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House Impeachment Investigators Question Ukraine Envoy Trump Had Marie Yovanovitch Removed on ‘False Claims,’ She Tells House Inquiry
(about 1 hour later)
WASHINGTON — House impeachment investigators on Friday privately questioned the former United States ambassador to Ukraine, Marie L. Yovanovitch, about her knowledge of a shadow campaign by President Trump and his private lawyer to push that country’s leaders to undertake investigations that could tarnish Democrats. WASHINGTON — 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 Trump administration abruptly removed Ms. Yovanovitch, a career diplomat in her third posting as an ambassador, in May, months before she was scheduled to return from Ukraine. Allies of the president had concluded that she was not sufficiently loyal to Mr. Trump, and her recall from Kiev coincided with attempts by Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, and his associates to jump-start an investigation into Joseph R. Biden Jr., and his son Hunter, as well as one into a debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine meddled on behalf of Democrats in the 2016 election. In a closed-door deposition that could further fuel calls for Mr. Trump’s impeachment, Ms. Yovanovitch 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.
Those efforts, which extended into the State Department and the White House, where Mr. Trump pressed Ukraine’s president in July phone call to commit to the investigations, is now at the center of the House’s impeachment inquiry. According to a copy of her opening statement obtained by The New York Times, the longtime diplomat said she was “incredulous” that she was removed as ambassador “based, as far as I can tell, on unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives.”
Ms. Yovanovitch could be a key witness to Mr. Giuliani’s efforts on the ground and provide investigators with insights into how Ukraine’s leaders managed the overtures, though she has given few public hints about what, if anything, she knows. Her explanation of why Mr. Trump and his allies wanted her removed could also be crucial to House Democrats who are trying to bolster their contention that Mr. Trump abused his power in pressuring Ukraine. She spoke to investigators on Capitol Hill in defiance of the White House’s declaration that administration officials would not cooperate with the House impeachment inquiry.
Ms. Yovanovitch’s appearance was itself remarkable, because she remains a Trump administration employee. The State Department blocked another high-level official from speaking with investigators on Tuesday, the same day the White House made an extraordinary declaration that it would defy the House’s every request for documents and witnesses going forward, putting a “full halt” to cooperation. Ms. Yovanovitch’s searing account, delivered at the risk of losing her job, could lend new momentum to the impeachment inquiry that imperils Mr. Trump. She said undermining loyal diplomats would embolden “bad actors” who will “see how easy it is to use fiction and innuendo to manipulate our system” and serve the interests of adversaries, including Russia.
But Ms. Yovanovitch, a 33-year veteran of the State Department nearing the end of her public service, arrived Friday morning with a lawyer and entered the secure rooms of the House Intelligence Committee in the basement of the Capitol for questioning by congressional staff. Caught between the conflicting and equally forceful demands of two branches of government, she chose Congress, raising the possibility that other government officials with little loyalty to Mr. Trump could follow suit. “Today we see the State Department attacked and hollowed out from within,” she said. She said the allegations that she was disloyal to Mr. Trump, circulated by allies of Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, were totally “fictitious.”
Just a day earlier, Ms. Yovanovitch had been mentioned in an indictment of two businessmen who worked with Mr. Giuliani on his Ukraine scheme. In charging the men with federal campaign finance violations, prosecutors said they had donated funds and promised to raise more for a congressman who then lent his support to a campaign to oust her. “I do not know Mr. Giuliani’s motives for attacking me,” she said. But people associated with Mr. Giuliani “may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine,” she said.
Three House committees conducting the investigation hope to tick through a roster of additional witness depositions next week, when lawmakers return to Washington from a two-week recess. Among them are Fiona Hill, who until this summer served as senior director for Europe at the National Security Council, and is scheduled to appear on Monday; George Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of state and Ukraine expert, whose appearance is set for next Tuesday; and Gordon D. Sondland, the American ambassador to the European Union whose scheduled appearance on Tuesday was blocked by the State Department hours before he was to arrive on Capitol Hill. Her opening statement revealed no new details about Mr. Trump’s effort to pressure Volodymyr Zelensky, the new president of Ukraine, to investigate Hunter Biden, the son of Joseph R. Biden Jr. It also offered no details about Lev Parnas or Igor Fruman, two businessmen who helped Mr. Giuliani mount a campaign for her removal. Both were arrested late Wednesday on charges of campaign finance violations. The indictment charged that they were working for one or more Ukrainian officials who wanted her out of Kiev.
Mr. Sondland has now agreed to comply with a House subpoena and testify next week, despite the State Department’s instruction that he not appear, although he will not hand over documents unless the department does, his lawyer said on Friday.
The White House or State Department could try to block those depositions, but like Ms. Yovanovitch and Mr. Sondland, each witness may make his or her own choice. But she provided new details about her abrupt ouster from Kiev. Less than two months after the State Department asked her to extend her tour as ambassador until 2020, she said, she was abruptly told to return to Washington “on the next plane.”
She said that John Sullivan, the deputy secretary of state, told her later that she had “done nothing wrong and that this was not like other situations where he had recalled ambassadors for cause.”
He said that Mr. Trump had “lost confidence in me and no longer wished me to serve as his ambassador,” she said, and that there had been “a concerted campaign against me, and that the department had been under pressure from the president to remove me since the summer of 2018.”
She said that she had never inhibited any legitimate efforts by Ukraine to combat corruption and was not involved in discussions about the suspension of $391 million in American security aid to Ukraine this summer. And she said that she viewed the present circumstances as a tragedy not just for American diplomacy but Ukraine’s attempts to reform its government and defend against a hostile Russia.
“That harm will come not just through the inevitable and continuing resignation and loss of many of this nation’s most loyal and talented public servants,” she said, according to the prepared remarks. “It also will come when those diplomats who soldier on and do their best to represent our nation face partners abroad who question whether the ambassador truly speaks for the president and can be counted upon as a reliable partner. The harm will come when private interests circumvent professional diplomats for their own gain, not the public good.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.