Republicans are freaking out and Pence is dragged into Trump's mess as the Ukraine scandal worsens

• It also suggests the White House is increasingly relying on a mere handful of Trump-trusted officials to carry out Trump's orders after recent purges of anyone in the administration who had balked at his pronouncements.

• House Oversight Committee chair Elijah Cummings indicated he will now be subpoenaing the White House for relevant documents after months of White House stonewalling. In a morning press conference, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff emphasized that further delays would be seen by House investigators as an intent to obstruct, and blasted Trump for "a blatant attempt to intimidate witnesses" with his talk of "traitors and spies." Schiff and Pelosi emphasized that the inquiry was to be fast, but deliberate: "There is a great deal more we need to know to appreciate the depth of the president’s misconduct," said Schiff.

• The State Department inspector general briefed Congress this afternoon on an "urgent" matter apparently involving a package of "propaganda" intended to damage former U.S. Ambassador to the Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who was recalled by an angry Trump in May. The details, however, remain murky.

• The New York Times reported that prior to making their formal complaint and after believing that the CIA's chief legal counsel was not taking their information seriously, the Ukraine call whistleblower contacted a staffer for Rep. Adam Schiff with a "vague" description of the complaint. The staffer advised the whistleblower to move forward by obtaining a lawyer and submitting a formal report. All of this is, despite the Times' apparent effort to sensationalize the story, precisely in accordance with the relevant rules and laws, but was immediately seized upon by Trump who embellished it into yet another conspiracy theory—this one suggesting Rep. Schiff "helped write" the whistleblower's report.

• The House Oversight Committee is now examining money paid to Trump hotels ostensibly to book rooms, after which the payers did not actually use those rooms. Two such instances have been discovered, involving a foreign government and a trade group, but the committee appears to believe they will discover others: "We're looking at near raw bribery," Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia said.

• Trump's team didn't just misuse a codeword-level classified server to hide transcripts and readouts of Trump's calls with world leaders, including Ukrainian president Zelensky, Russian leader Vladimir Putin, and Saudi Arabia's Mohammed bin Salman. The White House apparently further upgraded the security on the server last year as additional precaution against "leaks" of that information.

• Republicans continue to privately freak out at Trump's inability to mount a coherent impeachment response. (Not the crimes, mind you—just the "optics" of how he's going to best weasel out of the consequences.) It's not likely today's back-to-back press meltdowns will settle those nerves. Democrats, on the other hand, are no longer as fearful of an impeachment "blowback" as they were in past months.

• As officials like Barr and Pompeo continue to refuse House demands for testimony and documents during the now-active impeachment inquiry, Congress' power of inherent contempt may be the only way to break the administration's unconstitutional stonewalling.