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Key facts and latest news

• Democrats are weighing steps they can take to conceal the whistleblower’s identity in a potential interview.
• The House committees leading the impeachment probe issued subpoenas to the Pentagon and White House budget office, demanding documents about freezing military aid to Ukraine.
• On a July call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Mr. Trump urged Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden. Before the call, the president instructed acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to hold off on releasing military aid to Ukraine that had been appropriated by Congress.
• Soon after the July call, White House officials moved a record of the call to a highly classified computer system, severely restricting who could access it.

Washington — The House Intelligence Committee is considering “extraordinary moves” to protect the whistleblower’s identity in a still-unscheduled upcoming interview, according to one lawmaker.

“We have to take all precautions, because we cannot burn his or her identity,” Democratic Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi told CBS News.

The potential measures — including obscuring the whistleblower’s appearance and voice — were first reported by The Washington Post on Monday.

The measures the committee is considering are extremely rare. A Senate Intelligence Committee aide said they could not think of a time when their committee has taken such steps to protect an interviewee’s identity. The person said the closest parallel they could think of was when the chair and vice chair offered to fly to London to interview Christopher Steele, the author of a dossier detailing ties between the Trump campaign and Russia who had legal concerns about traveling to the U.S.

The measures the House committee is considering, this aide said, “speak to concerns about the ranking member and his intentions.” In other words, Democrats are worried that Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the committee, will share the whistleblower’s identity with the White House.

On the Senate side, “I can’t think of a time when we needed to conceal someone’s identity from the other party,” the aide said.

Nunes relinquished his leadership of the House committee’s Russia probe after he was accused of coordinating with the White House to disclose classified information aimed at embarrassing the previous administration.

The three House committees leading Democrats’ impeachment probe issued new subpoenas to the secretary of defense and acting White House budget director, requesting documents about the decision to freeze military aid to Ukraine over the summer. — Nancy Cordes