While speaking to reporters on Monday, House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA) stated that the newly-released transcripts of former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch’s and former aide to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Michael McKinley’s depositions show that Republicans have been able to participate in proceedings. Schiff also announced that the transcripts of the depositions of former U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker’s and E.U. Ambassador Gordon Sondland’s interviews are scheduled to be released on Tuesday.
Schiff said, “There are a few things that will become immediately clear when you [read the transcripts]: And the first is that, contrary to the claims of the president and his acolytes on the Hill, that these have been proceedings in which the Republicans have not been able to be present or ask questions, in fact, Republicans were present for all of these depositions, and in fact, they had equal opportunity with Democrats to ask questions. And you will see, they took full advantage of those opportunities to ask questions.”
He continued that Yovanovitch “is someone who also is one of the first witnesses to this irregular backchannel that the president established with Rudy Giuliani and the damage that it was doing to America’s national security and foreign policy interests.”
Schiff also stated of McKinley’s testimony, “what is so striking…is the degree to which he sought to get the State Department to issue its support for its own ambassador, and how those repeated efforts were rebuffed. But you also see in reading his transcript, his growing alarm at the degree to which the apparatus of the State Department itself was being used to seek political information for a political purpose by the president of the United States and others.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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