Firing of shortrange artillery drawing rebuke from south korea and warning from experts there may be more to his photo on than just flexing his military muscle. Im wolf blitzer and youre in the situation room. Announcer this is cnn breaking news. Breaking news. The House Judiciary Committee has Just Announced that crucial next step in the impeachment inquiry. The chairman jerry nadler said the first hearing will take place on wednesday, december 4th, that is just one week from tomorrow. Nadler also invited President Trump to participate in the process or in his words stop complaining. Ill discuss that with congressman jamie raskin of the judiciary and Oversight Committee and well have full coverage of the days top stories. First to capitol hill. Our Congressional Correspondent Phil Mattingly is watching the developments. The impeachment inquiry is about to enter a critically important new phase. Will the president participate in this new round of hearings . Reporter if past is any prec
i would suggest rudy giuliani and some of the other president s men go take a trip and see what it feels like in prison and understand he s not doing hard time. he s not in danger, but the depressing nature of being locked up where you can t leave. i think rudy and some of the others should do a check and go up and see what that feels like before they decide how this is going to play out. a career official in the office of management and budget undercut the white house s defense for freezing security aid to ukraine during closed door testimony. associate director for national security mark sandy explained to impeachment investigators earlier this month he received an e-mail from the white house chief of staff mick mulvaney s office on july 12th directing a ukraine hold on that aid. as of july 26th a day after president trump s call with president zelensky, sandy testified that the omb office did not know why the money was being withheld. sandy then raised legal concerns that the
violate appropriation laws to his higher up, michael duffy. duffy, a political appointee took the lead on approving omb funds for foreign aid, a process typically overseen by career officials. sandy testified it was not until around september the 9th days before the money was released he was told the reason for the initial halt was because of president trump s desire to see other countries contribute more aid to ukraine. sandy added two career officials in the omb office resigned over their frustrations surrounding the unknown reason for the aid holdup. this is more testimony, this is more evidence that adam schiff has to work with. we didn t know about this specifically, that mr. sandy said officials were resigning in protest of this unexplained holdup for a long time of aid to ukraine. i think we were talking about this a little bit before the show. i think everything that comes out is of a piece. there are very few facts that contradict other facts.
directly tied the president to this. we ll see that argument continue to play out as the judiciary committee gets its turn at hearings next week, wolf. you ll go through the documents, the transcripts, hundreds of pages of transcripts that have just been released from mark sandy from the office of management and budget and philip reeker the secretary of state for european affairs. we ll get back to you. to the white house. the president is weighing in on the late breaking impeachment news and other develops. jim acosta is joining us now. what are you hearing? reporter: wolf, we re told a senior administration official said chairman nadler s proposal to allow white house attorneys to participate is under consideration and likely to come up for discussion during the president s trip to florida over the next several days. as for allowing top officials to testify, that is another matter. the president is trying to have it both ways and insisting woe like to see some of the top official
didn t pursue the investigation. he publicly said that. so it is sort of strange that the democrats in the house have to go document with great detail what he has already admitted to. but this testimony by mark sandy goes a long way in doing that. stand by. more on the breaking news coming up. also kim jong-un is staging a show of force near the contentious border with south korea. is the north korean dictator sending a message to president trump? wayfair s biggest black friday blowout ever