Yovanovitch testimony

From The Daily Beast:

Yovanovich was targeted by Giuliani and his associates because she was viewed as an obstacle to their efforts to get the new Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to open an investigation into Hunter Biden’s business dealings and any role from Ukraine in the 2016 U.S. election.

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The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., sent out a tweet in March calling her a “joker.”

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Yovanovitch said that Phil Reeker, a senior State Department official, told her after she was recalled from Kyiv that Trump had wanted her out since mid-summer 2018, at least.

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Reeker told her that Pompeo had tried to protect her, but that he “was no longer able to do that.” Yovanovich said she asked to meet with Ulrich Brechbuhl, a top State Department lawyer, but he didn’t agree to a meeting.

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Yovanovitch said that criticisms of her from conservative media figures eventually became so pronounced that a senior State Department official reached out to Fox News host Sean Hannity about his coverage of her.

“What I was told by Phil Reeker was that the Secretary or perhaps somebody around him was going to place a call to Mr. Hannity on FOX News to say, ‘You know, what is going on?’” she told lawmakers. “‘I mean, do you have proof of these kinds of allegations or not? And if you have proof, you know, telI me, and if not, stop.’ And I understand that that call was made. I don't know whether it was the Secretary or somebody else in his inner circle. And for a time, you know, things kind of simmered down.”

During this ordeal, Yovanovich did receive guidance from one of the president’s key point men on Ukraine, Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union. His proposal was that she tweet her support of Trump.

“He said, you know, you need to go big or go home… Tweet out there that you support the President, and that all these are lies and everything else.”

Yovanovich replied that such an approach, as a diplomat, would be inappropriate.

  The Daily Beast

From NBC:

Yovanovitch departed Ukraine in May, months ahead of her scheduled departure, after coming under attack from right-wing media, which alleged she was hostile to the president. Her departure set off alarm bells among Democrats in Congress but the State Department said at the time her exit was planned.

Yovanovitch testified to House investigators Oct. 11 that Trump had personally pressured the State Department to remove her, even though a top department official assured her that she had "done nothing wrong."

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Yovanovitch recalled that Carol Perez, the director general of the Foreign Service, "said that there was a lot of concern for me, that I needed to be on the next plane home to Washington. And I was like, what? What happened? And she said, I don't know, but this is about your security. You need to come home immediately. You need to come home on the next plane."

According to the intelligence community whistleblower complaint at the heart of Democrats' impeachment inquiry, Yovanovitch's tenure was cut short because she had run afoul of the then-prosecutor general in Ukraine, Yuri Lutsenko, and President Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who had been working to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate the Biden family.Lutsenko at one point alleged she had given him a "do not prosecute" list. The State Department has said the assertion was an outright fabrication and Lutsenko himself later walked back his comments.

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Yovanovitch said she had wanted Pompeo to issue a statement that said she had his "full confidence," but the request was turned down. Yovanovitch, according to the transcript, said that acting Assistant Secretary of State Philip Reeker told her they were exercising "caution" because any statement "could be undermined" by the president.

  NBC

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.