Extop official reportedly quit over Ukraine
WASHINGTON — A former top aide to Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, told impeachment investigators on Wednesday that he resigned because he was upset the Trump administration had wrestled Ukraine policy away from career diplomats, according to three people familiar with his closeddoor deposition to the House Intelligence Committee.
In several hours of continuing testimony, Michael McKinley, who until last week was a senior adviser to Pompeo, described his mounting frustration with how politicized the State Department had become under President Trump, saying that the last straw for him was the ouster of Marie Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine whom Trump ordered removed.
McKinley’s testimony was the latest in a string of accounts given by career diplomats and administration officials to impeachment investigators about how experts were sidelined as the president pursued his own agenda on Ukraine, including in a July telephone call when Trump asked Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and other Democrats.
Taken together, the interviews have corroborated many aspects of the intelligence whistleblower complaint that prompted the impeachment inquiry, which alleged that Trump abused his power to enlist a foreign government for his own political gain.
While McKinley told lawmakers that he did not have detailed knowledge about the Ukraine matter, he said the handling of the issue was emblematic of a troublesome trend at the State Department, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe a closeddoor deposition. He spoke of his frustration with Rex Tillerson, the former secretary of state, and praised Pompeo for his leadership.
But McKinley said he was alarmed at how poorly diplomats were treated. Yovanovitch, a 30year veteran of the Foreign Service, testified privately last week that she was abruptly removed from her post after a monthslong push by Trump to get rid of her on the basis of “unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives.”
Democratic lawmakers who participated in the questioning of McKinley said he fit the mold of other witnesses.
“Another career Foreign Service officer with a 33year career trying to do the right thing,” said Rep. Harley Rouda, DOrange County.
Trump complained about the impeachment inquiry Wednesday during a meeting with Italy’s president at the White House, accusing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of doing “this country a great disservice.”