The House Intelligence Committee issued a subpoena for acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney on Thursday night, ordering him to testify in front of impeachment investigators on Friday. One official working on the inquiry told The Associated Press Mulvaney "could shed additional light on the president's abuse of power of his office for his personal gain." The White House has told officials not to cooperate with investigators, and Mulvaney is not expected to appear. The House is investigating Trump's dealings with Ukraine, and last month, Mulvaney told reporters that Trump's decision to hold military aid to the country was connected to his desire for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to launch an investigation into the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails. Mulvaney went on to take back his remarks.

A State Department official told Congress that President Trump wanted Ukraine's president to mention Hillary Clinton while announcing the opening of the investigations he wanted. A transcript of the testimony of Europe adviser George Kent was released Thursday. Kent described how U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland "was pushing" to have Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announce a "willingness to pursue investigations" involving Burisma, the gas company where former Vice President Joe Biden's son served on the board, and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election, which he hoped would include a Clinton mention. Kent also testifies that he heard it appeared Trump "wanted nothing less than President Zelensky to go to [a] microphone and say investigations, Biden, and Clinton."

An aide to Vice President Mike Pence testified Thursday in the impeachment inquiry into President Trump and reportedly said she found a call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky unusual in its political nature. Jennifer Williams, special adviser to Pence, was listening in on the July phone call in which Trump pushed Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, and she was reportedly "concerned" about it. She did not report her concerns. She said she did not know how much Pence knew about Trump's requested investigations, and did not know whether Trump asked Pence to mention them when he met with Zelensky in September. Pence has denied talking about "the issue of the Bidens" with Zelensky.

Former New York City Mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg is reportedly planning to file paperwork to enter the Democratic presidential primary in Alabama by Friday. He has been weighing a bid for weeks, a Bloomberg adviser told The New York Times on Thursday, and has not yet made a final decision on whether to launch a full-fledged campaign, but will enter the race in Alabama, where there is an early deadline to file. The adviser said Bloomberg feels "the current field of candidates is not well positioned to" defeat Trump. Bloomberg is a moderate Democrat who experts say would be capable of raising money quickly, and could be a threat to former Vice President Joe Biden's candidacy.

A judge on Thursday ordered President Trump to pay $2 million to a group of nonprofit organizations in a settlement over his alleged misuse of his charitable foundation. New York's attorney general in June 2018 sued Trump, accusing him and three of his children of "persistently illegal conduct" at the Donald J. Trump Foundation, which allegedly coordinated unlawfully with his 2016 presidential campaign and which the solicitor general said was "little more than a checkbook for payments from Mr. Trump or his businesses to nonprofits, regardless of their purpose or legality." When the lawsuit was originally announced, Trump slammed the "sleazy New York Democrats" who brought it and promised, "I won't settle this case!"