Witness transcripts in the impeachment probe into US President Donald Trump were made public for the first time on Monday, with the former US ambassador to Kiev telling investigators she felt threatened by the president in his call to Ukraine’s leader.
Democrats are entering an open phase of a congressional probe into potential abuse of power by Trump that has divided Washington as Republicans seek to defend him and his opponents pursue his removal from office.
The release of former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch’s deposition came as the White House hardened its opposition to the inquiry, with Trump’s top national security lawyer early on Monday defying a subpoena to testify.
Photo: AP
The probe is examining how Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate a Democratic rival, former US vice president Joe Biden, including by withholding US$391 million in military aid that had been approved by Congress to help the US ally defend itself against Russian aggression.
Yovanovitch, who had urged Ukraine to do more to fight corruption, testified last month that she was ousted in May over “false claims” spread by questionable actors allied to Trump.
According to her deposition, she was alarmed by the deepening involvement of Trump’s personal lawyer, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, in Ukrainian affairs, and in particular his efforts to get Kiev to investigate Biden.
She said she was “shocked” when she read the summary of Trump’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in which Trump said the ambassador was “going to go through some things.”
“I was very concerned. I still am,” Yovanovitch said.
“Did you feel threatened?” an investigator asks Yovanovitch in the transcript, and she replied: “Yes.”
“I really don’t know her,” Trump told reporters of Yovanovitch on Monday, adding that he was “sure she’s a very fine woman.”
However, Yovanovitch came up repeatedly in Trump’s telephone call with Zelensky, with Trump describing her as “bad news,” according to a White House summary of the conversation.
The release is the first of what US House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff said would be several key depositions.
He also released testimony from Michael McKinley, a former senior advisor to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who resigned in September after concluding that the US Department of State was not defending top diplomats.
He said he asked Pompeo three times to defend Yovanovitch, eventually telling him that “this situation isn’t acceptable,” but the secretary was essentially non-responsive.
In his 37 years as a diplomat he had “never seen” efforts to use the State Department and its missions “to procure negative political information for domestic purposes,” McKinley told investigators.
The depositions demonstrate “the contamination of US foreign policy by an irregular back channel that sought to advance the president’s personal and political interests, and the serious concerns that this activity elicited across our government,” Schiff and the chairs of two other panels leading the investigation said in a statement.
Testimony would be released yesterday from two more key witnesses, then-special representative on Ukraine Kurt Volker and US Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland, Schiff said.
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