THE impeachment inquiry against President Trump entered a new phase Monday with the public release of transcripts of House committee interviews with Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, and Michael McKinley, a former top adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Those deposition transcripts, House Democrats say, show apparent efforts to undermine U.S. foreign policy to serve the president’s political goals. Those efforts apparently became so intense that Yovanovitch acknowledged that she felt threatened by Trump and his interference in her work.

“I was shocked,” she told investigators.

Trump stands accused of exerting undue pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to launch an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. The younger Biden sat on the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company accused of corruption. Joe Biden is a frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for president.

Since the impeachment inquiry began several weeks ago, Republicans have complained about the allegedly secretive nature of the witness interviews. The release Monday of the two transcripts appeared designed to undercut those complaints. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that public hearings would begin soon.

“With each new interview, we learn more about the President’s attempt to manipulate the levers of power to his personal political benefit,” House Democrats said in a statement accompanying the release of testimony. The statement also accused Trump of leveling “public falsehoods and smears” against Yovanovitch, who was recalled by the president in May and who now teaches at Georgetown University.

In his testimony, McKinley said he was disgusted by the way the State Department had become subordinated to Trump’s personal political ambitions.  (SD-Agencies)