Marie Yovanovitch was met with resounding applause and cheers after testifying for almost 7 hours in Trump's impeachment inquiry
- Former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was greeted with resounding cheers and applause from members of Congress and the audience after nearly seven hours of impeachment inquiry testimony.
- Yovanovitch is a career diplomat who served 33 years in the State Department, including as US ambassador to Ukraine three times, and was lauded for her service by members of both parties.
- Over the course of Friday morning and afternoon, Yovanovitch gave measured but highly compelling testimony recounting her being subject to a smear campaign and pushed out of her position.
- In one particularly striking moment, Yovanovitch kept her composure when President Donald Trump himself tweeted out an attack on her during her testimony.
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In a highly unorthodox display, former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was greeted with resounding cheers and applause from members of Congress and the audience after giving nearly seven hours of blockbuster testimony before Congress.
Yovanovitch, a career diplomat who served as US ambassador to Ukraine three times, was the third witness to give publicly, televised testimony in the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump before the House Intelligence Committee.
Over the course of Friday morning and afternoon, Yovanovitch gave measured but highly gripping and compelling testimony recounting the events leading up to her being pushed out of her position as ambassador after what she described as a concerted smear campaign from Trump and others around him.
The impeachment inquiry centers around allegations lodged by national security, intelligence, and diplomatic officials that Trump, days after withholding a nearly $400 million military-aid package, used a call with Ukraine president Vladimir Zelensky to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, as well as a conspiracy theory involving the 2016 US elections.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump pushed her out of the administration when people close to him - particularly his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani - lamented that she displayed an "anti-Trump bias" and got in the way of his efforts to persuade the Ukrainian government to open the investigations Trump wanted it to pursue.
Yovanovitch testified that she learned that the president had "lost confidence" in her and that she would be recalled while she was at a ceremony giving an award to the father of an anti-corruption activist who had been assassinated in an acid attack.
In one particularly striking moment, Yovanovitch kept her composure when Trump himself tweeted out an attack on her during her testimony.
"Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad," Trump tweeted during Yovanovitch's testimony. "She started off in Somalia, how did that go? Then fast forward to Ukraine, where the new Ukrainian President spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him. It is a US President's absolute right to appoint ambassadors."
The House Intelligence Committee's chairman, Rep. Adam Schiff, read Trump's tweet out loud to Yovanovitch and gave her a chance to respond to Trump's allegations that she was ineffective.
"I don't think I have such powers, not in Somalia not in other places," Yovanovitch said. "I think where I served over the years, I and others have made things better both for the US and the countries we've served in."
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- Marie Yovanovitch testified that the State Department wouldn't publicly defend her because officials feared the threat of a Trump tweet