Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, is testifying Friday in the House impeachment hearing. Her early testimony has been both riveting and heartbreaking. After 33 years of dedicating her life to the State Department and U.S. diplomatic services, she was suddenly recalled from her ambassadorship in Ukraine after Rudy Giuliani and his Russian cronies began circulating smears about her in March, smears that she made clear in her public testimony were absolutely false, something she also told State Department officials in private when the attacks first surfaced.
Fast forward to the September release of the readout of Donald Trump’s July 25 call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. Yovanovitch was asked in the hearing for her reaction when she read the president of the United States describing her as “bad news.” Yovanovitch says she was “devastated” and “shocked” that the president would be badmouthing her in general, but especially to the head of a foreign state. She said someone watching her reading the call memo told her that the color completely drained from her face as she read Trump’s words.
Listen to Yovanovitch in her own words and consider that this woman has dedicated her entire life to serving this country, only to be publicly smeared by the president himself. And why? Because, like George Kent and Bill Taylor, who testified on Wednesday, she is a career public servant who plays by the rules and enforces the rules. And they are precisely the kind of people who stood in the way of the criminal objectives of Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani. Full transcript below.
GOLDMAN: Now you testified in your opening statement that you had left Ukraine by the time of the July 25th call between President Trump and President Zelensky. When was the first time that you saw the call record for this phone call?
YOVANOVITCH: When it was released publicly at the end of September, I believe.
GOLDMAN: And prior to reading that call record, were you aware that President Trump had specifically made reference to you in that call?
YOVANOVITCH: No.
GOLDMAN: What was your reaction to learning that?
YOVANOVITCH: I was shocked, absolutely shocked and devastated frankly.
GOLDMAN: What do you mean by devastated?
YOVANOVITCH: 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 that I would be going through some things, so I was -- it was -- it was a terrible moment, a person who saw me actually reading the transcript said that the color drained from my face, I think I even had a physical reaction. I -- I think, you know, even now words kind of fail me.
GOLDMAN: Well, without upsetting you too much I'd like to show you the excerpts from the call, and the first one where President Trump says that the former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news, so I just want to let you know. What was your reaction when you heard the president of the United States refer to you as bad news?
YOVANOVITCH: I can't believe it it. I mean, shocked, appalled, devastated that the president of the United States would talk about any ambassador like that to a foreign head of state, and it was me. I mean, I couldn't believe it.
GOLDMAN: The next excerpt when the president references you was a short one, but he said, well, she's going to go through some things. What did you think when President Trump told President Zelensky and you read that you were “going to go through some things.”
YOVANOVITCH: I didn't know what to think, but O was very concerned.
GOLDMAN: What were you concerned about?
YOVANOVITCH: “She's going to go through some things.” it didn't sound good. it sounded like a threat.
GOLDMAN: Did you feel threatened?
YOVANOVITCH: I did.
GOLDMAN: How so?
YOVANOVITCH: I didn't know exactly. It's not a very precise phrase, but I think -- it didn't feel like I was -- I really don't know how to answer the question any further except to say that it kind felt like a vague threat and so i wondered what had that meant. It was a concern to me.
In fact, even while Yovanovitch was testifying about her perception that Trump’s words were meant to intimidate, Trump himself was tweeting a smear about Yovanovitch. Smearing this woman as she testified would seem to be witness intimidation and fodder for yet another article of impeachment, something House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff hinted at during a break in testimony.
Stay tuned.