House Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel (D-NY) said in a statement on Wednesday that former National Security Adviser John Bolton told him on a Sept. 23, 2019, call that the committee should “look into the recall of Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch” and that he “strongly implied that something improper had occurred around her removal as our top diplomat in Kyiv.” His statement says that President Trump is “wrong” that Bolton did not say anything about the “Trump-Ukraine Scandal at the time the president fired him.” “He said something to me,” Engel said. “It’s important to set the record straight.” Engel says he has known Bolton for years and described their relationship as “cordial and respectful.”

Engel says that he did not initially publicly disclose the call because it was a private conversation, but told his colleagues on the Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, and Oversight committees because it was relevant to their investigations. “It was one of the reasons we wished to hear from Ambassador Bolton, under oath, in a formal setting,” he writes, adding, “It’s telling that, of all people, John Bolton is now the target of right-wing ire. It underscores just how important it is that the Senate subpoena” Bolton as a witness in the impeachment trial.