Happy Thursday, December 5. President Donald Trump took a stab at explaining away his damning request for a favor from Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky on the July 25 call. Here’s more on that and the other stories we’re watching.

Did Sheldon make a big purchase? From TPM Reader AM …

I’d written you previously about Pompeo’s likely senate run. Just reading that piece in McClatchy now about the warchest he’s amassing and the outreach he’s doing to megadonors and this caught my eye:

Some aspects of Wednesday’s impeachment hearing — the first in front of the House Judiciary Committee, the panel with jurisdiction for advancing the ultimate articles of impeachment — felt like déjà vu all over again.

Rudy Giuliani picked a precarious moment to arrive in the Ukrainian capital: days before crucial talks are to begin with Russia over a potential deal to end the war in the country’s east.

The biggest bombshell in House Democrats’ impeachment report on President Trump’s Ukraine gambit was the phone records they obtained detailing calls that Rudy Giuliani and other players made at key moments.

Happy Wednesday, December 4. The House Judiciary Committee will take over the impeachment inquiry today, kicking off the process with constitutional law experts. Here’s more on that and the other stories we’re watching.

I just heard — to my great chagrin and distress — one of my favorite CNN hosts say “clearly President Trump doesn’t think he did anything wrong.” Not only is this not “clear,” it is almost certainly false. We shouldn’t say this because it’s not true. He certainly knows he did something wrong. He simply doesn’t care.

Happy Tuesday, December 3. Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee plan to try out new tactics in the next phase of the impeachment inquiry, disposing of Rep. Devin Nunes’ (R-CA) conspiracy-theory fixation. Here’s more on that and the other stories we’re watching.

Here’s a helpful article by Philip Bump in the Post.

Bump takes the GOP claims of Ukraine election interference at face value and looks at what they amount to. As he shows pretty clearly, even taken on their face the alleged evidence is basically absurd. It amounts to information coming out of Ukraine – not by the government – about Paul Manafort’s criminal activities and the fact that a few government officials said negative things about Trump on social media, largely in reaction to Trump’s saying Russia was entitled to annex Crimea.