Dems release deposition transcripts
4 Trump officials resist subpoenas to testify in inquiry
WASHINGTON — House investigators on Monday released the first transcripts from closeddoor depositions taken as part of the impeachment inquiry as four White House officials, including John Eisenberg, a lawyer central to the Ukraine controversy, defied subpoenas to testify.
The refusals to cooperate occurred on a day in which President Donald Trump tweeted that he sees “no reason” for lawmakers to summon witnesses regarding his July call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, which he again contended was “perfect.”
House Democrats are encountering renewed stonewalling from the White House as they attempt to move deeper into the ranks of officials with knowledge of Trump’s efforts to press Ukraine’s president to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden at a time when U.S. military aid was being withheld from that country.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., called the four officials who declined to appear Monday “firsthand witnesses to serious misconduct” and said that their absence was further evidence of Trump trying to obstruct Congress.
“These witnesses are significant, and the White House understands they are significant,” Schiff told reporters. “We may infer by the White House obstruction here that their testimony would be further incriminating to the president.”
In addition to Eisenberg, the three other witnesses summoned are: Robert Blair, a senior adviser to acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney; Brian McCormack, an Office of Management and Budget official; and Michael Ellis, another White House lawyer.
Meanwhile, House investigators released the transcripts of two closed-door depositions taken as part of the impeachment inquiry. Records of the Oct. 11 testimony of Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, and the Oct. 16 testimony of P. Michael McKinley, a former senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, were made public Monday.
Yovanovitch testified that she feared her job was in jeopardy because of criticism from conservatives, according to the transcript, and reached out to Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union.
“You know, you need to go big or go home,” she said
Sondland told her. “You need to, you know, tweet out there that you support the president and that all these are lies and everything else.”
Yovanovitch said she thought that was beneath the job of someone in a diplomatic position but suggested that Pompeo make a statement in her defense. It never came, she testified, because “there was concern that the rug would be pulled out from underneath the State Department if they put out something publicly.”
In his session with impeachment investigators, McKinley defended the work of Yovanovitch, the target of a smear campaign led by Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and his associates.
Yovanovitch testified that Giuliani’s Ukrainian contacts sought to ruin her career because she was battling corruption in Ukraine, which undercut them financially.
McKinley described Yovanovitch as “excellent, serious, committed” and “one of those people who seemed to be destined for greater things” — even though Trump called her “bad news” during the July 25 call with Zelenskiy.
“She’s going to go through some things,” Trump told Zelenskiy, according to a readout of the call released by the White
House.
McKinley testified that he was disturbed when he read those words from Trump and said it was clear that Yovanovitch had been “caught up in something that had nothing to do with the way that she performed her duties in Kyiv.”
He also said such comments — in which a president disparaged an ambassador to the leader of the nation where she is serving — “creates difficulties for the Ambassador on the ground.”
“As a Foreign Service Officer, to see the impugning of somebody I know to be a serious, committed colleague in that manner that it was done raised alarm bells for me,” he told investigators.
The transcripts are the first in a series that Democrats say will be released as the inquiry becomes more public. Schiff said that the depositions of Sondland and Kurt Volker, the former special U.S. envoy to Ukraine, will be released Tuesday.
A divided House last week voted to approve guidelines for the public phase of the probe, clearing the way for televised hearings in mid-November.
Meanwhile, Lev Parnas, who is accused of using foreign money to make illegal campaign contributions while lobbying U.S. politicians to oust Yovanovitch, is willing to comply with a subpoena from impeachment investigators, his attorney said. Parnas and Igor Fruman, another Giuliani associate, were arrested last month.