public impeachment hearing, the Trump campaign released a statement saying that the lack of an explicit quid pro quo in the July 25 call proves that Trump did not extort Ukraine. This mischaracterizes both the content of the call and the broader context of the ongoing extortion scheme.

With no way to defend him on the substance, President Donald Trump’s defenders have instead argued that Trump did nothing wrong and that therefore, there are no grounds for an impeachment inquiry. A memo from House Republicans noted, “U.S. security assistance flowed to Ukraine … without Ukraine investigating President Trump’s political rivals.” This absurd argument holds that, since Trump ultimately released the military aid he initially withheld from Ukraine, there was no extortion. This just isn’t true.

The cascade of closed-door testimony transcripts from senior Trump administration officials confirm that President Donald Trump shook down Ukraine’s president. Trump demanded a public announcement of an investigation of his political opponents in exchange for a White House meeting and military assistance that Ukraine desperately needed.

When President Donald Trump first released the transcript of his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, many were confused about Trump’s apparent belief that Ukraine had the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) “servers” as well as his references to CrowdStrike, the California-based cybersecurity firm that concluded the attack on the DNC came from Russia. Where did these conspiracy theories come from? According to documents released over the weekend, exactly where you’d expect: Russia.

President Donald Trump’s impeachment defenses continue to break down. After another week of testimony from top administration officials, the president’s alleged criminal behavior is becoming clearer than ever—and a historic vote in the House means the public will soon be learning all about it.

Attorney General Bill Barr and Rudy Giuliani are running parallel efforts to help Trump politically: one from inside the government and another from outside. While Giuliani’s schemes have drawn the ire of investigators in Congress and beyond, Barr’s line of attack doesn’t just benefit Trump—it also lends a huge helping hand to Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin.

Ukrainian billionaire Dmitry Firtash could be a key figure in unraveling the president’s corruption and extortion efforts across Europe.

Trump’s allies in Congress are lashing out against the impeachment process, and it’s easy to see why: The Trump administration’s top diplomat in Ukraine, acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor, brought the impeachment investigation to a new phase in his congressional deposition.