yup....he's a Russian plant
Marie Yovanovitch, former ambassador to Ukraine, testifies ...
https://
www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/ousted-ukraine-envoy-
marie...
Oct 11, 2019 ·
Yovanovitch arrived on Capitol Hill with a swagger uncommon for many witnesses who have
testified before the panels investigating Trump, appearing for …
The former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine whose abrupt ouster in May has become a focus of House impeachment investigators said Friday in
remarks before Congress that her departure came as a direct result of pressure President Trump placed on the State Department to remove her.
The account by Marie Yovanovitch depicts a career Foreign Service officer caught in a storm of unsubstantiated
allegations pushed by the president’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani and a cast of former Ukrainian officials who viewed her as a threat to their financial and political interests.
She told lawmakers that she was ****** to leave Kiev on “the next plane” this spring and subsequently removed from her post, with the State Department’s No. 2 official telling her that, although she had done nothing wrong, the president had lost confidence in her and the agency had been under significant pressure to remove her since the summer of 2018.
In explaining her departure,
she acknowledged months of criticisms from Giuliani, who had accused her of privately badmouthing the president and seeking to protect the interests of former vice president Joe Biden and his ******* who served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.
Yovanovitch denied those allegations and said
she was “incredulous” that her superiors decided to remove her based on “unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives.”
She also took direct aim at Giuliani’s associates, whom she said could have been financially threatened by her anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine.
The remarkable statements by a diplomat with more than 30 years in the Foreign Service came amid rising dissatisfaction inside the State Department at what is seen as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s failure to defend his subordinates who have become targets in the Ukraine controversy.
Michael McKinley, a career diplomat and senior adviser to Pompeo,
resigned from his post this week as resentment in the building has grown.
Trump told reporters Friday that Yovanovitch may be a nice person but that Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelensky “didn’t speak favorably” about her during a July 25 phone call between the two leaders. In
a rough transcript of the call released by the White House last month,
it was Trump who broached the subject of Yovanovitch, telling his counterpart that she was “bad news.” Zelensky responded, “I agree with you 100%.”
Trump also seemed to distance himself from Giuliani when asked Friday if the former New York mayor was still his attorney. “I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to Rudy. . . . He has been my attorney,” the president said.
Giuliani told The Washington Post that he was still Trump’s lawyer, and he stood by his allegations against Yovanovitch, saying Ukrainians told him that she was “running around the streets saying not to listen to Trump.” He declined to say precisely who told him that.
Pompeo dismissed criticisms that he failed to protect vulnerable U.S. diplomats, telling a journalist in Nashville on Friday that “I have their backs.”
Yovanovitch’s testimony could increase calls for the president’s impeachment as she detailed her belief that under Trump’s leadership, U.S. foreign policy has been compromised by self-interested actors who have badly demoralized and depleted America’s diplomatic corps.
“Today, we see the State Department attacked and hollowed out from within,” she said in prepared remarks obtained by The Post,
warning that U.S. adversaries such as Russia stand to benefit “when bad actors in countries beyond Ukraine see how easy it is to use fiction and innuendo to manipulate our system.”
Her opening testimony did not, however, reveal new details about Trump’s pressure campaign to persuade Zelensky to investigate his political opponents. Nine hours of questioning didn’t, either, because of her limited visibility of the actions Trump and Giuliani were taking behind the scenes, some Democrats said after leaving the secure room where her deposition occurred. “She wasn’t on that July 25th call,” said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.).
At one point in her testimony, Yovanovitch
grew visibly upset as she offered a “gripping and emotional account of abuse of power by the president,” Rep. Sean Maloney (D-N.Y.) said after walking out of the meeting. After describing the attacks and conspiracy theories raised against her, she asked for a break to compose herself, Maloney said.
According to two people familiar with her testimony, Yovanovitch’s understanding of efforts to plot her ouster did not come from direct conversations with Giuliani and his close associates. Yovanovitch also did not supply the panel with any documents Friday, two people familiar said — unlike former special U.S. envoy Kurt Volker, who during his testimony last week supplied the panels with copies of text messages detailing his conversations with Giuliani, a top aide to the Ukrainian president, and other diplomatic officials.
Several lawmakers stressed that Yovanovitch’s
testimony was significant because her attendance — under subpoena but in defiance of a State Department order not to show — represents a victory in House Democrats long-running struggle against the Trump administration to comply with summons and requests for information and testimony.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) praised her for being a “champion” of the rule of law abroad and at home, and for “her willingness, when served with compulsory process, to follow the law and testify.”
Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) said Yovanovitch could be important if she becomes an example for other career officials to come forward and disclose wrongdoing. “I think she has set a very powerful and courageous example,” he said.