Marie Yovanovitch got a 'sustained standing ovation' from 'hundreds of employees' at the US embassy as she bid them an emotional farewell after Trump fired her: book

• Marie Yovanovitch wrote that she got a "sustained standing ovation" from embassy staffers in Kyiv after Trump fired her.
• "I told myself that I had to be strong ... But it was useless. I teared up immediately. So did many others," she wrote.

Former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch wrote in her new memoir that when she returned to the US embassy in Kyiv after being abruptly fired by then President Donald Trump, she received a "sustained standing ovation" from staffers.

In "Lessons From The Edge," Yovanovitch vividly detailed the aftermath of her firing and how "mortified" she felt while returning to Ukraine to pack up her things.

Yovanovitch's ouster in April 2019 came after Rudy Giuliani, then Trump's personal lawyer, spearheaded a concerted campaign against her because she stood in the way of his efforts to dig up dirt on the Bidens ahead of the 2020 election.

When she returned to Kyiv in May, she wrote that she "couldn't process the anger and sadness" that she felt upon being unceremoniously removed as ambassador. The State Department had even asked her to extend her tour past the scheduled July 2019 end date.

"I turned down all invitations — I just didn't have the strength to pretend that everything was all right, that I was all right," she wrote.

But some people still found her to express gratitude for her work in Ukraine, she said, and Yovanovitch also felt an obligation to say goodbye to staff at the embassy.

"As painful as I knew it would be, I couldn't leave Kyiv without saying goodbye to the embassy staff — to everyone who had worked so hard over the past three years to support me and make our mission a success," Yovanovitch said. "I told myself that I had to be strong when I walked into the cafeteria to a sustained standing ovation from hundreds of employees. But it was useless. I teared up immediately. So did many others."

She added: "Seeing so many sad faces made it impossible for me to brush over the loss I felt. I immediately skipped over the first two sentences in the remarks I had prepared; I just knew that I would never be able to get the words out without completely breaking down."

In the months before Yovanovitch's firing, Giuliani collaborated with two former Ukrainian prosecutors general, who have been widely accused of corruption, to convince Trump that Yovanovitch, who focused heavily on anti-corruption reforms, harbored bias against him.

Giuliani's efforts coincided with Giuliani and Trump mounting a pressure campaign aimed at getting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to launch politically motivated investigations targeting the Bidens.

Those efforts ultimately led to Trump's first impeachment in 2019 on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. He was acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate in February 2020.