Trump impeachment news: Ambassador gets standing ovation for her testimony after 'intimidation' attempt by president
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Your support makes all the difference.As ex-Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch has testified before the House impeachment inquiry, just after the White House has released its transcript of the first call between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky, seemingly an attempt to distract from the veteran diplomat's potentially explosive deposition.
Speaking in Louisiana last night, the president complained the inquiry has been “very hard” on his family as he took to the stage to muster support for Republican gubernatorial candidate Eddie Rispone, the plea for sympathy a marked change of tactic.
As security experts warn Mr Trump’s 26 July phone call with Gordon Sondland, ambassador to the EU, could have been picked up by Russian spies, the president is planning to take the battle to withhold his tax returns from investigators to the Supreme Court.
The Friday testimony proved to be an exciting one, with Mr Trump live tweeting the exchange until being called out directly by Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
In doing so, Mr Schiff was able to check in with Ms Yovanovitch in real time, and hear from her that she believed his comments to be aimed at intimidation.
Many have now said that Mr Trump's attack may amount to witness tampering — which could add to the articles of impeachment facing the president.
Ms Yovanovitch also described publicly a conspiracy led by Rudy Giuliani to get her removed from her post as ambassador — which she said she did not understand the purpose of, since the president could have simply fired her if he wanted.
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White House has said Mr Trump was only watching the beginning of today's hearing, after not watching Wednesday's because of official meetings.
Apparently the president can't pull himself away:
In light of Mr Trump's tweets:
"No," Ms Yovanovitch says when asked if she was given any indicator of if the State Department had lost confidence in her, or why Mr Trump had lost confidence.
"It's not the way I wanted my career to end," Ms Yovanovitch says.
On whether she had ever heard of another ambassador being recalled based on allegations that the State Department knew to be false:
"No."
Ms Yovanovitch says she first read the 25 July phone call record when it became public.
Her reaction:
"I was shocked absolutely shocked and devastated frankly. I was shocked and devastated that I would feature in a phone call between two heads of state in such a manner where president Trump said that I was bad news to another world leader and I would be going through some things
"It was a terrible moment, a person who saw me actually reading the transcript said that the color drained form my face. I think I even had a physical reaction.
"Even now, words kind of fail me."
Ms Yovanovitch on how she felt reading Mr Trump's comments that bad things were coming towards her:
"I didn't know what to think but I was very concerned. ... 'She's gonna go through some things,' it doesn't sound good. It sounded like a threat.
"I did ... I didn't know exactly it's not a very precise phrase... it didn't feel like I was uh... I really don't know how to answer the question any further except to say that it kind of felt like a vague threat and so I wondered what that meant. It concerned me."
On Mr Trump praising Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin — who has largely been deemed corrupt — "very good":
"It was disappointing, it was concerning, it wasn't certainly based on anything that the State Department would have reported. Or, frankly, anyone else in the US government. There was an inter-agency consensus...
Mr Trump is live tweeting today's hearing, and apparently doesn't want people to be focusing on Ms Yovanovitch's testimony.
Ms Yovanovitch said she had not received any concerns about her job performance during her decades of experience as a US diplomat.
Andrew Feinberg in the hearing room for The Independent notes:
Yovanovitch just called allegations from John Solomon’s columns — promoted by the president’s son and his personal attorney -- “ridiculous.” So far every witness who has commented on Solomon’s work has expressed similar sentiments.
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