Image source, Fox News

Image source, New York Times

The impeachment probe into President Trump has divided the US - and its media.

Here - the New York Times outlines Yovanovitch's description of a "smear campaign" by the White House, while Fox News writes of the career diplomat's "bitterness" at being fired by the president.

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ON THE DOORSTEP: A newly elected Democrat sells impeachment to voters

Committee members have taken a recess from the Yovanovitch hearing to vote on a bill.

Democrat Eric Swalwell, who serves on the committee, has accused Trump of "smearing" the ex-ambassador in real time.

While many of Trump's Republican party members have continued to criticise Yovanovitch as a witness, some have also pointed out that the president's tweets about her are not helping their case.

"We take this kind of witness intimidation and obstruction of inquiry very seriously," Chairman Schiff tells reporters outside the committee room during after announcing a "brief recess".

Image source, Drew Angerer/Getty Images

White House Spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said just said this:

"The president will be watching [Republican] Congressman Nunes’ opening statement, but the rest of the day he will be working hard for the American people."

Image source, Scott Eisen/Getty Images

Democratic lawyer Goldman asks Yovanovitch: "Is it your understanding that Trump's request to have vice-president Biden investigated was that part of official US policy as you know it?"

"At the time of this phone call I had departed Ukraine two months prior," Yovanovitch notes. "It certainly would not have been the policy in May, when I left."

Goldman asks if such investigations were "part of the anti-corruption platform that you championed in Ukraine for three years?"

"No," she says.

"Do they appear to you to benefit the president's personal political interests rather than the national interests?"

"They could," Yovanovitch says.

Image source, MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images

At a rally in Louisiana last night, President Trump pilloried Yovanovitch's replacement, Bill Taylor, who appeared before Congress on Wednesday.

Trump mocked Taylor and George Kent - another top US diplomat - who testified on Wednesday. The president described them as "never-Trumpers" whose "sinister plans will fail".

Trump said they had been unable to point to an impeachable offense when invited to do so.

"And they stood there and went like, 'what?'" Trump said.

Here are the highlights from Taylor and Kent's testimony: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50395015

Schiff interrupts his lawyer to say to Yovanovitch: "The president is attacking you on Twitter."

She's asked to respond to Trump saying about her moments ago that "everywhere she went turned bad".

"I don't think I have such powers," she says referring to her time in Somalia.

She says that in all her posts she "demonstrably made things better for the US and the countries that I served in."

"it's very intimidating," she says about Trump's latest words.

"I can't speak to what the president is trying to do but I think the effect is to be intimidating," she adds.

Image source, GINTS IVUSKANS/AFP via Getty Images

The impeachment probe into President Trump has focused attention to his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky and military aid withheld from his country.

Zelensky hails from "Ukraine", not "the Ukraine"?

"The Ukraine" is incorrect both grammatically and politically.

Anthony Zurcher
BBC North America reporter

On Thursday morning, the White House released a rough transcript of Donald Trump’s first phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on 21 April.

In it, the two exchanged pleasantries. Trump congratulated Zelensky on his election and suggested the possibility of a White House visit. Zelensky invited the US president to his inauguration in Kyiv, and plugged his country’s delicious food and hospitality. Trump agreed, citing his experience with Ukrainians in his days as a beauty pageant impresario.

The White House summary of the conversation released at the time, however, paints a different picture. It said Trump “noted” that the Ukrainian election had been conducted in a fair and open process. It said he “underscored the unwavering support of the United States for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

And it said Trump had told Zelensky that the two would work together “to implement reforms that strengthen democracy, increase prosperity, and root out corruption”.

None of those things happened.

It raises questions about why Trump didn’t talk about corruption or endorse Ukraine’s territorial integrity in the call, particularly given Ukraine’s history of prosecutorial misconduct and Russian support for insurgents fighting Ukrainians in the nation’s eastern border region. The summary may have been what the US foreign policy team wanted the president to emphasise, but he did not.

The White House regularly produces summaries of the president’s conversations with foreign leaders. The disparities between the April Ukrainian summary and the actual conversation may leave many Americans – and foreign leaders – wondering how much credence to place in those documents.

Yovanovitch is asked by the Democrats' lawyer about Trump's comment in his July call with Zelensky that she was going to "go through some things".

"I didn't know what to think, but I was very concerned," she says.

"She's gonna go through some things - it didn't sound good, it sounded like a threat."

Counsel Daniel Goldman asks if she felt threatened.

"I did," she confirms. "It kind of felt like a vague threat. I wondered what that meant. It concerned me."

Image source, Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Adam Schiff asked Yovanovitch how her state department colleagues had reacted to a respected ambassador being "smeared out of her post".

The career diplomat described it as "a big hit for morale both in the US embassy Kyiv but also more broadly in the state department."

Schiff continued: "Is it fair to say that other ambassadors and others of lesser rank who serve the United States in embassies around the world might look at this and think: 'If I take on corrupt people in these countries, that could happen to me'?"

Yovanovitch replied: "I think that's a fair statement."

"I was shocked to be featured in a call between two heads of state," Yovanovitch says.

"The colour drained from my face," she continues.

The Democratic lawyer on the panel says: "Without upsetting you too much I'd like to show you the excerpts from the call."

In the transcript, shown in the hearing room, Trump calls her "bad news".

"I couldn't believe it," she says.

"Shocked, appalled, devastated, that the president of the United States would talk about any ambassador like that.

Image source, Getty Images

Trump’s personal lawyer is a central figure in the Ukraine saga - and Marie Yovanovitch in particular.

On the 25 July call, Trump asked Ukraine’s leader to co-ordinate with Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, on any inquiry into the Bidens. Giuliani has admitted to pushing Ukrainian officials to investigate unsubstantiated corruption allegations against Joe Biden.

Giuliani has also been accused of trying to discredit Yovanovitch, saying she was biased against the president, while running a shadow foreign policy on Ukraine.

He has been subpoenaed for documents by impeachment investigators, though he’s previously said he won’t co-operate.

"Every foreign service officer understands the president has lost confidence in you," she recalls being told by her boss, Deputy State Department Secretary John Sullivan, upon returning to Washington.

She says Secretary of State Mike Pompeo could "no longer defend her" from the White House.

"It was terrible. It was not the way I wanted my career to end."

Schiff asks Yovanovitch about corrupt people she may have angered.

She says former prosecutors Lutsenko and Viktor Shokin had been in touch with Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and had co-ordinated with him to peddle falsehoods about her and the Bidens.

"In the face of this smear campaign, did colleagues at the state department try to get a statement of support for you from [Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo?" Schiff asks.

Yovanovitch says yes.

But were they successful? No.

"Because they feared it would be undercut by the president?" Schiff clarifies.

Yovanivitch confirms yes, and that she was ousted shortly after.