WASHINGTON — House impeachment investigators released the first transcripts of closed-door depositions with top U.S. officials on Monday, a crucial step in the impeachment inquiry and one that further fleshed out President Trump’s questionable conduct toward Ukraine.The House Intelligence Committee, House Foreign Affairs Committee and House Oversight Committee released transcripts of lengthy interviews with former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and Michael McKinley, a former senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, on Thursday.The transcripts add detail to a troubling portrait of the president.Read: The GOP’s New Impeachment Defense: Yeah, the Call Was Bad, but Not That BadYovanovitch, who was pushed out of her her position last spring following a smear campaign from the president’s allies, testified that she's felt threatened by President Trump and his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani for more than a year. She said she still feels threatened by the president. She also detailed a lengthy smear campaign from Giuliani and his allies, said she was repeatedly warned by Ukrainian officials to watch her back, and was encouraged by a Trump loyalist to publicly tweet her support of the president, a move that would violate diplomatic norms.McKinley, meanwhile, testified that he resigned from his position in part because of Trump and his allies’ focus on procuring “negative political information for domestic purposes” in Ukraine rather than focusing on what’s best for American foreign policy and national security.Read Yovanovitch's transcript in full here:Read McKinley's transcript in full here:Cover: Former American ambassador to Ukraine, Marie “Masha” Yovanovitch, arrives to testify before House committees as part of Democrats' impeachment investigation, at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Oct. 11, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
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