By Presidential Order: An aide to Ukraine Ambassador William Taylor testified in closed testimony before the House yesterday that he heard President Trump on speakerphone asking whether the president of Ukraine would proceed with investigations of his political rivals. 

  It’s the first testimony that directly links Trump to the shady diplomacy going on with Ukraine. The aide, David Holmes, said he heard President Trump ask, “So he’s gonna do the investigation?” referring to the Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.

  Holmes testified that Ambassador Gordon Sondland assured Trump over the phone that the Ukrainian president “loves your ass” and will do “anything you ask him to.”

  Holmes said he later asked Sondland, who had been on the phone with Trump, what the President thought about Ukraine. According to Holmes, Sondland said Trump was in a bad mood and “did not give a shit about Ukraine.” Holmes testified that Sondland told him the President cares only about “big stuff,” like Ukraine investigating Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

  Holmes told House investigators that the Office of Management and Budget conveyed President Trump’s order to withhold military aid to Ukraine that had been approved by Congress. He said it was his “clear” impression that the hold was placed in order to pressure Ukraine to conduct corruption investigations into the Bidens.

Shocked and Appalled: Testimony was in private and public yesterday. In open hearings, the former US ambassador to Ukraine told the House impeachment inquiry how she was pushed out in a smear campaign and was “shocked, appalled, devastated” to read the transcript of President Trump denouncing her on a phone call with the President of Ukraine.

  President Trump responded with a personal attack while she was still speaking. 

Trump wrote on Twitter that, “Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia, how did that go? Then fast forward to Ukraine, where the new Ukrainian President spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him.”

  First, let’s point out that Yovanovitch was a low-level diplomat in her first posting during the Somalia crisis and wasn’t calling the shots. It is true that the Ukraine President had unflattering things to say about Yovanovitch, but he did say that Trump was the one who told him she was a bad ambassador.

  Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff described the tweet as “witness intimidation” and asked for Yovanovitch’s reaction. “It’s very intimidating,” she replied.

  Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said, “I have the right to speak. I have freedom of speech like other people do.” 

  Yovanovitch, who spent more than 30 years in the foreign service and had a reputation for fighting corruption, was recalled from Ukraine by order of the President. She detailed the campaign by Trump operatives to stain her reputation. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, worked closely with a corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor to get her out of the way of a parallel diplomatic effort run from the White House. She said the campaign to force Ukraine to investigate Vice President Joe Biden and his son damaged American diplomacy and national security.

  Yovanovitch described reading the memo of conversation with Zelensky in which Trump described her as “bad news” and said was going to “go through some things.” She said she was “shocked, appalled, devastated that the president of the United States would talk about any ambassador like that to a foreign head of state — and it was me. I mean, I couldn’t believe it.”

  Host Chris Wallace on the pro-Trump Fox News said, “If you are not moved by the testimony of Marie Yovanovitch today, you don’t have a pulse.” 

They Got Roger Stone: President Trump’s friend and former associate Roger Stone was found guilty yesterday in federal court of lying and obstructing a congressional investigation into Russia’s 2016 election interference in what prosecutors said was an effort to protect Trump.

 The 67-year-old Stone was found guilty on all six counts of lying to the House Intelligence Committee, attempting to block the testimony of another potential witness, and concealing evidence because, prosecutors argued, the truth would have hurt President Trump. 

  The prosecutors presented evidence showing how in the months leading to the 2016 election, Stone worked to obtain the emails Russia hacked from Democratic computers and handed over to WikiLeaks, which released them in batches timed to damage Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Stone briefed the Trump campaign about what he knew was coming, but lied to congressional investigators about what he did.

The Bulletin Board: The 16-year-old who shot five high schoolers, killing two of them at his Santa Clarita, California high school, has died after being treated for of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. — President Trump has cleared three service members accused of or convicted of war crimes — murder of unarmed combatants or innocent civilians — overruling military leaders. A White House statement said, “As the President has stated, ‘when our soldiers have to fight for our country, I want to give them the confidence to fight.”

Gridiron Blues: Cleveland Browns star defensive end Myles Garrett has been suspended for the rest of the season for ripping off the helmet of the Steelers quarterback Thursday night then hitting him in the head with it. It was one of the uglier incidents in recent NFL history.

  The 23-year-old from Texas A&M, who’s known as a force to contend with on the field, must apply for reinstatement next year. His suspension is the longest for any player for a single on-field incident.

  Garrett was not the only guilty party in a brawl that broke out with only eight seconds on the clock. Steelers center Maurkice Pouncey and Browns defensive tackle Larry Ogunjobi were also suspended, and the two teams were fined $250,000 each.

  Garrett apologized soon after the incident. He said, “I lost my cool and what I did was selfish and unacceptable.”

-30-