Catherine Croft, a State Department employee who served as assistant to former special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, will provide congressional investigators Wednesday with more insight into the smear campaign against the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and the delay in releasing military aid to the country.
Croft, a career diplomat and Ukraine specialist, also served on the National Security Council between July 2017-July 2018. During that time, she will testify that she witnessed elements of the campaign to remove former ambassador Marie Yovanovitch from her post in Ukraine.
"During my time at the NSC, I received multiple calls from lobbyist Robert Livingston, who told me that Ambassador Yovanovitch should be fired," Croft writes in a publicly released opening statement. "He characterized Ambassador Yovanovitch as an 'Obama holdover' and associated with George Soros. It was not clear to me at the time—or now—at whose direction or at whose expense Mr. Livingston was seeking the removal of Ambassador Yovanovitch."
Livingston, who owns a lobbying firm, is a Republican of Clinton-era fame who briefly took over as House Speaker after Newt Gingrich's ignominious demise and then resigned himself after admitting to extra-marital affairs. One of Livingston's clients, according to CNN, is top Ukrainian politician Yulia Tymoshenko, who was apparently introduced to Rudy Giuliani in December 2018.
CNN could not determine on whose behalf Livingston was making the calls. When the outlet contacted Livingston, he said only, "I don't have any reason. Not going to talk about it. I don't know anything about it," before hanging up the phone. But the early timing of the push to oust Yovanovitch is interesting given that Giuliani didn't really take up that mantle until spring of 2019.
Croft will also testify to being on a mid-July phone call in which a White House budget official relayed that acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney had placed a hold on security aid to Ukraine under orders from Trump.
"The only reason given was that the order came at the direction of the president," Croft writes.