At the same time that Rudy Giuliani and his now-indicted pals were pushing for President Donald Trump to remove Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch from her post in Ukraine, Trump administration officials were eyeing potential contenders to take over her job.
One of the people in the mix, according to three sources familiar with the discussions, was Pete Sessions, a former congressman who called for Yovanovitch’s firing. He is also a longtime ally of the former New York Mayor, and is believed to have been the “beneficiary of approximately $3 million in independent expenditures” from a PAC funded in part by Giuliani’s indicted cronies, according to a federal indictment.
Yovanovitch is set to testify to the congressional impeachment inquiry on Nov. 15. The circumstances of her removal from Kyiv are of keen interest to investigators, and she has said the whisper campaign against her left her blindsided. Witnesses in the inquiry have said they believed the people who successfully pushed for her ouster wanted to replace her with someone more pliable—and maybe even more friendly to their business interests.