Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who was ousted from her position, is scheduled to testify Friday morning at 9 am.
Politico reports: “Democrats tell us that they will have her detail the political retribution she experienced at the hands of Rudy Giuliani and his cadre of aides and advisers. In Democrats’ telling, Yovanovitch was totally screwed. She was a well-respected, 33-year veteran of the State Department, where she has served as an ambassador under George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump in far-flung locales like Kyrgyzstan, Armenia and Ukraine. … Republican are already saying that Yovanovitch is a sideshow. Yovanovitch, they say, was not in Kyiv for any of the time when Trump was alleged to have been trying to hold up military aid for an investigation into the Bidens. They’ll also say Trump is well within his rights to fire ambassadors whenever he pleases.”
The New York Times reported on her closed door deposition in October: “Her version of events added a new dimension to the tale of the campaign against her. It apparently began with a business proposition being pursued in Ukraine by two Americans who, according to an indictment against them unsealed on Thursday, wanted her gone, and who would later become partners with the president’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani in digging up political dirt in Ukraine for Mr. Trump. From there it became part of the effort by Mr. Giuliani to undercut the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and push for damaging information about former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., a possible Democratic challenger to Mr. Trump in 2020.”
