Envoy told to tweet for Trump or lose job
The former US ambassador to Ukraine was urged to ‘‘tweet out’’ her support of President Donald Trump to save her job after coming under attack from his son Donald Jr and his personal lawyer.
Marie Yovanovitch was advised by Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the EU and a Trump donor, to ‘‘go big or go home ... you know, tweet out there that you support the president’’, she told a private congressional hearing on impeachment of the president.
Yovanovitch, 60, who does not have a Twitter account, was removed by Trump when Rudy Giuliani, his lawyer, was trying to encourage Kiev to investigate the business dealings of Joe Biden’s son.
Her testimony was one of the first two transcripts of hearings to be released after a vote last week to bring more openness to the impeachment inquiry.
A whistleblower first raised concerns about Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, which led Democrats to begin an inquiry into whether the president had abused his office by bringing undue pressure to bear on Ukraine to investigate Biden, who was Barack Obama’s vice-president and is a favourite to be the Democratic presidential nominee next year.
Yovanovitch was recalled by the State Department after Giuliani complained that she was biased against the president. She told her hearing that she had been ‘‘incredulous’’ to be removed ‘‘on unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives’’.
Trump described Yovanovitch as ‘‘bad news’’ during a phone call to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in July in which he asked for ‘‘a favour’’
and mentioned an investigation into the Bidens. Yovanovitch said: ‘‘I was shocked. I mean, I was very surprised that President Trump would speak about me or any ambassador in that way to a foreign counterpart.’’
The second transcript, from Michael McKinley, a long-serving diplomat, showed ‘‘his growing alarm that the apparatus of state was being used for political purposes by the president and others’’, Adam Schiff, the Democratic chairman of the House intelligence committee, said. McKinley quit on the eve of his testimony last month.
Schiff said that all transcripts of private testimony would be released. Trump had tweeted: ‘‘If Shifty Adam Schiff, who is a corrupt politician who fraudulently made up what I said on the ’call,’ is allowed to release transcripts of the Never Trumpers & others that are & were interviewed, he will change the words that were said to suit the Dems purposes. Republicans should give their own transcripts.’’
Lawyers for the whistleblower said that the person was prepared to answer written questions from Republicans.
– The Times
‘‘I was shocked. I mean, I was very surprised that President Trump would speak about me or any ambassador in that way to a foreign counterpart.’’
Marie Yovanovitch, former US ambassador to Ukraine