Just having Marie Yovanovitch show up to testify was a victory for Congressional Democrats today. Especially since we are now learning it the White House tried to prevent her from appearing.
And what the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine said will add fuel to the impeachment inquiry. The New York Times reports:
Marie L. Yovanovitch, who was recalled as the American ambassador to Ukraine, testified to impeachment investigators on Friday that a top State Department official told her that President Trump had pushed for her removal for months even though the department believed she had “done nothing wrong.”
The Washington Post adds:
In explaining her departure, she acknowledged months of criticisms by Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani, who had accused her of privately badmouthing the president and seeking to protect the interests of former vice president Joe Biden and his son who served on the board of Ukrainian energy company.
The Times goes on to say Yovanovitch also “delivered a scathing indictment of his administration’s conduct of foreign policy. She warned that private influence and personal gain have usurped diplomats’ judgment, threatening to undermine the nation’s interests and drive talented professionals out of public service.”
She also took aim at Giuliani’s associates, two of whom were arrested Wednesday as they were trying to leave the country.
“Contacts of Mr. Giuliani may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.” Marie Yovanovitch
Read her full opening statement here.
