Article snippet: WASHINGTON — There was no hinting around, it was a straight-out trade, two key White House officials told impeachment investigators. If Ukraine’s new leader wanted an Oval Office welcome from Donald Trump — and he did — he would have to open a public probe into the president’s Democratic foe Joe Biden and his son. According to transcripts released Friday in the House Democrats' impeachment inquiry, Vindman and Fiona Hill, a former White House Russia adviser, both gave firsthand descriptions of scenes central to the congressional probe. In another episode that day at the White House, Hill testified that Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton “immediately stiffened” as Sondland “blurted out” that he had worked out with Trump’s acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney just that trade — the Ukrainians’ probe for an Oval Office welcome. Then Bolton then abruptly ended the meeting. Pressed on how it came to be that Sondland, a wealthy businessman who has become a key figure in the impeachment probe played such a pivotal role in Ukraine policy, Hill testified she was dismayed by the idea. The hundreds of pages of transcripts showed the investigation's deep reach into the White House ahead of next week's public hearings. Vindman alerted superiors about the meeting he described and also after he listened to the July phone call in which Trump personally appealed to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Biden and an outlier theory of Ukrainian i... Link to the full article to read more