Speaker of US House of Reps, Nancy Pelosi

House Democrats on Monday teased American public with the transcripts of closed door interviews with former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and top State Department official Michael McKinley, as they put into a new gear the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.

The transcripts offer the first look at what witnesses told investigators about Trump’s contacts with Ukraine, thehill.com reported.

The release marks a new phase for the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into whether the president pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to open investigations into his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.

“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 chairs of the House Intelligence, Oversight and Foreign Affairs committees wrote in a joint statement.

“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,” they added.

The statement also says thee depositions show how Trump sought to create “an irregular back channel,” by asking Zelensky to investigate interference in the 2016 election as well as former Vice President Joe Biden, one of his top 2020 political opponents.–thehill.com