SACRAMENTO — 

California lawmakers continued the state’s expansion of rights and protections this year for immigrants who enter the country illegally, with laws signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom allowing them to serve on government boards and commissions and banning arrests for immigration violations in courthouses across the state.

The efforts by Newsom and Democrats in the California Legislature to provide refuge to immigrants stand in sharp contrast to the policies of President Trump, who continues to push for a new wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and also crack down on asylum seekers.

“Our state doesn’t succeed in spite of our diversity — our state succeeds because of it,” Newsom said in a written statement on Saturday after signing some of the bills into law. “While Trump attacks and disparages immigrants, California is working to ensure that every resident — regardless of immigration status — is given respect and the opportunity to contribute.”

The legislation signed by Newsom also expands California’s college student loan program for so-called Dreamers, young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children, to include students seeking graduate degrees at the University of California and California State University schools. Undergraduate Dreamers already are eligible for those loans and in-state tuition. The new laws take effect Jan. 1.

But the governor didn’t embrace every immigration proposal that landed on his desk. He vetoed a bill that would have given the state attorney general the authority to investigate any death at civil immigration detention centers. A report by the American Civil Liberties Union documented 13 deaths at California immigration detention centers since 2010.

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In a veto statement, Newsom said a policy to end the use of private, for-profit detention facilities in the state, including those used to house immigrants, makes that proposed law unnecessary.

“I believe that closing these facilities needs to be our focus as it is the best way to address these injustices,” Newsom said.

In February, state Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra released findings from the first state inspection of California’s immigrant detention centers and found that almost all facilities detained people in cells for long periods of time — sometimes up to 22 hours a day — without any breaks. Immigrants faced significant language barriers and challenges in accessing medical and mental healthcare and legal counsel, state investigators found. Detainees were allowed only minimal contact with friends and family.

“Here you have immigrants dying in the custody in these civil detention centers and yet we don’t have any authority to do an investigation,” state Sen. Maria Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles), author of the bill vetoed by Newsom. “This is getting worse and worse by the day as far as immigrants in the hands of ICE officials.”

Amid an escalating feud with the Trump administration and its aggressive plans to deport immigrants, California also adopted a new law forbidding immigration agents from making civil arrests inside state courthouses.

California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye last year said the arrests were “disruptive, shortsighted, and counterproductive … It is damaging to community safety and disrespects the state court system.”

“The governor came into office understanding that close to 50% of the population in California is either an immigrant or a child of an immigrant,” said Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights. “Pro-immigrant policies are pro-California policies. If immigrants thrive, we all thrive.”

One of Durazo’s most ambitious pieces of legislation in 2019 would have provided Medi-Cal healthcare coverage to all eligible immigrants, even if they entered the country illegally. California already provides government-subsidized health services to immigrant children and youth from low-income families.

The proposal failed to advance in large part because of the cost: $2.3 billion in state and federal funding, according to one legislative estimate. But in his budget passed by state lawmakers in June, Newsom extended Medi-Cal coverage to adults in the U.S. illegally through the age of 25.

Durazo said the governor promised to consider extending Medi-Cal benefits for immigrants ages 65 and above next year. She said those immigrants should be entitled to state healthcare coverage and other government benefits because they pay state and federal taxes.

“If they’re here, they’re working, they’re participating and they’re contributing, I think they have the right to get their end of the deal. Why would we treat them differently? … It’s not smart for California,” Durazo said.

Legislative Republicans largely opposed the immigration agenda of Democrats. But there was bipartisan consensus on one bill that at least indirectly involves immigrants, regardless of their legal status. The legislation requires public schools to provide 2020 U.S. Census materials to students and parents that encourage them to take part in the decennial nationwide population count. The bill passed unanimously in both the Assembly and Senate and was signed by Newsom earlier this month.

Census data are used to distribute nearly $900 billion in annual federal funding, supporting schools, healthcare, food stamps, foster care and special education. Census results also determine the number of representatives in Congress granted to each state.

The Trump administration attempted to add a citizenship question to next year’s census, which Democrats alleged was a ploy to discourage immigrants from participating over fears of potential deportation or other government action. The administration later abandoned the effort, which was challenged in the courts.

“Even though the courts, in the end, took out the citizenship question, there was lots of damage that was already done in our communities,” said Assemblywoman Eloise Reyes (D-Grand Terrace), author of the bill. “We have to be able to tell them in a way that they can trust, tell them that they needed to be counted.”

SACRAMENTO — 

It was a Sunday tradition at Bethany Slavic Missionary Church. After morning services, Florin Ciuriuc joined the line of worshipers waiting to fill their jugs with gallons of free drinking water from a well on the property, a practice church leaders had encouraged.

“I take it for my office every week,” said Ciuriuc, a 50-year-old Romanian immigrant and a founding member of the largely Russian-speaking church, which claims 7,000 congregants.

Church leaders boasted it was the cleanest water in Sacramento, according to Ciuriuc. In fact, test results showed the water contained toxic chemicals from firefighting foam used for decades on a now-shuttered Air Force base a mile away. Church leaders say they did not understand their well was contaminated.

The church’s well is one of thousands of water sources located on and near military bases polluted with chemicals from the foam, which was used by the armed services since the 1960s.

Defense Department officials know that the chemicals, called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, have seeped into the groundwater underneath nearly two dozen military bases throughout the state. But the department has conducted only limited testing off base and cannot say how many civilian water sources they’ve polluted or who will pay for it.

Since 2016, when the Environmental Protection Agency classified PFAS as an “emerging contaminant” linked to liver cancer and other health problems, the Pentagon has found the pollutants at levels above federal health guidelines in soil and groundwater at more than 90 bases nationwide.

California has the most of any state, with contamination at 21 bases, including six where the chemicals threaten the water supply in nearby communities, according to a review of hundreds of pages of Defense Department records by the Los Angeles Times.

In Riverside County, Barstow, Orange County and Sacramento, PFAS have been detected in private wells or public water systems outside the boundaries of military installations, records show.

At Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos and Fresno Air National Guard Base, the chemicals are suspected of moving into the community water supply.

One military contractor warned in September that residents “using groundwater for drinking water” near Los Alamitos “may potentially be exposed to migrating PFAS contamination.” Another contractor said in March that five wells west of the Fresno airfield could be affected.

But the Pentagon has not completed off-base testing at either location, and at other California bases, leaving the full extent of the contamination unknown.

The Pentagon faces the prospect of a gigantic environmental cleanup that officials estimate could cost in excess of $2 billion and take decades to complete. The day Defense Secretary Mark Esper took office in July, he appointed a task force to oversee the Pentagon response.

Wherever they have already found PFAS in drinking water above the EPA health advisory level of 70 parts per trillion, the military has supplied bottled water, paid for filters and purchased clean water for both military personnel and civilians, officials say.

“Our first priority is to cut off human exposure, and everywhere we’ve identified that someone’s drinking water is above the EPA health advisory level, we are doing everything we can to provide alternative drinking water,” Maureen Sullivan, deputy assistant secretary of defense for environment, said in an interview.

Citing limited funds from Congress for cleanup and testing, the Defense Department only acts when water sampling finds contamination levels above EPA health advisory level for two of the most common variations of PFAS.

The threshold, which was set in 2016, is nonbinding, and officials in several states have set much more stringent standards. Congress is currently debating whether to force the Trump administration to adopt an enforceable nationwide standard, a proposal the White House has said it opposes.

California regulators have few legal tools to force the Pentagon to expand its sampling to groundwater near bases.

“We’re doing everything we can to compel the owner, the Department of Defense, to conduct the investigations, to show us it’s not a problem,” said Doug Smith, assistant executive officer with Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board, which monitors groundwater at seven California bases.

According to the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonpartisan research organization, about 85% of Californians depend on groundwater for some portion of their water supply.

Regulators and environmental groups warn that the slow pace of Pentagon testing has left an unknown number of people drinking contaminated water.

“The PFAS plumes are spreading near these military bases, and DOD is turning a blind eye,” said Jane Williams, executive director of California Communities Against Toxics, an environmental group that has pushed for more stringent PFAS cleanup standards.

‘Forever chemicals’ spread

Nationwide, the chemicals have been found at 401 current and former military bases. When testing was conducted off-base, the pollutants were found in 1 in 4 wells and water systems, according to a 2018 Pentagon report to Congress.

Among them is the well at Ruben Mendez’s home in the Inland Empire.

Mendez said he had no reason to think something was wrong with his well water until Air Force officials knocked on his door a few years ago.

“They said, ‘We spilled something, and you need to stop drinking the water for a while,’” Mendez said in an interview on the front porch of his peach-colored home.

In 1993, when the Mendez family built the ranch-style home that Ruben, 64, and his 91-year-old mother now share, they settled on property about a mile southeast of March Air Reserve Base. They had a private well dug more than 400 feet down, and for years authorities came every few months to test the water. Mendez said he attributed these visits to his home’s proximity to the base.

In 2016, after the EPA set its health advisory, officials abruptly told the Mendezes and another family nearby to stop drinking the water.

“We thought we had nice, clean water,” Mendez said.

At that point, the Air Force “immediately contacted the two private well owners, provided them with bottled water and advised them not to use the well for any consumption purposes,” Air Force spokesman Mark Kinkade said.

The Air Force delivered free five-gallon jugs of water to the Mendez home for more than two years. In 2018, it paid to have the house connected to the municipal water system. Ruben Mendez said he now pays $100 a month for water he used to get for free.

The toxic plume that spread from the base has also made its way into the public drinking-water system.

The Eastern Municipal Water District, which supplies a swath of the Inland Empire that is home to some 825,000 people — from Temecula to Moreno Valley and Perris to Hemet — closed one of its large supply wells in 2016 when the EPA set its new health advisory level for the chemicals.

“We took that well out of service the same day,” said Lanaya Alexander, the water district’s senior director of water resources planning.

But the chemicals had spread further south. In February, after a second well tested above California’s notification level, the district shut it down too.

An emerging health threat

Often referred to as “forever chemicals,” PFAS can persist indefinitely in the ground and water, be absorbed into people’s blood and accumulate in their bodies for years.

Some states and public health advocates say PFAS are harmful at much lower levels than the federal health advisory level of 70 parts per trillion. California requires state regulators to be notified at levels as low as 5.1 parts per trillion.

In January, a new state law will mandate that customers be told if any of the chemicals are detected.

Contamination from these chemicals come from many sources, not just aircraft foam. They were widely used in commercial products like nonstick pans, waterproof clothing and food packaging.

In Southern California, a major source of the pollutants is believed to be chrome-plating factories.

Most vulnerable are mothers and young children, whose reproductive and developmental health can be altered by even tiny amounts of the chemicals being passed to fetuses during pregnancy and to nursing infants through breast milk.

Since only small amounts can be absorbed through the skin, the greatest risk of exposure is from drinking contaminated water.

Firefighting foam is considered a major contributor to the contamination, because it contains high concentrations of PFAS. Developed by the Navy and 3M Co., the chemicals create a film that cools burning aircraft fuel and blankets flammable vapors.

Because of concerns about PFAS contamination, the Pentagon promised in 2016, after the EPA issued its health advisory, that it would phase out use of the foam. It has halted its use in training, but continues to apply it in aircraft fires.

Outrage over PFAS contamination has been building in the Midwest and on the East Coast for years, where companies like 3M, DuPont and its spin-off, the Chemours Co., which made the chemicals, have sought to downplay their health risks.

New Hampshire has set some of the toughest PFAS drinking-water limits in the country. Pennsylvania has tested the blood of residents in heavily-affected areas to measure their exposure. New Mexico’s attorney general sued the Air Force this year to compel the military to pay for the cleanup of two contaminated bases.

But in California, which state regulators say does not have any companies that manufactured PFAS, the scope of the contamination is only beginning to be understood.

California regulators have launched a multi-part investigation, focusing first on more than 600 drinking-water wells located within one or two miles of commercial airports and municipal landfills, where discarded household items release the chemicals.

They plan to widen their search in the coming months, sampling water from wells near military bases and manufacturing plants.

“We’re going to take it case by case,” said Dan Newton of the state Water Resources Control Board. “Where we find hot spots, we may chase those out further to identify plumes or areas of concern.”

High levels found, but not enough testing

One of the California bases with the highest levels of on-base contamination, Edwards Air Force Base, has carried out little testing off-site.

A vast aircraft testing facility in the high desert north of Lancaster, Edwards has 24 contaminated sites where firefighting foam was sprayed heavily.

At a training site where firefighters practiced dousing flames with the toxic foam, the contamination level in soil samples reached 18,000 parts per trillion, more than 250 times higher than the EPA threshold, according to a contractor’s 2018 report to the Air Force.

Tests of the base’s drinking water did not show high readings. Still, the environmental testing company hired by the military called for further investigation into whether chemicals from the foam were leaching into the groundwater, noting at least “39 off-base water supply wells are within a 4-mile radius” of a contaminated site at Edwards.

Federal and state regulators agreed that more testing was necessary.

In March, the EPA complained in an email to base authorities that while the base was conducting limited testing, it had made “no commitment to ensure the nature and extent of … PFAS contamination is investigated.”

California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control recommended in a July 22 letter to base officials that the Air Force expand its testing to include off-base wells.

Sanford Nax, a spokesman for the agency, acknowledged that regulators were concerned about “the limited nature of the sampling.”

The Air Force is preparing to do further on-base testing next month near the base’s northern boundary, it said in a statement. None of the 24 contaminated sites found at the base to date “are in close proximity to any on-base or off-base drinking water wells,” it said.

If future sampling finds contaminated drinking water that exceeds the EPA recommended level, “we will immediately provide alternate drinking water to impacted residences and facilities and begin working with the community and state regulators,” the statement added.

Other bases have even higher PFAS contamination.

At China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station, a massive Navy testing facility and airfield near Ridgecrest, groundwater samples in 2017 turned up PFAS levels of 8 million parts per trillion, the highest in California.

Sampling in 2017 at Naval Base Ventura County found PFAS contamination of 1.08 million parts per trillion.

And near San Francisco, at Naval Air Station Alameda, the levels reached 336,000 parts per trillion, while at Marine Corps Air Station Tustin, a shuttered base in Orange County, samples were as high as 770,000 parts per trillion.

Recently released Pentagon documents obtained through a public records request by the Environmental Working Group, an environmental advocacy group, showed three more bases in California with elevated contamination levels.

They include Joint Forces Training Base, a California National Guard airfield in Los Alamitos, and Ft. Hunter Liggett, an Army training base in southern Monterey County. The third, Sierra Army Depot, a military storage facility, is located north of Lake Tahoe.

Although the military has tested on-base at all of the facilities, their response to the spreading of the contaminants to off-base drinking supplies has been spottier.

California regulators say there is little they can do to speed up the military’s testing or cleanup efforts around its contaminated bases. Because the EPA has delayed setting a standard for cleaning up groundwater contamination, the military has avoided large-scale remediation costs.

Growing frustration with Pentagon response

In Rancho Cordova, a city of more than 72,000 people just east of Sacramento that abuts the former Mather Air Force Base, a drinking-water well owned by the California American Water Co., one of four utilities that sells water to the town’s residents, has been contaminated.

City Manager Cyrus Abhar said that when the tainted water was discovered, the Air Force assured him it would deal with the problem.

“The Air Force is not going to leave the local communities holding the bag,” Abhar said.

But several years after test results showed high PFAS readings, the Air Force has largely evaded responsibility for removing the contaminant.

Instead, California American Water has spent $1.3 million to build a treatment plant that filters PFAS out of the groundwater. The Air Force has not reimbursed it for this expense, said Evan Jacobs, a California American Water spokesman.

In a statement, the Air Force said, “Congress has provided no authority” to pay for constructing the facility, but that it was in negotiations with the company to pay for its operation costs.

In a sign of growing frustration with the Defense Department, the company has filed a property damage claim against the Air Force — a first step before a lawsuit.

Tim Miller, California American Water’s senior director of water quality, warned regulators at a meeting of the State Water Resources Control Board last spring that the Mather PFAS plume could grow.

“The risk of PFAS contamination continuing to spread in the groundwater basin underneath the city of Rancho Cordova is increasing,” he said.

If no one acted to prevent it, Miller said, the chemicals could leach into five more drinking-water wells within the next five years.

The pollutants have already reached Bethany Slavic Missionary Church, which is housed in a former health club a mile from Mather.

A deep well on the property supplies the Pentecostal church with its drinking water and is used to fill an outdoor swimming pool for baptisms.

Ciuriuc, one of the church’s founders, said he had no idea the Air Force was regularly testing the well for PFAS — or that the tests showed the contaminant level had risen from 14 parts per trillion in 2016 to 50 parts per trillion two years later.

When the well was tested again in March, the chemicals had climbed to 59 parts per trillion, according to a letter disclosing the results the Air Force sent to the church’s pastor, Adam Bondaruk.

“The sample results” are “below the United States Environmental Protection Agency Lifetime Health Advisory level of 70 parts per trillion,” said the letter, a copy of which was provided by the church. “The Air Force is committed to protecting human health and the environment.”

Since the letter made no recommendations to limit use of the well for drinking water, the church initially took no action. When another sample was taken in June, it showed the contaminant level had dropped sharply — back to 16 parts per trillion.

But the church recently started taking precautions, after inquiries from The Times. Ciuriuc stopped taking water every Sunday. Highlands Community Charter School, which leases space from the church, began offering bottled water to its 44 adult students who attend class there.

Last month, church leaders padlocked the well.

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WASHINGTON — 

Nearly 300 drinking water wells and other water sources in California have traces of toxic chemicals linked to cancer, new state testing has found.

Testing conducted this year of more than 600 wells across the state revealed pockets of contamination, where chemicals widely used for decades in manufacturing and household goods have seeped into the public’s water supply. An analysis by the Los Angeles Times found that within this class of chemicals, called perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, the two most common compounds were detected in 86 water systems that serve up to 9 million Californians.

State officials released the water quality results on Monday, the first step in what’s likely to be a years-long effort to track the scale of the contamination and pinpoint its sources. Only a small fraction of California’s thousands of drinking water wells were tested in this initial study. Officials said they planned to examine many more, but have not committed to future statewide testing.

The results offered the clearest picture yet of California’s exposure to a public health crisis that is playing out nationally.

“This has the potential of being an enormously costly issue both on the health side as well as on the mitigation and regulatory side,” said Kurt Schwabe, an environmental policy professor at UC Riverside. “It’s going to be one of the defining issues in California, environmentally, for decades.”

About half of the wells sampled did not have the chemicals at detectable levels — a result that state officials said was a hopeful sign the contaminants may not have spread as widely as they have in other states. Yet testing found contaminated drinking water in communities across California, from densely-populated cities with large and complex water systems to mobile home parks that depend on a single private well.

Clusters of contaminated wells were found in Southern California, in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. In some cases, the results had an immediate effect — the city of Anaheim has shut down three of its drinking water wells so far this year in response to elevated levels of the chemicals.

Exposure to the chemicals, commonly known as PFAS, has been traced to kidney and testicular cancer, as well as high cholesterol and thyroid disease. Mothers and young children are thought to be the most vulnerable to the chemicals, which can affect reproductive and developmental health.

Scientists have called them “forever chemicals” because they persist indefinitely and accumulate in the human body.

The chemicals were developed in the 1940s and used in countless household products, from Teflon cookware and Scotchgard to waterproof clothing and food packaging. They were also a key ingredient in firefighting foam used on military bases and, as a result, have become a major source of groundwater pollution.

A Times analysis found that California has 21 contaminated bases, more than any other state, including six where the chemicals have leached into off-base drinking water supplies.

There is no agreed-upon safe level of PFAS. The Environmental Protection Agency has classified the chemicals as an “emerging contaminant” and has delayed setting a national standard for limiting the levels in drinking water. In 2016, the agency issued a nonbinding health advisory for two of the most common types, PFOS and PFOA, recommending that water utilities notify the public if levels of the chemicals reached a combined 70 parts per trillion.

California health officials are developing their own safety standards for the contaminants.

A state law that takes effect in January will require utilities to inform customers if PFAS are found at any level. It will also force water systems to either shut down wells that test over the federal health advisory level or notify their customers of the contamination — steps that, at present, are only voluntary.

For the first round of testing, California’s State Water Resources Control Board focused on hundreds of wells located within one or two miles of commercial airports, municipal landfills, and water supplies already known to have elevated levels of the chemicals. Each of these wells was tested for about a dozen different compounds within the broader PFAS family, which includes thousands of unique chemicals.

Officials plan to widen their search in the coming months to include drinking water systems near military bases, manufacturing hubs and wastewater treatment plants.

California has about 3,000 water providers, most of which have not been ordered to test for PFAS. Those that have been forced to confront the problem have looked for solutions based on what they can afford and whether they have other sources of clean water readily available.

An example of this can be found in the cities of Oroville and Chico. Both have detected PFAS in their drinking water wells, but because Oroville gets the majority of its water from Lake Oroville, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, local water suppliers there can reduce their reliance on groundwater without feeling pinched. Chico, on the other hand, is dependent on groundwater wells.

“Every water system is different, and that changes the options that you have,” said Loni Lind, water quality manager for California Water Service, which supplies both towns.

In interviews with The Times, water district managers emphasized that having contaminated groundwater wells does not necessarily mean that residents are being exposed to dangerous levels of PFAS. Some utilities have treated the water to remove most of the chemicals, while others have started blending contaminated water with other sources to lower their concentration. Still others have closed wells or put them on emergency-use-only status.

In Orange County, where testing ordered by the state found PFAS chemicals in 10 different water systems, four groundwater wells with elevated levels of the chemicals have been shut down.

Jason Dadakis, Orange County Water District’s executive director of water quality, said that based on water testing, the district concluded that the chemicals were coming from wastewater treatment plants in Riverside and San Bernardino. Those facilities discharge water into the Santa Ana River, he said, which feeds the county’s groundwater basin.

Sewage treatment plants aren’t designed to remove a compound like PFAS, Dadakis said. “It just passes through their system.”

If the chemicals spread and the district is forced to treat the water, Orange County residents could see their water bills rise by as much as 15%, Dadakis said.

Local water suppliers in other parts of the state said they had no idea where the chemicals could be coming from, but they expected answering that question would take years of investigation.

“It’s really difficult to say what’s happening and where it’s being generated,” said Tom Moody, who oversees the city of Corona’s water system, where eight wells tested above the EPA’s health advisory level. Rather than close them all down, the city now sends water from these wells through an existing treatment plant.

“In my generation, we probably absorbed this chemical in everything from tennis shoes to popcorn and pizza and all that stuff,” Moody said. “Now everybody is trying to point the finger at everybody else.”

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WASHINGTON — 

Fiona Hill, a former White House adviser on Russia, told House impeachment investigators behind closed doors Monday that she had strongly and repeatedly objected to the ouster earlier this year of former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, according to a person familiar with the testimony.

Yovanovitch testified Friday that President Trump pressured the State Department to fire her.

Hill made the remarks as she testified for more than 10 hours in the Democratic inquiry, which is probing Trump’s pleas to Ukrainian officials for investigations into political rival Joe Biden’s family and into the country’s involvement in the 2016 presidential election. The person requested anonymity to discuss the confidential interview.

The interview is one of what could eventually become dozens of closed-door depositions in the impeachment probe. There are five more scheduled this week, mostly with State Department officials, though it is unclear if they will all appear after Trump declared he wouldn’t cooperate with the probe.

While interviews have focused on the interactions with Ukraine, the probe could broaden as soon as next week to include interviews with White House budget officials who may be able to shed light on whether military aid was withheld from Ukraine as Trump and his lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, pushed for the investigations.

The three committees leading the probe are seeking interviews next week with Russell Vought, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Michael Duffey, another OMB official who leads national security programs, according to a person familiar with those requests. That person wasn’t authorized to discuss the invitations and requested anonymity.

The packed schedule of interviews comes as Democrats are methodically working to pin down the details of Trump’s pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Once Democrats have completed the probe, and followed any other threads it produces, they will use their findings to help determine whether to vote on articles of impeachment. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she wants the committees to move “expeditiously.”

Democrats have already obtained documents and testimony that verify parts of an original whistleblower’s complaint that launched the probe. A cache of text messages between three diplomats provided by one of the inquiry’s first witnesses, former Ukrainian envoy Kurt Volker, detailed attempts by the diplomats to serve as intermediaries around the time Trump urged Zelensky to start the investigations into a company linked to Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. Yovanovitch told lawmakers there was a “concerted campaign” against her based on “unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives.”

One of the diplomats in the text exchanges, U.S. Ambassador Gordon Sondland, is expected to appear for a deposition under subpoena Thursday. He’s expected to tell Congress that his text message reassuring another envoy that there was no quid pro quo in their interactions with Ukraine was based solely on what Trump told him, according to a person familiar with his coming testimony.

Also up this week: Michael McKinley, a former top aide to Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo who resigned last week. McKinley, a career foreign service officer and Pompeo’s de facto chief of staff, resigned Friday, ending a 37-year career. He is scheduled to testify behind closed doors Wednesday.

The committees are also scheduled to talk to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent on Tuesday and Ulrich Brechbuhl, a State Department counselor, on Thursday. On Friday, the lawmakers have scheduled an interview with Laura Cooper, who is the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia. It is unclear if any of those officials will show up after Trump’s vow of non-cooperation.

Because of the Trump administration’s edict, the Democrats have been subpoenaing witnesses as they arrived for their interviews — a move sometimes known as a “friendly” subpoena that could give the witnesses additional legal protection as they testify. Both Yovanovitch and Hill received subpoenas the mornings of their testimony.

One witness who may not be called before Congress is the still-anonymous government whistleblower who touched off the impeachment inquiry.

Top Democrats say testimony and evidence coming in from other witnesses, and even the Republican president himself, are backing up the whistleblower’s account of what transpired during Trump’s July 25 phone call with Zelensky. Lawmakers have grown deeply concerned about protecting the person from Trump’s threats and may not wish to risk exposing the whistleblower’s identity.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank) said Sunday it “may not be necessary” to reveal the whistleblower’s identity as the House gathers evidence. He said Democrats “don’t need the whistleblower, who wasn’t on the call, to tell us what took place on the call.”

Schiff said the “primary interest right now is making sure that that person is protected.”

Trump showed no signs of backing down.

“Adam Schiff now doesn’t seem to want the Whistleblower to testify. NO!” the Republican president tweeted Monday. “We must determine the Whistleblower’s identity to determine WHY this was done to the USA.”

Republican lawmakers have aimed their ire at Democrats and the process, saying Pelosi should hold a vote to begin the inquiry and hold the meetings out in the open, not behind closed doors.

“The tragedy here and the crime here is that the American people don’t get to see what’s going on in these sessions,” said Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the House Oversight and Reform panel.

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This marks the first time incumbent Rep. Duncan Hunter has failed to get the Republican Party’s full support.

San Diego Republicans failed Monday to back a candidate for the 50th Congressional District, including the candidate who currently holds the seat.

None of the four candidates received the two-thirds majority necessary to get an endorsement from the Republican Party of San Diego County. Forty-nine members cast ballots after a forum and the results were confidential.

A photo obtained by the Union-Tribune shows one of the votes resulted in 21 delegates siding with former San Diego City Councilman Carl DeMaio.

Incumbent Rep. Duncan Hunter and State Sen. Brian Jones received 14 votes each. Former Congressman Darrell Issa did not receive any votes.

DeMaio said the two-thirds vote is a “pretty hard hill to climb,” and he wasn’t depending on party endorsement.

“It was always an extra,” he said. “It was never factored into our campaign strategy to win.”

This marks the first time Hunter has failed to get the Republican Party’s full support. Hunter, a six-term congressman, and his spokesman declined to comment afterward.

Hunter faces three, high-profile Republican opponents and is preparing for a federal trial on charges of campaign finance violations.

The bi-monthly Republican meeting featured a town hall forum, providing a rare occasion where all four candidates appeared at the same event.

Republican Party Chairman Tony Krvaric moderated the debate, which included opening and closing statements, and he posed five questions to each of the four candidates.

Much of the night centered around Republican unity, with Krvaric reminding candidates several times to “stay positive” and focus on the issues.

“I will not tolerate any beating up of a Republican candidate,” Krvaric said. “To the candidates, we want to hear what makes you different …. Do not throw mud at your fellow Republicans in the room.”

The 50th District covers a swath of the county east and north of San Diego, a region previously considered one of California’s most reliably red seats that has shown a strong loyalty to the Hunter name for decades. Hunter is in his sixth two-year term and his father, Duncan L. Hunter Sr., served from 1981 to 2009.

“I’ve been fighting for you for 11 years,” Hunter said to the crowd. “You know where I stand on the issues.”

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But Hunter now is considered a vulnerable incumbent. He was victorious against his Democratic opponent, Ammar Campa-Najjar, by fewer than 9,000 votes last year — about 10 weeks after a federal indictment accused him and his wife of illegally spending more than $250,000 in campaign funds on personal expenses. He has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting a trial scheduled for January, weeks before the March primary.

Hunter said he’s ready for the battle.

Even when federal prosecutors “indicted me months before my election and tried to steal my seat, I still won,” he said. “I’m not going to move somewhere and fight for the easy seat …. As a United State Marine, what we do is we stand and we fight.”

According to a recent poll, Hunter trails his Republican opponents, with 11 percent of the vote. All four candidates face an uphill climb against Campa-Najjar, who leads the poll with 31 percent.

DeMaio used questions from the forum to highlight many of his five-step plans for the country. He received applause and cheers for his ideas on immigration and supporting President Donald Trump’s agenda.

“We had 39 Republicans cut and run last year,” DeMaio said. “The president needs an entire team who will stand with him and fight, and that is exactly what I plan to do.”

As the host of a daily news and politics radio show, DeMaio already has a platform to advertise his candidacy and a built-in fan base, though it’s unclear how much of that fan base is based in the 50th District. The poll, conducted by SurveyUSA for the Union-Tribune and 10News, shows him leading the GOP candidates with 20 percent.

A crowd of DeMaio supporters lined the parking lot entrance of the hotel, donning “Make America Great Again” hats and waving DeMaio signs at passing cars.

“The energy and enthusiasm of the grass roots movement behind my campaign is undeniable,” DeMaio said.

Issa, a nine-term congressman who represented northern San Diego County for nearly two decades, announced in September his bid for the seat, just after his confirmation to a Trump Administration trade position was stalled by Senate Democrats.

The former congressman does not live in the district, which his opponents were quick to point out, but experts say he has the experience and network to target Hunter’s district.

“I’m not running because this is an easy seat. I’m running because I’m concerned about it,” Issa said. “If Duncan Hunter is able to, quite frankly, survive what he’s facing, then we can have a whole different discussion. But if not, you need a conservative on day one that will do the job.”

Issa was the wealthiest member of Congress during his tenure, with an estimated net worth of $283 million, according to financial disclosure forms he filed while in office. The poll shows him holding 16 percent of the vote.

He appealed directly to the delegates in his closing statement, cautioning them to weigh their endorsement choice carefully.

“You have a seated U.S. congressman who has a stellar voting record. You have a state senator who hasn’t done anything wrong …. If the delegates tonight endorse any one of us, they endorse against three of us,” Issa said. “Do you want to really say that Duncan Hunter needs to go?”

It’s unclear if Issa’s plea had an effect on the final vote. The former congressman left before giving his final 10-minute statement to committee members.

Descanso Republican Larry Wilske, a retired Navy SEAL and former candidate for the 50th District, endorsed Issa when Wilske withdrew from the race.

He said Issa’s credentials, among other things, make him the most qualified candidate.

“He will immediately go in and be a ranking member of whatever committee he’s on,” he said. “A freshmen … will be told to shut up and vote and won’t have as much impact.”

Wilske added Issa is more likely to help Republicans gain momentum in the San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino County area.

“We’ve lost so much ground in Southern California. Here’s a guy who’s a strategic thinker, a good veteran … and that gives us a strategic foothold to gain back some of that territory.”

Ed Welch, 78, said he thinks Hunter is going through a “mid-life crisis” and Issa is probably the candidate who mirrors his values as a Republican voter.

He said he’s seeking a candidate who will defend voters’ rights.

“I see Democrats, Socialist Democrats, attacking the Constitution,” Welch said. “What I’m doing now is promoting those who’ll defend the Constitution.”

Besides Hunter, Jones is the only GOP candidate who lives within the 50th District, a point he stressed several times during the debate. He served on Santee City Council before moving on to the Assembly and then State Senate this year.

He received the most support from the crowd when speaking about gun rights and abortion.

Ending the Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade is “one of the most important issues to save America and make it great again,” Jones said.

Krvaric said the party’s official endorsement is not essential but can help a candidate’s campaign in a variety of ways.

“A lot of voters are looking for that as their clue on who to vote for,” Krvaric said. “The party can be a good supplemental vehicle to any campaign to get the vote out.”

The Federal Election Commission limits individual donations to candidates to $2,800, but the party can take unlimited contributions, which Krvaric said, can go toward a candidate’s campaign efforts.

Following the vote in the 50th District, the committee late Monday night continued voting on who to endorse in the San Diego County Board of Supervisors races and the 76th Assembly District election, among others.

Linebacker Syaire Riley, 6 feet 1, 225 pounds, was running around the Palisades High football field on Monday afternoon with the singular focus of hitting Venice players no matter how many times they tried to avoid him. Twice in the first quarter, he tackled ballcarriers for losses. Then there was the pass he tipped that led to an interception by Immanuel Newell. He was a true disruptor.

“Outside of Narbonne [player], I think he’s the best defensive player in the City Section,” Palisades coach Tim Hyde said.

Palisades (6-1, 2-0) won its sixth consecutive game and took control of the Western League with a 38-14 victory over Venice. Running back Kenny Cline rushed for 131 yards and scored one touchdown. Running back Max Palees scored three touchdowns. Quarterback Forrest Brock passed 25 yards to Teddy Suisman for another touchdown. Near the game’s conclusion, Palisades players drenched Hyde with Gatorade.

“Venice is a rivalry game we take so much pride in,” Hyde said. “They’re the standard bearers we’re trying to become.”

The game was originally scheduled for Friday but had to be postponed because of air quality issues associated with the brush fire in the San Fernando Valley. Last year’s game was halted by lightning and forced to be continued the next day.

“Last year was lightning, this year smoke. Next year it could be an earthquake or snow,” Hyde said.

Venice (3-4, 1-1) could not provide protection for Duke-bound quarterback Luca Diamont, who passed for 171 yards but was intercepted twice and sacked three times.

“We’re ecstatic,” Riley said. “We wanted to make it very difficult for him to be comfortable.”

An MRI exam on Anthony Davis’ sprained right thumb Monday revealed no serious damage and the Lakers star is considered day to day.

Davis did not play in the Lakers’ 104-98 preseason victory over the Golden State Warriors on Monday at Staples Center.

Davis was injured during the first half of the Lakers’ exhibition game against the Brooklyn Nets on Saturday in Shenzhen, China, while trying to block a shot. He had it wrapped in black tape and returned to the court.

He finished the game with six points on two-for-seven shooting, two rebounds and a steal in 12 minutes.

LeBron James and Golden State’s Draymond Green and D’Angelo Russell did not play Monday.

Lakers forward Jared Dudley, who missed the first three games because of a knee injury, played Monday night.

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The Lakers and Warriors play again Wednesday night at Staples Center and once more Friday night at the Chase Center in San Francisco.

Their first 24 hours in China were nothing like the Lakers or Brooklyn Nets expected.

Suddenly, the global politics NBA teams rarely think about had been thrust to the forefront of their daily lives. Sponsors canceled some scheduled events. The Chinese government canceled others.

When a charity event on Wednesday was nixed, the Lakers started to realize the seriousness of the situation.

Players didn’t know whether their conversations were truly private. They were on the ground in a country where the government does not tolerate dissent, the media is censored by the state and whose human rights record has drawn the ire of the United Nations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Twitter and Google are blocked from the internet, dozens of surveillance cameras sit perched above every public street.

It was under these circumstances that NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and several league officials held a meeting with the Lakers, the Nets, executives from both teams and a representative from the NBA players’ union. Silver wanted to know how they felt.

During a tense week, only three media interviews occurred and all of them involved the Brooklyn Nets.

Starting Tuesday, no players, coaches, team or league executives conducted any on-the-record interviews. Several people with knowledge of the situation agreed to speak with The Times if their identities remained anonymous.

Here’s why the league was mostly silent in China and how the week unfolded.

::

The NBA is typically celebrated there. At the start of the week, posters adorned buildings all over Shanghai announcing the Lakers’ and Nets’ big visit. Nike made sure that in Shanghai, one is never too far from an image of LeBron James soaring through the air, or a sweatshirt about his journey from Akron, Ohio. Adidas covers its stores with Houston Rockets star James Harden.

Last week was no different.

The trouble began when Rockets general manager Daryl Morey posted, “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong,” on Twitter, supporting pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong is a semi-autonomous region in China that was a British colony until 1997. Protesters are demanding greater police and government accountability as well as electoral reform so voters can choose their own representatives, in part because of China’s record on human rights. The government says the real issue is about national sovereignty.

Chinese companies quickly began distancing themselves from the NBA. Telecom corporation Tencent, which counts among its many arms a partnership with ESPN and the broadcasting rights to NBA games, canceled Rockets coverage and all NBA preseason broadcasts.

“It was different from the fact that from a basketball standpoint it felt like that wasn’t the No.1 thing,” said James on Monday, speaking for the first time since the trip to China began.

“Which it wasn’t. Obviously we all felt that and sensed that.”

Chinese officials informed NBA officials that they could not proceed with an NBA Cares event featuring the Nets that was scheduled for last Tuesday at a local elementary school. A news conference Tuesday in Tokyo heightened tensions.

Silver said the league would not apologize for Morey using his freedom of expression. That drew the ire of Chinese government officials and broadcasters.

“We must accuse the ‘Moreys’ who scheme to rake in money from China on one hand and hurt the Chinese people’s feelings on the other,” a broadcaster for CCTV, the state-run television channel, said later that day.

“This kind of two-faced behavior cannot succeed and must come with a price!”

But what didn’t sound like an apology to Chinese officials sounded a lot like one to a bipartisan group of United States senators and representatives. They sent a letter to Silver on Wednesday rebuking him for “apologizing for Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey’s tweet.”

“Worse, your statements come at a time when we would hope to see Americans standing up and speaking out in defense of the rights of the people in Hong Kong,” the letter stated.

Behind the scenes, the league received calls from several American government officials, according to a person familiar with those discussions. Some offered support, some offered ideas for how to deal with their predicament. Others reached out to discuss relations between the United States and China.

The next day, Silver boarded a flight for Shanghai. He was joined by deputy commissioner Mark Tatum, president of social responsibility and player programs Kathy Behrens, chief communications officer Mike Bass and president of global content and media distribution Bill Koenig.

They settled into the plane, not knowing if they’d be allowed into the country.

The group landed in Shanghai a little after 1 p.m., as posters around the city were being torn down. Their entry into China was perfectly smooth.

The Nets and the Lakers had practiced earlier in the day at Mercedes-Benz Arena, where logos had been scrubbed to remove sponsor Vivo, a Chinese smartphone maker that had already announced it had suspended ties with the NBA.

That afternoon, Silver met with the teams as hundreds of media members waited downstairs. Players and executives from the Nets and Lakers were in the room, as were Silver, Tatum, Behrens, Bass and Chrysa Chin, the National Basketball Players Assn.’s executive vice president of strategy and development.

Players expressed their concerns to league officials about the situation, according to people familiar with the meeting. They wondered whether Morey would be disciplined, believing a player would if he had done the same thing.

James spoke up and said Silver should be on the front lines of any league communication with the media.

“I think it would have been very unfair for a kid like Talen Horton-Tucker, who is a 19-year-old rookie, to have to comment about such issues that he has absolutely nothing [to do with], that he has no knowledge about,” James said.

“And are we sure that he would have said, ‘Sorry guys, I have no idea what’s going on.’ Are we sure he would have said that? Or could have had said something that could have been detrimental to not only himself but for everyone that was there.”

There were moments of frustration when some players asked whether they could go home. If they said the wrong thing about Hong Kong or any other topic, would the Chinese government delay their flights home?

They asked questions about security and were given assurances they would be fine. They were asked to stay together, though. That meant dinners and lunches with just each other — bonding aided by geopolitical forces.

That afternoon, the league canceled that day’s media session. General manager Rob Pelinka became the Lakers’ point of contact with the league. James and Anthony Davis became his liaisons to the players.

They met in conference rooms at the Ritz Carlton Shanghai making sure to keep each other informed.

League officials, meanwhile, continued conversations with the Shanghai Sports Bureau, a government agency, attempting to soothe tensions and allow the game in Shanghai to be played.

Silver never met with Yao Ming, the former Houston Rockets star who is now the president of the Chinese Basketball Assn., but one person familiar with their communications said they spoke at least 10 times a day.

The conflict personally affected Yao. At a wildly popular NBA exhibit in Beijing, all signs of the Houston Rockets were removed — including Yao’s jersey.

The Shanghai Sports Bureau canceled a fan event that was scheduled for Wednesday evening. They explained their logic to the NBA: Another controversy might have derailed the game, and they very much wanted it to happen.

The global scope of American-Chinese relations was part of the league’s calculus. Trade talks between China and the United States began on Thursday.

On Friday, President Trump agreed not to impose another tariff hike in exchange for China agreeing to buy $50 billion worth of American farm goods, according to the Associated Press.

While NBA officials worked with the government to secure the players’ safety, the mandate was given by China that there would be no media availability before the game. Silver had planned to speak but that was canceled too.

That, coupled with an incident in Japan led to questions about censorship of players. When a CNN reporter attempted to ask whether players still felt comfortable voicing their opinions, the Rockets’ communications director jumped in to say they were taking basketball questions only.

::

The game in Shanghai went smoothly and that helped when the Lakers and Nets traveled to Shenzhen. While league officials stayed in contact with Shenzhen government officials, their conversations didn’t need to be as thorough.

Around 4 p.m. Friday, the league announced there would not be media availability for the remainder of the trip. A league official also told reporters from The Times, ESPN and The Athletic that no restrictions had been placed on teams. If they wanted to, they could hold their own news conferences.

A Lakers representative said Saturday morning that was not true and directed questions back to the league. Later, questions about the discrepancy revealed that the Lakers didn’t consider whether to have their own sessions.

What Lakers executives thought would be an enjoyable cultural experience, instead became consumed by handling the crisis. Chief operating officer Tim Harris brought his young son for some bonding time. Team co-owner Joey Buss, who is also the chief executive officer of the South Bay Lakers, brought his wife on the trip, as did Pelinka.

It wasn’t until Saturday morning, that Pelinka got to explore outside the team hotel. He and his wife spent some time at a market, ate some noodles and got foot massages.

By then, there was a concerted effort from the NBA and the Chinese government to dial down the anger.

According to the New York Times, journalists at Chinese state-run newspapers were told not to write too much about the situation between China and the NBA, worrying that would draw too much attention to Hong Kong protests and possibly have a negative impact on the trade talks.

Tencent began broadcasting NBA preseason games again on Monday, without explanation. On the government-censored social media site Weibo, a person posted that someone attempted to bring a sign that said “HK belongs to China forever” to Shenzhen Universiade Center, but was “manhandled” by security and taken to a police station.

There were also reports on Weibo of Chinese flags being confiscated.

Saturday night’s game sold out. The Lakers lost by a wide margin, but James’ popularity ruled the night.

“I’ve always been welcomed with open arms,” James said.

“I’ve been to China maybe 15, 20 times. And the reason I’ve always wanted to go back to China is because of the game of basketball.”

The Lakers’ flight home did get delayed — but only because of a thunderstorm. Shortly after 3:30 a.m. local time, they began to taxi for takeoff. They landed in L.A. after 2 a.m. on Sunday, a crisis behind them.

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Lakers star LeBron James believes Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey was misinformed on what the reaction would be to the since-deleted tweet he sent in support of protesters in Hong Kong.

“I’m just talking about the tweet itself,” James said to the media Monday. “You never know the ramifications that can happen. And we all seen what that did. Not only did for our league, but for all of us in America, for people in China as well. And sometimes you have to think through things that you say that may cause harm not only for yourself but for the majority of the people. I think that’s just a fine example.”

James spoke at Staples Center before the first of the Lakers’ two home exhibitions this season, both against the Golden State Warriors. It was the first time he had spoken to reporters since before leaving the United States to play two exhibitions in China.

Shortly after making his statement, James took to Twitter to offer a clarification.

The week did not go as planned for the NBA. Chinese media, which is controlled by the government, expressed anger about Morey’s tweet, and plans for the Lakers and Brooklyn Nets were altered. Team functions were canceled. Players’ individual sponsor-related events were canceled. There was some doubt the teams’ games would even be played.

“I don’t want to get into a [verbal] feud with Daryl Morey, but I believe he wasn’t educated on the situation at hand and he spoke,” James said. “And so many people could have been harmed not only financially, physically, emotionally, spiritually. So just be careful what we tweet and say and we do, even though, yes, we do have freedom of speech, but there can be a lot of negative that comes with that too.

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“That’s my belief. That’s all I can say. I believe he was either misinformed or not really educated on the situation, and if he was, then so be it.”

Morey’s tweet Oct. 4 said, “Fight for freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.”

James said he and his teammates did not believe they were well versed enough on the protests in Hong Kong to comment on the situation. He added that they still feel that way.

Pro-democracy protesters have been demonstrating against the Chinese government in semi-autonomous Hong Kong since June.

James’ initial comments drew the ire of many on social media.

Among them was U.S. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who posted on Twitter: “Clearly @KingJames is the one who isn’t educated on the situation at hand. It’s sad to see him join the chorus kowtowing to Communist China & putting profits over human rights for #HongKong. I was there 2 weeks ago. They’re fighting for freedom & the autonomy they were promised.”

WASHINGTON — 

Stephen Strasburg took his turn silencing the Cardinals’ struggling bats, Nationals postseason star Howie Kendrick doubled three times and drove in three more runs, and Washington moved one win from the city’s first World Series appearance in 86 years by beating St. Louis 8-1 Monday night to take a 3-0 lead in the NL Championship Series.

After Nationals starters Anibal Sanchez and Max Scherzer flirted with no-hitters in the first two games of the best-of-seven series, Strasburg wasn’t quite that untouchable: He allowed a double in the second inning, six later singles and one unearned run. Still, he was rather dominant for seven innings, striking out 12 batters and finishing off each one with an off-speed pitch.

The Cardinals, quite simply, can’t hit in this NLCS: They have a grand total of two runs and 11 hits through three games. Washington’s three starters have a combined ERA — no calculator necessary for this one — of 0.00.

Yes, that’s zero-point-zero-zero.

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Now it’s Patrick Corbin’s chance to see if he can match his rotation-mates. The $140 million lefty will start for the Nationals in Game 4 on Tuesday night, when they can close out a sweep at home. Rookie right-hander Dakota Hudson will be on the mound for the Cardinals.

Washington hasn’t put a baseball team in the World Series since 1933, when the Senators lost to the New York Giants in five games. The nation’s capital owns only one MLB championship; the Senators won all the way back in 1924. There wasn’t even a baseball team at all in Washington for more than three decades until the Montreal Expos franchise moved to town before the 2005 season and was renamed the Nationals.

Until this season, the Nationals hadn’t won a playoff series, going 0-4 since 2012, but they sure look as if they’re making up for lost time.

It all starts with the pitching.

Against Sanchez in Game 1, the first hit for the Cardinals arrived with their 27th batter. Against Scherzer in Game 2, it was their 21st batter. But even when the Cardinals did something right against Strasburg, they erased it by doing something wrong.

Their fourth batter, Marcell Ozuna, doubled to the left field corner in the second, then quickly erased himself with some poor baserunning, going too far toward third on a comebacker and getting tagged out by Strasburg, who is enjoying a postseason to remember.

He was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2009 amateur draft, then was infamously shut down before the playoffs three years later to protect his surgically repaired right elbow. Strasburg is now hale and hearty, throwing 117 pitches Monday, his most since totaling 118 in a May 2017 game.

And this sort of October excellence is what the Nationals were hoping for: Strasburg now has a 3-0 record and 1.64 ERA, with 33 strikeouts and one walk — he didn’t issue a free pass Monday — in 22 innings this postseason.

Much to the delight of a red towel-twirling crowd of 43,675, Washington’s batters kept delivering, led by Kendrick, who has eight RBIs in the past four games, including a 10th-inning grand slam in Game 5 of the NL Division Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Nationals roughed up Jack Flaherty for four runs, all in the third inning; the Cardinals’ 23-year-old starter hadn’t allowed that many in a game since July 2, a span of 18 appearances.

Seven of Washington’s eight runs came with two outs, and there were contributions from up and down the lineup: Ryan Zimmerman delivered two run-scoring hits, Victor Robles homered in his return after a five-game absence with a leg injury, and Anthony Rendon heard “MVP!” chants after a slick defensive play at third base and an RBI double.