The president is hosting lunch today with some top Republican senators at the White House, breaking bread with the very people who may decide whether he should be removed from office.

They include Susan Collins and Mitt Romney, among just three Senate Republicans who refused to sign a resolution by their party denouncing the Democratic impeachment inquiry.

Romney tweeted earlier this month that Trump's "brazen and unprecedented" appeal to Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden was "wrong and appalling".

But the Utah senator told CBS he isn't planning on bringing up impeachment at lunch today.

Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful elected US Democrat, has been talking about impeachment during her weekly news conference.

"Hard to think of, except for declaring war, a more serious responsibility than the impeachment of a president, and none of us came here to impeach a president," Pelosi said. "That's not our priority, our vision for our country."

She added: "As we continue to gather evidence and the facts from the testimony, we'll go where the facts take us. I believe the truth will set us free. The president has said to me the call was perfect. I said to him, the call was perfectly wrong."

Shortly it will be Republicans' turn to ask the questions.

It will be interesting to see how they respond to earlier testimony that may undercut the president's argument he only wanted to root out Ukrainian corruption.

State Department official David Holmes told the committee he understood that Rudy Giuliani's drive to investigate "Burisma", the Ukraine gas company where Joe Biden’s son Hunter worked, was code for the former US vice-president and his family.

"Do you think anyone involved in Ukraine matters in the spring would understand that as well [that Burisma was code for the Bidens]?" a Democratic lawyer asked Holmes.

"Yes," was the reply.

In light of this, what to make of yesterday's testimony by Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland, who said he "didn’t understand that Biden and Burisma were connected"?

Here's how Holmes described hearing Trump's "loud and recognisable" voice during an ambassador's phone call.

We heard in earlier testimony a little more about that July call Ambassador Sondland placed to Trump from a Kyiv restaurant, during which an "investigation", purportedly into Joe Biden, was discussed.

Witness David Holmes told the hearing he was sitting across from Sondland at an outdoor terrace and could clearly hear Trump's "loud" voice coming through the ambassador's mobile phone.

In an attempt to test whether a call can indeed be overheard even when it's not on speakerphone, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo just rang up his mum and asked his co-panellists whether they could hear her.

The problem, though, was that Cuomo's mum couldn't hear the broadcasters.

A US rapper has come up quite a few times in the last few days of impeachment testimony, and again this morning.

Here's what we know about why A$AP Rocky featured on the call between President Trump and Ambassador Gordon Sondland.

Who was Hill pointing the finger at in her opening statement when she rebuked some lawmakers for believing a "fictional narrative" about Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 election?

Top committee Republican Devin Nunes has repeatedly brought up that narrative.

During Tuesday's public hearing, Nunes asked: "What is the full extent of Ukraine’s election meddling against the Trump campaign?"

"In these depositions and hearings, Republicans have cited numerous indications of Ukrainians meddling in the 2016 elections to oppose the Trump campaign," he continued.

Nunes also pushed back on Hill's testimony today, saying "it's entirely possible for two separate nations to engage in election meddling at the same time".

"Republicans believe we should take meddling seriously by all foreign countries, regardless of which campaign is the target."

Image source, Getty Images

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said this week that his country is "so tired" of the impeachment inquiry.

"I think everybody in Ukraine is so tired about Burisma," Zelensky said, answering a CNN reporter's question on Tuesday asking if he would launch investigations into the Bidens and the 2016 election.

"We have our own country. We have our independence, we have our problems and questions. That's it."

Zelensky told reporters last month there was “no blackmail” in the call with Donald Trump that led to this impeachment probe.

"There was no blackmail. It was not the subject of our conversation."

He said the purpose of the conversation was to arrange a meeting with Trump, and there were no "conditions" from the American side.

Zelensky also said he does not believe US-Ukraine relations will be affected by the impeachment inquiry.

Read the full story here.

Image source, Getty Images

Ex-National Security Adviser John Bolton expressed displeasure with Giuliani over his frequent public criticisms of Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, says Hill.

"I asked if there was anything we can do about it and Ambassador Bolton looked pained and basically indicated with body language that there's nothing much we can do about it," says Hill.

"And he then, in the course of that discussion, said Rudy Giuliani was a hand grenade and that he's going to blow everybody up."

Bolton, she says, meant "what Giuliani was saying was pretty explosive in any case".

"He was frequently on television, making quiet incendiary remarks about everyone involved in this and that he was clearly pushing forward issues and ideas that would probably come back to haunt us.

"And in fact I think that's probably where we are today."

Image source, Getty Images

Trump disregarded the advice of his senior advisers when they told him a theory that Ukraine tried to help Democrats during the 2016 election was false, says Fiona Hill, adding that he listened to his lawyer Rudy Giuliani instead.

Hill tells the committee the conspiracy theory has no basis.

Democratic lawyer Daniel Goldman asks her: "Isn't it also true that some of President Trump's most senior advisers had informed him that this theory of Ukraine interference in the 2016 election was false?"

Hill: "That's correct."

Goldman: "So is it your understanding then that President Trump disregarded the advice of his senior officials about this theory and instead listened to Rudy Giuliani's views?"

Hill: "That appears to be the case, yes."

According to the theory, a hack on the Democratic National Committee in 2016 - which leaked emails that politically embarrassed Hillary Clinton’s campaign - was actually perpetrated by the Ukrainians, and falsely blamed on the Russians.

The mention of "CrowdStrike" that we heard earlier from the other witness, David Holmes, also refers to this theory.

Holmes said he was "deeply disappointed" to learn that Trump, on his July call with President Zelensky, had expressed interest in this idea.

Holmes, a diplomat in Kyiv, said the clams are propagated by the Kremlin "to deflect from the allegations of Russian inference... to besmirch Ukraine and its political leadership".

The BBC's Kyiv correspondent Jonah Fisher explains how Ukraine became ensnared in these collusion claims here.

And our Reality Check team fact-checked the claims here.

Image source, Getty Images

President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday he was glad the impeachment drama had taken the focus away from Russia.

"Thank God," he said at an economic event in Moscow, according to the Associated Press news agency, external.

"No-one is accusing us of interfering in the US elections anymore, now they're accusing Ukraine."

Image source, AFP/Getty Images

A year away from the next US presidential election, Hill has a stark warning for lawmakers.

"Right now, Russia’s security services and their proxies have geared up to repeat their interference in the 2020 election," she says. "We are running out of time to stop them."

Image source, Getty Images

Hill levels what may be a subtle criticism of her former boss, John Bolton, saying: "I believe that those who have information that the Congress deems relevant have a legal and moral obligation to provide it."

Former US National Security Adviser Bolton has challenged his legal summons to appear before the impeachment committee. (Bolton has a $2m book deal with Simon & Schuster, according to reports.)

Now it's up to a judge to determine whether Bolton must obey the subpoena, or the White House's decree to stay out of it.

For their part, Republicans are demanding that Hunter Biden and the unnamed whistleblower who kick-started this whole impeachment inquiry must testify.

Image source, Getty Images

Fiona Hill has just delivered her opening statement.

"I grew up poor with a very distinctive working-class accent," Hill said.

"In England in the 1980s and 1990s, this would have impeded my professional advancement."

She originally hails from County Durham, though the dual national's tones sound a tad diluted by her years in America.

Many Americans, it turns out, are somewhat bamboozled by the class-conscious British term, a "working class accent".

The accent most Americans think of when it comes to British accents is what's known as the "standard" accent, or Received Pronunciation.

This is not associated with a particular region, like other accents in the UK, but is historically the way the educated upper classes (and royalty) spoke.

A "working class" accent differs regionally and is historically associated with the British lower classes.

More on accents:

• What does your accent say about you?
• Take our quiz and find out if you have a secret British accent
• Does your accent make you sound smarter?

Holmes continues describing the Trump-Sondland call, which turned to jailed US rapper A$AP Rocky after a mention of "investigations".

In July, President Trump demanded Sweden free A$AP Rocky after the musician was charged with assault in Stockholm. He was eventually released.

Holmes says: "The [Trump-Sondland] conversation then shifted to Ambassador Sondland’s efforts, on behalf of the President, to assist a rapper who was jailed in Sweden, and I could only hear Ambassador Sondland’s side of that part of the conversation.

"Ambassador Sondland told the President that the rapper was 'kind of effed there,' and 'should have pled guilty.' He recommended that the President 'wait until after the sentencing or it will make it worse', adding that the President should 'let him get sentenced, play the racism card, give him a ticker-tape when he comes home.'

"Ambassador Sondland further told the President that Sweden 'should have released him on your word,' but that 'you can tell the Kardashians you tried.'"

Image source, Getty Images

After Sondland met a top aide to Ukrainian President Zelensky on 26 July, four US officials went to lunch in Kyiv to discuss the meeting, says Holmes.

The four Americans sat at an "outdoor terrace", he says, with himself sitting directly across from Ambassador Sondland as he called Trump from his mobile phone.

"While Ambassador Sondland’s phone was not on speakerphone, I could hear the President’s voice through the earpiece of the phone.

"The president’s voice was very loud and recognisable, and Ambassador Sondland held the phone away from his ear for a period of time, presumably because of the loud volume.

"I heard Ambassador Sondland greet the President and explain that he was calling from Kyiv. I heard President Trump then clarify that Ambassador Sondland was in Ukraine.

"Ambassador Sondland replied, yes, he was in Ukraine, and went on to state that President Zelensky 'loves your ass.'

"I then heard President Trump ask, 'So, he’s gonna do the investigation?' Ambassador Sondland replied that 'he’s gonna do it,' adding that President Zelensky will do 'anything you ask him to'.

"Even though I did not take notes of these statements, I have a clear recollection that these statements were made."

Trump has cast doubt on whether it would be possible to ever overhear a phone call.

US diplomat David Holmes reveals what Bill Taylor, the current acting US ambassador to Ukraine, told him.

"While Ambassador Taylor did not brief me on every detail of his communications with the Three Amigos, he did tell me that on a June 28 call with President Zelensky, Ambassador Taylor, and the Three Amigos, it was made clear that some action on a Burisma/Biden investigation was a precondition for an Oval Office meeting."

Holmes adds: "Also on June 28, while President Trump was still not moving forward on a meeting with President Zelensky, he met with Russian President Putin at the G20 Summit in Osaka, Japan, sending a further signal of lack of support for Ukraine."

Taylor was one of the first to testify publicly before lawmakers last week. He told Congress it was his "clear understanding" that the president had withheld aid to Ukraine because he wanted an investigation into the Bidens.

Holmes just referenced Yovanovitch in his testimony. Here's a refresher on who she is.

Marie Yovanovitch, the former US Ambassador to Ukraine, testified before lawmakers last week.

She was recalled from her post in the spring after what she described as a "concerted effort against her".

"Although I understand that I served at the pleasure of the president," Yovanovitch said in a prepared statement, "I was nevertheless incredulous that the US government chose to remove an ambassador based, as best as I can tell, on unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives."

Yovanovitch also testified she felt threatened by the president's July call with Ukraine's Zelensky, where he called her "bad news" and said she was "going to go through some things".

During her hearing, Trump caused a stir by tweeting criticism of her as she testified.

Read more on the Yovanovitch hearing here.

Image source, Getty Images

In early May, Holmes says, he became aware that Rudy Giuliani was "having a direct influence on the foreign policy agenda the Three Amigos were executing in Ukraine".

The Three Amigos refers to Energy Secretary Rick Perry, EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland and Ukraine envoy Kurt Volker. That's what they called themselves. The inquiry has heard this trio ran a parallel channel of diplomacy in Ukraine that was directed by the White House, and operated independently of the State Department.

During a meeting to plan the delegation to Ukrainian President Zelensky's inauguration, Holmes recalls officials complaining about Giuliani's activities on Ukraine.

Sondland, he says, told him: "Damnit Rudy. Every time Rudy gets involved he goes and effs everything up."

"I'm an apolitical foreign policy official", David Holmes says in his opening statement.

He describes working under former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who was fired in April after Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani briefed against her for reasons that still remain murky.

Holmes points out that Yovanovitch "strained" her relationship with Ukrainian officials by pushing for anti-corruption laws.

He says former Ukrainian prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko complained that she had "destroyed him" and set out to discredit her.

Starting in March 2019, he says, the work of US diplomats in Ukraine was "overshadowed by a political agenda being promoted by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and a cadre of officials operating with a direct channel to the White House".

Giuliani, he says, joined Lutsenko's efforts to discredit Yovanovitch and made public statements calling for an investigation into Biden's son, who was a board member on Ukrainian gas firm Burisma.