House Intelligence Committee releases transcripts of two witnesses as part of public phase of Trump impeachment inquiry

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Rep. Adam B. Schiff, the Chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Rep. Eliot L. Engel, the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the Acting Chairwoman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, released the transcripts of former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie “Masha” Yovanovitch and former Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State Ambassador P. Michael McKinley.

Both of these individuals testified before the Committees as part of the House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry of President Donald J. Trump. The resolution passed by the House last week authorized the Committees to make the inquiry transcripts of their recent depositions and interviews available to Members and public at the discretion at the Chairman of the Intelligence Committee in advance of open hearings.

The three Chairs issued the following statement announcing today’s releases:

“As we move towards this new public phase of the impeachment inquiry, the American public will begin to see for themselves the evidence that the committees have collected. With each new interview, we learn more about the President’s attempt to manipulate the levers of power to his personal political benefit.

“The transcripts of interviews with Ambassadors Yovanovitch and McKinley demonstrate clearly how President Trump approved the removal of a highly respected and effective diplomat based on public falsehoods and smears against Ambassador Yovanovitch’s character and her work in support of long-held U.S. foreign policy anticorruption goals.

“Ambassadors Yovanovitch and McKinley’s testimony also demonstrates the contamination of U.S. 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.

“Unfortunately, despite those concerns, the transcripts also show clearly that efforts to secure public support for Ambassador Yovanovitch from the senior-most levels of the State Department were never realized, thanks to worry among those leaders that such support would be directly undermined by presidential attacks.”

The testimony of former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie “Masha” Yovanovitch from October 11, 2019 can be found here. Key excerpts from Yovanovitch’s testimony can be found here.

The testimony of former Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State Ambassador P. Michael McKinley from October 16, 2019 can be found here. Key excerpts from McKinley’s testimony can be found here.

Background:

H. Res. 660, which was passed by the House of Representatives on October 31, 2019, authorizes the Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence “to make publicly available in electronic form the transcripts of depositions” with “appropriate redactions for classified and other sensitive information.”

Pursuant to this resolution, and consistent with the Committee’s rules and longstanding bipartisan practice, the Committee has begun preparing transcripts from the impeachment inquiry for public release, which includes a thorough, nonpartisan security review to protect classified and other sensitive information.

As part of this process, the Committee is redacting (1) personally identifiable information; (2) the names of non-senior Executive Branch personnel and Intelligence Community employees; (3) the names of committee staff who did not ask questions or make on-the-record statements; and (4) classified or potentially classified information or other sensitive information not pertinent to the subject of the impeachment inquiry.

In addition, consistent with the Committee’s rules, each transcript has been made available to the witness for inspection, including to identify technical, grammatical, and typographical corrections.  The Committee has also taken into consideration requested redactions from witnesses, if they fall within the parameters above.

Although the transcripts list Members of the three Committees who were present at the outset of a deposition, they do not necessarily reflect the attendance of all Members who may have joined or departed a deposition at different points.

The Committee will release individual transcripts on a rolling basis as this process is completed. The Committees plan to release the testimony of Ambassadors Kurt Volker and Gordon Sondland next, provided that counsel for the witnesses clear those transcripts in a timely manner.