The top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee read the just-released transcript of an April call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
As Rep. Devin Nunes of California read the transcript, he clarified, “so there’s no confusion over this first call” between Trump and the newly elected Zelensky.
The transcript shows Trump made no mention of wanting Zelensky to undertake an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and 2016 election interference by Democrats, which is at the heart of the impeachment investigation.
Nunes read the transcript just prior to the opening testimony from former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who Trump recalled three months before the end of her term. Yovanovitch is the third witness to testify at the public impeachment hearings in which Democrats accuse Trump of trying to get Ukraine to investigate Biden, a leading 2020 rival.
Yovanovitch testified she was abruptly terminated from her post as ambassador for “no real reason” and had to quickly leave Ukraine because Washington, D.C., State Department officials said there were concerns about her security.
Democrats read a transcript of the July 25 call transcript in which Trump told Zelensky that Yovanovitch was not a good ambassador and that she “was going to go through some things.”
Yovanovitch told the panel she felt threatened by the comment when she saw the call transcript in September.
“It didn’t sound good — it sounded like a threat.”
Yovanovitch provided no first-hand knowledge about the Democrats’ main allegation that the president tried to extort or bribe Zelensky by withholding critical security aid and then calling for Zelensky to investigate Biden and the Democrats.
House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff said Yovanovitch is a key witness who Trump fired in order to facilitate the investigations that would benefit his political career.
“Getting rid of Ambassador Yovanovitch helped set the stage for an irregular channel that could pursue the two investigations that mattered so much to the president, the 2016 conspiracy theory, and most important, an investigation into the 2020 political opponent he apparently feared most, Joe Biden,” said Schiff, a California Democrat.
[Read more: Schiff accuses Trump of ‘witness intimidation’]
