State Department: The former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine says her ouster in May came as a direct result of pressure from President Donald Trump.

WASHINGTON» The former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine whose abrupt ouster in May has become a focus of House impeachment investigators said Friday that her departure came as a direct result of pressure President Donald Trump placed on the State Department to remove her, according to her prepared remarks before Congress.

The account by Marie Yovanovitch depicts a career Foreign Service officer caught in a storm of unsubstantiated allegations pushed by the president’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and a cast of former Ukrainian officials who viewed her as a threat to their financial and political interests.

She told lawmakers that she was forced to leave Kyiv on “the next plane” this past spring and subsequently removed from her post, with the State Department’s No. 2 official telling her that, although she had done nothing wrong, the president had lost confidence in her and the agency had been under significant pressure to remove her since summer 2018.

In explaining her departure, she acknowledged months of criticism from Giuliani, who had accused her of privately badmouthing the president and seeking to protect the interests of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.

Yovanovitch denied those allegations and said she was “incredulous” that her superiors decided to remove her based on “unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives.”

She also took direct aim at Giuliani’s associates, whom she said could have been financially threatened by her anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine.

Trump told reporters Friday that Yovanovitch may be a nice person but that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “didn’t speak favorably” about her during a July 25 phone call between the two leaders. In a rough transcript of the call released by the White House last month, it was Trump who broached the subject of Yovanovitch, telling his counterpart that she was “bad news.” Zelensky responded, “I agree with you 100%.”

While addressing reporters, Trump equivocated when asked if Giuliani was still his attorney. “I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to Rudy . ... He has been my attorney,” the president said.

Giuliani, in a phone call with The Washington Post, stood by his allegations, saying Ukrainians told him that Yovanovitch was “running around the streets saying not to listen to Trump.” He declined to say precisely who told him that.

The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.