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Must be serious. Congress is working on a Saturday.
They are taking the testimony of a top State Dept official, in defiance of Team Trump’s orders, to ‘Say Nothing! … or else.’
Top State Department official says ousting ambassador to Ukraine was a White House priority
Philip Reeker testified about Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch’s removal and withheld military aid in impeachment inquiry hearings Saturday.
[...] however reportedly tell lawmakers he [Philip Reeker, acting assistant secretary in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, U.S. State Department] defended Yovanovitch, a respected career diplomat who he had known for 25 years, before and after she was relieved of her duties. According to the testimonies of Yovanovitch, Reeker, and others, that removal came following a whisper campaign within the State Department — allegedly orchestrated by Giuliani — that presented her as disloyal.
According to internal emails provided to Congress earlier in the inquiry, Reeker called that campaign a “fake news driven smear” in March. In those emails, Reeker and one of his deputies, George Kent, attempted to defend their colleague against the rumors surrounding her; in one email, Reeker wrote that attempts to paint Yovanovitch as a liberal operative working against White House interests were “without merit or validation.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, Reeker and Kent both attempted to express their concerns about Yovanovitch’s treatment to senior State Department officials, but Pompeo and others discouraged any kind of internal solidarity campaign. Pompeo and other top officials reportedly told Reeker to stop his efforts to defend Yovanovitch because Trump himself wanted her recalled.
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Here is Reeker’s back-story, before Trump tries to paint him as just another leader of the “Never-Trumpers” — as he just did, in the aftermath of Will Taylor’s devastating testimony (directly tying Trump to the Extortion plot carried out against Ukraine.)
Before Team Trump could carry out that plot however, there was one “stand-up” Ambassador stationed in Ukraine, that they had to summarily ‘kick to the curb’. That episode is what Mr Reeker spoke to Congress about today. Seems he’s kind of an expert on the topic:
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The first set of notes in the packet appears to be the ones Giuliani provided to the State Department, as the allegations are consistent with the narrative he has put forward about the Bidens and Yovanovitch.
The packet also includes internal State Department emails discussing Yovanovitch. Career officials undertook a concerted effort to shield the then-ambassador to Ukraine from conspiracies peddled by conservative media outlets beginning in March.
Acting Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Philip Reeker and George Kent, a State Department official who oversees Ukraine policy and was previously the deputy chief of mission in Kyiv, sought to provide counselor Ulrich Brechbuhl and Undersecretary for Political Affairs David Hale with facts to counter the conspiratorial narratives being pushed about the career diplomat..
On March 31, Reeker forwarded a list of "fake news driven smear out of Ukraine" and counter-examples to Brechbuhl, writing: "It's a good summary of the story lines being peddled in the this, with a good balance of facts."
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"(The) assumption that (Yovanovitch) is some kind of 'liberal outpost ... leading a political struggle' really is without merit or validation," he wrote.
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At this rate, Trump’s going to need a football stadium, to hold all the “Never-Trumpers” — not afraid to testify against his Team’s blatant corruption, since being in Office.
It seems at last all those “chickens” — that the Bully once intimidated — are now finally coming home to roost.
And there’s nothing the National Bully can do about it — except to continue with his factless name-calling … and to sit there and fume.
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