OBVIATING THE NEED FOR HEARINGS ON THAT ARTICLE OF IMPEACHMENT TOO:

The State Department waited until 12:30 a.m. on Tuesday to tell U.S. Ambassador Gordon Sondland not to show up for his scheduled deposition with three House committees later that morning, the ambassador's lawyer told Yahoo News. [...]

"It is hard to overstate the significance" of Sondland's testimony as well as that of other State Department officials, said Schiff in a hastily called meeting with reporters at the U.S. Capitol.

"The failure to produce this witness, the failure to produce these documents, we consider yet additional strong evidence of obstruction of the functioning of a coequal branch of government."

Tweet   @brothersjudd