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Trump Had Ukraine Envoy Removed on ‘False Claims,’ She Tells House Inquiry Ukraine Envoy Says She Was Told Trump Wanted Her Out Over Lack of Trust
(about 5 hours later)
WASHINGTON — Marie L. Yovanovitch, who was recalled as the American ambassador to Ukraine in May, 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.” WASHINGTON — The State Department’s request went in early March to Marie L. Yovanovitch, a longtime diplomat who had served six presidents: Would she extend her term as ambassador to Ukraine, scheduled to end in August, into 2020?
In a closed-door deposition that could further fuel calls for Mr. Trump’s impeachment, Ms. Yovanovitch delivered a scathing indictment of how his administration conducts 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. And she said that diplomats no longer have confidence that their government “will have our backs and protect us if we come under attack from foreign interests.” Less than two months later came another departmental communiqué: Get “on the next plane” to Washington. Her ambassadorship was over.
According to a copy of her opening statement obtained by The New York Times, Ms. Yovanovitch 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.” How and why Ms. Yovanovitch was removed from her job has emerged as a major focus of the impeachment inquiry being conducted by House Democrats. And in nearly nine hours of testimony behind closed doors on Capitol Hill on Friday, Ms. Yovanovitch said she was told after her recall that President Trump had lost trust in her and had been seeking her ouster since summer 2018 — even though, one of her bosses told her, she had “done nothing wrong.”
Ms. Yovanovitch, a 33-year veteran of the foreign service and three-time ambassador, spoke to investigators on Capitol Hill even though the State Department had directed her not to late Thursday and in defiance of the White House’s declaration that administration officials would not cooperate with the House impeachment inquiry. Democrats leading the inquiry said that order amounted to obstruction of their inquiry and quietly issued a subpoena Thursday morning with the understanding that Ms. Yovanovitch would then cooperate. Her version of events added a new dimension to the tale of the campaign against her. It apparently began with a business proposition being pursued in Ukraine by two Americans who, according to an indictment against them unsealed on Thursday, wanted her gone, and who would later become partners with the president’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani in digging up political dirt in Ukraine for Mr. Trump.
Not long after, she arrived at the Capitol with a lawyer and entered the secure basement rooms of the House Intelligence Committee, where she was expected to take questions from congressional staff and lawmakers for much of the day. From there it became part of the effort by Mr. Giuliani to undercut the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and push for damaging information about former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., a possible Democratic challenger to Mr. Trump in 2020.
In her prepared testimony to House investigators, Ms. Yovanovitch, 60, offered no new details about how Mr. Giuliani’s campaign against her was communicated to the president or how Mr. Trump communicated his demand that she be ordered home. But her testimony, provided to The New York Times, amounted to a scathing indictment to Congress of how the Trump administration’s foreign policy intersected with business and political considerations.
Her searing account, delivered at the risk of losing her job, could lend new momentum to the impeachment inquiry that imperils Mr. Trump. The inquiry centers on the president’s attempts to use his power and the foreign policy apparatus to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rivals, an endeavor in which Rudolph W. Giuliani, his personal lawyer, was a central player. The shadowy effort by Mr. Giuliani grew to drive the United States policy toward Ukraine, at times appearing to sideline the State Department in the process. Americans abroad in search of personal gain or private influence — especially in a country like Ukraine with a long history of corruption and people eager to exploit them — threatened to undermine the work of loyal diplomats and the foreign policy goals of the United States, she said.
Ms. Yovanovitch said in her deposition that the undermining of loyal diplomats at the State Department would embolden “bad actors” who would “see how easy it is to use fiction and innuendo to manipulate our system” and serve the interests of adversaries of the United States, including Russia. Her removal, she said, was a case in point.
“Today we see the State Department attacked and hollowed out from within,” she said. She called upon the department’s leaders, as well as Congress, to defend it, saying “I fear that not doing so will harm our nation's interest, perhaps irreparably.” “Although I understand that I served at the pleasure of the president, I was nevertheless incredulous that the U.S. government chose to remove an ambassador based, as best as I can tell, on unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives,” she said.
And she spoke of her “deep disappointment and dismay” about the events that led to her removal, describing a sense of betrayal of the “sacred trust” she and other diplomats once had with their government. Ms. Yovanovitch’s testimony, which could help build momentum for the impeachment inquiry, captured the arc of her troubled tenure in Ukraine: how Mr. Giuliani and his allies mounted a campaign against her based on what she described as scurrilous lies, how the State Department capitulated to the president’s demands to recall her, and the upshot — losing an experienced ambassador in a pivotal country that is under threat from Russia and in the middle of a change in government.
Ms. Yovanovitch dismissed as “fictitious” the allegations that she had been disloyal to Mr. Trump, which were circulated by allies of Mr. Giuliani. More broadly, she portrayed the State Department as a whole as “attacked and hollowed out from within.” Unless it backs up its diplomats, especially in the face of false attacks by foreign interests, she said, more of them will leave and the wrong message will be transmitted around the world.
“I do not know Mr. Giuliani’s motives for attacking me,” she said, adding that people associated with him “may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.” “Bad actors” in Ukraine and elsewhere will “see how easy it is to use fiction and innuendo to manipulate our system,” she warned. “The only interests that will be served are those of our strategic adversaries, like Russia.”
Ms. Yovanovitch’s opening statement revealed no new details about Mr. Trump’s effort to pressure President Volodymyr Zelensky 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. She had been removed from her post in Ukraine before the events most at the heart of the impeachment inquiry: whether Mr. Trump withheld White House meetings or military aid to Ukraine this summer to pressure its new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to Mr. Biden and his younger son, Hunter Biden.
The indictment charged that they were working for one or more unnamed Ukrainian officials who wanted her out of Kiev. That Ms. Yovanovitch, who remains a State Department employee, showed up at all to testify was remarkable. In a letter this week, the White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, lashed out at the impeachment inquiry, saying government officials would not testify and that no documents would be provided. The White House did not respond to requests for comment on Friday.
But she provided new details about her abrupt ouster just as Ukraine had elected a new president, when continuity in American policy was critical, she argued. Ms. Yovanovitch’s defiance of the administration’s directive against appearing before the impeachment proceeding raises the possibility that other government officials will follow suit. She called upon the State Department leaders and Congress to defend the institution, saying “I fear that not doing so will harm our nation’s interest, perhaps irreparably.”
Less than two months after the State Department asked her to extend her tour as ambassador until 2020, she said, she was abruptly told in late April to return to Washington “on the next plane.” The turnabout appeared to validate the tactics adopted by Democrats, who have issued rapid-fire subpoenas since they opened the inquiry two weeks ago and warned that any attempts by the administration to block their fact-finding will promptly become fodder for an article of impeachment charging Mr. Trump with obstructing Congress. When the State Department tried late Thursday to direct Ms. Yovanovitch not to appear, the Democrats promptly issued a subpoena and told her she had no choice but to appear.
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.” Other foreign diplomats say they know of no parallel to her case. At least one other State Department official is also expected to testify, despite the White House policy. Gordon D. Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union who was initially expected to testify this week but failed to show up, has now been rescheduled for next week. Mr. Sondland is close to Mr. Trump and could support the White House’s narrative that the administration’s policy in Ukraine has been driven by a focus on rooting out corruption.
Mr. Sullivan told her that Mr. Trump had “lost confidence in me and no longer wished me to serve as his ambassador,” she said. “He added that there had been, a concerted campaign against me and the department had been under pressure from the president to remove me since the summer of 2018.” Ms. Yovanovitch, a 33-year veteran of the foreign service, had held two previous ambassadorships when President Barack Obama appointed her as envoy to Ukraine in mid-2016. She was deeply steeped in the region and American policy.
That account contradicts what the State Department told reporters at the time, that Ms. Yovanovitch was merely completing her assignment “as planned.” But in 2018, she found herself targeted by two American businessmen, Lev Parnas, who was born in Ukraine and Igor Fruman, who was born in Belarus. Both came to play central roles in Mr. Giuliani’s efforts on behalf of Mr. Trump in Ukraine.
Even as she was being questioned behind closed doors on Friday, Mr. Trump nominated Mr. Sullivan to be the next ambassador to Russia. The timing appeared to be coincidental. But at first, the two men were focused on their own business dealings. One possible reason for their opposition to Ms. Yovanovitch was that they perceived her to be standing in the way of a business plan they were promoting. Ms. Yovanovitch was a supporter of a reform-minded chief executive of Naftogaz, Ukraine’s state energy company. The two men were hoping to sell American liquefied natural gas to Naftogaz, but the chief executive, Andriy Kobolyev, had rejected their proposal.
Ms. Yovanovitch said that she had never inhibited any legitimate efforts by Ukraine to combat corruption; instead, she tried to bolster them to help Ukraine combat Russia’s influence. American diplomats traditionally pay close attention to the energy industry in Ukraine, long a font of corruption and an avenue for Russia to influence Ukrainian politics. In that same vein, Ms. Yovanovitch had supported Mr. Kobolyev to curb back room deals.
She was not involved in discussions about the suspension of $391 million in American security aid to Ukraine this summer; those took place only after she left Ukraine in May, she said. Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman had a plan to replace Mr. Kobolyev: they suggested to another Naftogaz executive that using their political ties in the United States, they could install him in Mr. Kobolyev’s place if he accepted their business deal. Those negotiations were described by Dale Perry, an American energy executive and former business partner of a Naftogaz executive, who is familiar with the conversations.
She said she feared that the administration’s failure to back its diplomats would harm American interests, including Ukraine’s attempts to reform its government and defend against a hostile Russia. The pair also had a plan to replace the ambassador. They tried to undermine her with the Ukrainian government and news media by spreading stories that she was an Obama holdover who disdained Mr. Trump, interviews show.
“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. “I found it very troubling and disturbing that a couple of business people, and whoever they were working with, could claim to remove a U.S. ambassador,” Mr. Perry said
“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,” she said. Promising to help him raise $20,000 toward his re-election, they enlisted the help of Pete Sessions, who was then a Republican congressman from Texas then serving as the powerful head of the House Rules Committee, according to an indictment unsealed on Thursday charging Mr. Parnas, Mr. Fruman and two other men with violating campaign finance laws. Mr. Sessions sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claiming without evidence that the ambassador was disloyal to the president.
Ms. Yovanovitch said she had met Mr. Giuliani only a few times, and at least in her prepared remarks, offered no details about his efforts to freelance foreign policy in Ukraine and to press Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. Mr. Giuliani’s role is now at the center of the House’s impeachment inquiry into whether the president withheld military aid and a White House meeting in effort to gin up an foreign investigation that would damage the elder Mr. Biden, one of his foremost political rivals. Ms. Yovanovitch also had repeated run-ins with Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Yuri Lutsenko, over allegations of corruption with the prosecutor’s office. Mr. Lutsenko would also come to work closely with Mr. Giuliani on the effort to help Mr. Trump.
That Ms. Yovanovitch appeared at all was remarkable and raised the possibility that other government officials would follow suit in defiance of the administration’s orders. 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 As they pursued their own agenda in Ukraine in 2018, Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman were also working more closely to dig up political dirt with Mr. Giuliani, with whom Mr. Parnas also had a separate business relationship.
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 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. As part of that effort, Mr. Giuliani seized on criticism of Ms. Yovanovitch as another way to suggest that she was disloyal to Mr. Trump and could have been part of an effort to undercut him from Ukraine during the 2016 campaign.
Mr. Sondland has now agreed to comply with a House subpoena and testify on Thursday, despite the State Department’s instruction that he not appear, although he would not hand over documents unless the department did, his lawyer said on Friday. Mr. Giuliani helped encourage further stories in conservative news outlets critical of her early in 2019, even as the State Department was asking her to remain in Ukraine until next year.
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. Democrats leading the inquiry warned the Trump administration that attempts to stonewall their work could itself be impeachable conduct. Some State Department officials were distressed by the critical news reports. Philip Reeker, an acting assistant secretary of state, told an adviser to Mr. Pompeo in an email that in casting her as a “liberal outpost,” critics were pushing a “fake narrative” that “really is without merit or validation.”
“Any efforts by Trump administration officials to prevent witness cooperation with the committees will be deemed obstruction of a coequal branch of government and an adverse inference may be drawn against the president on the underlying allegations of corruption and cover-up,” wrote the chairmen of the House Intelligence, Oversight and Reform and Foreign Affairs committees. By this March, the attacks against Ms. Yovanovitch were reverberating in the president’s own circle. Donald Trump Jr., the president’s oldest son, posted a link on social media to an item that described the ambassador as “an anti-Trump, Obama flunkey.” In his tweet, Mr. Trump called for fewer of “these jokers as ambassadors. “
Four days later, Mr. Giuiliani hand-delivered to Mr. Pompeo a packet of news articles and material critical of Ms. Yovanovitch. It included notes on an interview with a former prosecutor general of Ukraine, who had met with Mr. Giuliani. The former prosecutor claimed that Ms. Yovanovitch had blocked him from getting a visa to the United States and “is close to Mr. Biden.”
In late April, Ms. Yovanovitch received the message summoning her back to Washington to be told of her removal.
Mr. Fruman and Mr. Parnas were arrested Wednesday night at Dulles International Airport, on their way out of the country and charged with campaign finance violations, related in part to their dealings with Mr. Sessions. Prosecutors said they were working with at least one unnamed Ukrainian official who wanted to oust Ms. Yovanovitch.
Ms. Yovanovitch told House investigators that while she did not know Mr. Giuliani’s motives for attacking her, his associates “may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.”
Her sudden removal left American diplomats in Kiev seething. They told reporters privately that Ms. Yovanovitch had been treated shabbily and that Mr. Giuliani’s freelancing diplomacy was undercutting their efforts to work with the new Ukrainian president’s administration.
She recounted her conversation about her ouster with John Sullivan, the deputy secretary of state, at some length. While Ms. Yovanovitch was testifying, Mr. Trump nominated Mr. Sullivan to be the next ambassador to Russia. The timing appeared to be coincidental.
In a meeting in Washington, she said Mr. Sullivan told her “that this was not like other situations where he had recalled ambassadors for cause.” He added “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 expressed dismay and disappointment about her experience, and predicted serious consequences if the State Department failed to defend itself as an institution. “The 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.
“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.”
Sharon LaFraniere and Nicholas Fandos reported from Washington, and Andrew E. Kramer from Kiev, Ukraine.