"Go big or go home." She was forced home.

Good evening, OnPolitics readers.

The public hearings of the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump will continue Friday with Marie Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine, testifying publicly in front of House Intelligence Committee members.

But before getting to what has happened today and what we may see tomorrow in Washington, we wanted to address the mass shooting at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California. Two students were killed and four others injured — including the gunman — in the 16-second rampage this morning. The suspect, a student at the school, was taken into custody and was being treated at a hospital, authorities said. Additional details about the shooting will emerge in the upcoming days and the Paste BN News team will continue to closely monitor the latest developments.

Yovanovitch is up next and she may have a lot to offer

Yovanovitch will take her turn in the House Democrats' witness chair on Friday and it appears she'll have a great deal to say in several areas. Among the topics she discussed during her closed-door testimony on Oct. 11: 

• Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, suggested she support Trump on Twitter. "He said, you know, you need to go big or go home," Yovanovitch said. Yovanovitch chose not to heed Sondland's advice.
• Yovanovitch testified that upon returning to Washington after being recalled from Ukraine, she learned that the person driving her recall was none other than Trump. Deputy Secretary John Sullivan explained that Yovanovitch had "done nothing wrong," but Trump had "lost confidence" in her.
• Yovanovitch said she knew the president's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, had been criticizing her. She urged the State Department to issue a strong statement of support for her as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine after articles attacking her in conservative media were amplified by the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., and others. But the department declined.

Democrats believe Giuliani wanted Yovanovitch out because her anti-corruption work in Ukraine was an impediment to Trump's efforts to pressure that country's leader to investigate his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his son Hunter, who worked for the energy company Burisma Holdings.

Fiona Hill, former National Security Council senior director for Europe and Russia, said in her closed-door testimony Yovanovitch's removal "had a really devastating effect on the morale of all of the teams that I work with across the interagency because everybody knows Ambassador Yovanovitch to be the best of the best in terms of a nonpartisan career official."

Report: A second official heard the now-infamous Trump-Sondland call

Ambassador Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, surprised many during his testimony Wednesday when he stated that one of his aides overheard a phone call July 26 between Trump and Sondland, in which the president inquired about "the investigations." The Associated Press is now reporting a second U.S. Embassy staffer overheard that call between Trump and Sondland. That second staffer was Suriya Jayanti, a foreign service officer based in Kyiv, according to the AP. The staffer Taylor testified about is David Holmes, the political counselor at the embassy in Kyiv, according to an AP source. Holmes is scheduled to testify behind closed doors Friday.

Haley has more to say and Trump probably won't like it

In a new interview, Nikki Haley, Trump's former U.N. Ambassador, said she believes the Trump administration should have named Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, as special envoy to Ukraine. "It could've been handled better," Haley said to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer when asked about Giuliani's involvement in the country's policy. "They should've named him the special envoy so that everyone within the administration knew what his role was." Haley also said she thinks "you have to protect a whistleblower," acknowledging that "you could call it disagreeing" with Trump's wishes to oust the whistleblower. 

Pompeo appears to be 'on shifting sand'

Critics say Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's credibility has collapsed amid revelations that the State Department chief enabled Giuliani, to run a shadow foreign policy operation that undermined Ukraine, a vital U.S. ally under attack from Russia. The scandal has left America's top diplomat weakened in Washington and on the world stage, former diplomats say.

Awkward ...

Earlier on Thursday, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway snapped at Blitzer Thursday during a tense exchange. Blitzer attempted to ask Conway about her husband George Conway, an outspoken critic of Trump who made a rare television appearance Wednesday on MSNBC as a commentator on the impeachment inquiry.  At one point, Kellyanne Conway cut Blitzer off and said the following: 

"What did you just say? Did you just say there are issues there? You don't want to talk about my marriage, but there are issues there. Why would you say that?"

We're going to slowly back away and move on for the night now. 

Until tomorrow, OP readers.