Sec­re­tary of State Mike Pom­peo was among the ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fi­cials who lis­tened in on the July 25 phone call be­tween Pres­i­dent Trump and Ukraine's pres­i­dent, a se­nior State De­part­ment of­fi­cial said Mon­day, a dis­clo­sure that ties the State De­part­ment more closely to the House im­peach­ment in­quiry.

Mr. Pom­peo's par­tic­i­pa­tion on the call, which hadn't been pre­vi-ously re­ported, was one of sev­eral de­vel­op­ments re­lated to the con­tro­versy that cen­ters on Mr. Trump's re­peated urg­ing that Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Volodymyr Ze­len­sky co­op­er­ate with Rudy Giu­liani, Mr. Trump's per­sonal at­tor­ney, and At­tor­ney Gen­eral William Barr on in­ves­ti­ga­tions into Mr. Trump's po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents, in­clud­ing De­mo­c­ra­tic ri­val Joe Biden.

Also Mon­day, House com­mit­tees sub­poe­naed Mr. Giu­liani to turn over doc­u­ments re­lated to his com­mu­ni­ca-tions with Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fi­cials about his ef­forts in Ukraine, as well as any other doc­u­ments re­lated to that ef­fort, by Oct. 15. They said the sub­poena was for­mally part of the im­peach­ment in­quiry. Mr. Giu­liani said on Twit­ter that the sub­poena "will be given ap­pro­pri­ate con­sid­er­a­tion," not­ing that the sub­poena was "signed only by De­mo­c­rat Chairs who have pre-judged this case."

The im­peach­ment in­quiry is fo­cused on Mr. Trump's deal­ings with Ukraine. Law­mak­ers are fo­cus­ing on a whistle­blower com­plaint by a per­son iden­ti­fied as an of­fi­cer at the Cen­tral In­tel­li­gence Agency and a record of the call be­tween the two pres­i­dents that was re­leased by the ad­min­is­tra­tion. If the De­moc­rats ap­prove ar­ti­cles of im­peach­ment, the mat­ter would move to trial in the Sen­ate, which Sen­ate Ma­jor­ity Leader Mitch Mc­Connell con­firmed Mon­day he would hold.

"I would have no choice but to take it up," the Ken­tucky Re­pub­li­can said on CNBC. He added: "How long you are on it is a dif­fer­ent mat­ter, but I would have no choice but to take it up based on a Sen­ate rule on im­peach­ment."

The scru­tiny of the call with Ukraine—which came at a time when Mr. Trump had or­dered U.S. aid to Ukraine put on hold—has prompted a wider ex­am­i­na­tion of ef­forts by the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion to en­gage for­eign lead­ers in as­sist­ing with is­sues im­por­tant to the pres­i­dent.

Mr. Barr has asked Mr. Trump to make in­tro­duc­tions to a num­ber of for­eign of­fi­cials he be­lieves may have in­for­ma­tion rel­e­vant to the Jus­tice De­part­ment's re­view of the ori­gins of the Rus­sia in­ves­ti­ga­tion and has held over­seas meet­ings with some of them, a Jus­tice De­part­ment of­fi­cial said Mon­day. Mr. Trump re­cently called Aus­tralia's prime min­is­ter at Mr. Barr's re­quest, two gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials said, to ask him to help with the in­quiry.

Mr. Barr in May tapped John Durham, the top fed­eral pros­e­cu­tor in Con­necti­cut, to lead the re­view. It fo­cuses on the coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence in­ves­ti­ga­tion that be­came spe­cial coun­sel Robert Mueller's probe into Russ­ian elec­tion med­dling. Since then, Mr. Durham has been ex­plor­ing what role if any var­i­ous coun­tries in­clud­ing Ukraine played in the coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence probe. The Jus­tice De­part­ment has re­vealed that "cer­tain Ukraini­ans who are not mem­bers of the gov­ern­ment" had vol­un­teered in­for­ma­tion to Mr. Durham.

The de­part­ment of­fi­cial wouldn't say from which other coun­tries Mr. Barr is seek­ing in­for­ma­tion. The at­tor­ney gen­eral was in Italy last week speak­ing to gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials in con­nec­tion with Mr. Durham's re­view.

The of­fi­cial de­scribed Mr. Barr's re­quest that Mr. Trump speak to Aus­tralian Prime Min­is­ter Scott Mor­ri­son as stan­dard, say­ing "It is typ­i­cal pro­to­col for one leader to con­tact an­other leader" for such a re­quest.

"The Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment has al­ways been ready to as­sist and co­op­er­ate with ef­forts that help shed fur­ther light on the mat­ters un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion," ac­cord­ing to a state­ment from the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment. "The PM con­firmed this readi­ness once again in con­ver­sa­tion with the pres­i­dent."

In a May 28 let­ter to Mr. Barr, the Aus­tralian am­bas­sador to Wash­ing-ton of­fered to help with the ex­am­i­na-tion of the Russ­ian in­quiry, say­ing "we stand ready to pro­vide you with all rel­e­vant in­for­ma­tion to sup­port your in­quiries."

White House spokesman Hogan Gi­d­ley on Mon­day said: "The DOJ sim­ply re­quested that the Pres­i­dent pro­vide in­tro­duc­tions to fa­cil­i­tate that on­go­ing in­quiry, and he did so, that's all."

Mr. Trump and his Re­pub­li­can con­gres­sional al­lies have long al­leged that his as­sociates were un­fairly tar­geted for sur­veillance, and that in­ves­ti­ga­tors in the Jus­tice De­part­ment and the Fed­eral Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tion were po­lit­i­cally prej­u­diced against Mr. Trump in a way that could have af­fected their work. Mr. Trump has said he be­lieves Mr. Durham's re­view will show crimes were com­mit­ted by his po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents.

Mr. Pom­peo was sched­uled to de­part for a Eu­ropean trip later Mon­day. He said last week that he hadn't yet read the whistle­blow­er's com­plaint in its en­tirety, but said that to his knowl­edge, ac­tions by State De­part­ment of­fi­cials had been "en­tirely ap­pro­pri­ate and con­sis-tent" with ad­min­is­tra­tion ef­forts to im­prove re­la­tions with Ukraine.

In those com­ments, dur­ing the United Na­tions Gen­eral As­sem­bly meet­ing, he didn't men­tion his own par­tic­i­pa­tion in the call, but said the com­plaint was filed by "some­one who had sec­ond­hand knowl­edge."

Sev­eral days ear­lier, Mr. Pom­peo said that he op­posed re­leas­ing the record of the Trump-Ze­len­sky call. He told "Fox News Sun­day" in a Sept. 22 in­ter­view that he would de­fer to the White House on whether to do so.

"Those are pri­vate con­ver­sa-tions be­tween world lead­ers, and it's not of­ten that those are re­leased," he said in the in­ter­view. And when they're [re­leased], it's done when the White House deems it ap­pro­pri-ate." Mr. Pom­peo dis­missed a ques­tion about de­tails of the call, say­ing, "There's a lot go­ing on in the world."

Three House com­mit­tees—For­eign Af­fairs, In­tel­li­gence and Over­sight — on Fri­day sub­poe­naed Mr. Pom­peo for doc­u­ments re­lated to the in­quiry; he has un­til Oct. 4 to pro­duce them.

The com­mit­tees plan to de­pose for­mer U.S. am­bas­sador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch; U.S. spe­cial en­voy to Ukraine Kurt Volker; Deputy As­sistant Sec­re­tary for Eu­ropean and Eurasian Af­fairs George Kent; coun­selor Ul­rich Brech­buhl; and U.S. Am­bas­sador to the EU Gor­don Sond­land.

Mr. Volker re­signed his post last week. Mr. Sond­land said he planned to at­tend the de­po­si­tion. The State De­part­ment did not re­spond to ques­tions about plans by other of­fi­cials who were asked to ap­pear.

In Ukraine, Mr. Ze­len­sky said Mon­day that his ad­min­is­tra­tion wouldn't re­lease a tran­script of the July phone call with Mr. Trump, while also say­ing he is open to in­ves­ti­gat­ing any al­leged vi­o­la­tion of Ukrain­ian law.

At the White House on Mon­day af­ter­noon, Mr. Trump told re­porters: "We're try­ing to find out about a whistle­blower." He didn't ex­pand on that, and the White House didn't im­me­di­ately re­spond to a ques­tion about the com­ment.

Mr. Trump has said he de­served to con­front the whistle­blower and any­one who pro­vided him in­for­ma-tion and has sug­gested they are spies who com­mit­ted trea­so­nous acts. House De­moc­rats are ea­ger to hear tes­ti­mony from the whistle­blower—though in a way that will pro­tect his iden­tity.

Shortly af­ter Mr. Trump's com­ment, An­drew P. Bakaj, a lawyer who rep­re­sents the whistle­blower, wrote on Twit­ter: "The In­tel Com­mu­nity Whistle­blower is en­ti­tled to anonymity. Law and pol­icy sup­port this and the in­di­vid-ual is not to be re­tal­i­ated against. Do­ing so is a vi­o­la­tion of fed­eral law."

The Re­pub­li­can-led Sen­ate is con­sid­ered un­likely to con­vict Mr. Trump in any im­peach­ment trial. Re­mov­ing the pres­i­dent re­quires ap­proval by two-thirds of the 100-mem­ber Sen­ate.

Some Sen­ate Re­pub­li­cans have voiced con­cern over the al­le­ga­tions out­lined in a whistle­blower com-plaint made pub­lic last week, but none has voiced sup­port for im­peach­ment.

WSJ, September 30, 2019

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October 1, 2019

Voices4America Post Script. Posting this just in case you missed it.

It is almost a Who's Who of Which Trump officials asked foreign governments for help. 65 Nixon folks went to jail over Watergate. #IndictPompeo #IndictBarr #IndictGuiliani #ImpeachTrump #TheyAllFallDown