Tag: Ambassador Yovanovitch

Trump Attacks Yovanovitch Over Failure To Display His Portrait (Not Her Fault)

Donald Trump’s latest reasons for firing Marie Yovanovitch as ambassador to Ukraine: She was an “Obama person” who refused to hang Trump’s portrait in the U.S. Embassy. That’s false on both counts.

Trump’s pique about not having his picture displayed in a timely way — actually the fault of his administration, not the ambassador — came during a week of unfounded or distorted statements by the president about the impeachment inquiry and the political favor he sought from Ukraine.

“This ambassador that everybody says is so wonderful, she wouldn’t hang my picture in the embassy. OK? She’s in charge of the embassy. She wouldn’t hang it,” Trump said in a Fox News interview Friday. “It took like a year and a half or two years for her to get the picture up.”

View the complete November 25 article from the Associated Press on the National Memo website here.

Ousted ambassador describes State Department in ‘crisis’ in dramatic impeachment testimony

The Hill logoThe former top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine described a “crisis” at the State Department during her public impeachment testimony on Friday, voicing concern that the agency’s failure to protect foreign service officials who faced attacks for their work overseas put U.S. interests at risk.

Marie Yovanovitch, who privately testified to House investigators last month, described a smear campaign led by Rudy Giuliani, corrupt Ukrainian officials and disreputable media figures who successfully facilitated her removal as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in May.

“[T]he attacks are leading to a crisis in the State Department as the policy process is visibly unravelling, leadership vacancies going unfilled, and senior and mid-level officers ponder an uncertain future and head for the doors,” Yovanovitch testified.

“This not a time to undercut our diplomats,” she emphasized.

View the complete November 15 article by Olivia Beavers on The Hill website here.

AP sources: State Dept. worried about defending ambassador

WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department’s third-ranking official is expected to tell House impeachment investigators on Wednesday that political considerations were behind the agency’s refusal to deliver a robust defense of the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.

People familiar with the matter say the highest-ranking career diplomat in the foreign service, David Hale, plans to say that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other senior officials determined that publicly defending ousted Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch would hurt the effort to free up U.S. military assistance to Ukraine.

Hale, who arrived Wednesday morning to testify behind closed doors, will also say that the State Department worried about the reaction from President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, who was one of the strongest advocates for removing the ambassador, according to the people. Several State Department officials have told lawmakers they opposed the dismissal of Yovanovitch in May, a personnel change that came at Trump’s direction.

View the complete November 6 article by Matthew Lee on the Associated Press website here.