President Donald Trump attacked a former United States (US) ambassador to Ukraine on Friday as she testified to an impeachment hearing in the House of Representatives, saying that everywhere she went during her career “turned bad,” a charge she called “very intimidating.”
Marie Yovanovitch, a career diplomat who was removed from Ukraine by the Trump administration this year, defended her anti-corruption record in Ukraine during the hearing and said her removal had left policy there in disarray.
As she testified, Trump tweeted out a series of attacks on Yovanovitch saying “Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia, how did that go?”
In a dramatic moment, the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff then asked Yovanovitch for her reaction to the tweet. She said it was “very intimidating.”
“I can’t speak to what the president is trying to do, but I think the effect is to be intimidating,” she said.
The session before the House Intelligence Committee is part of the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry that threatens Trump’s presidency even as he seeks re-election in November 2020.
Yovanovitch was removed from her post as ambassador to Kiev in May after coming under attack by Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, at a time when he was working to persuade Ukraine to carry out two investigations that would benefit the Republican president politically.
Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia, how did that go? Then fast forward to Ukraine, where the new Ukrainian President spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him. It is a U.S. President’s absolute right to appoint ambassadors.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2019
