Private influence and personal gain have usurped diplomats’ judgment
There is reporting on Yovanovitch’s testimony even though the deposition is behind closed doors.
Marie Yovanovitch told the House committees investigating impeachment that Trump had pushed for her removal as ambassador to Ukraine based on “false claims”, according to the New York Times.
The Times reports:
Marie L. Yovanovitch, who was recalled as the American ambassador to Ukraine, testified to impeachment investigators on Friday that a top State Department official told her that President Trump had pushed for her removal for months even though the department believed she had ‘done nothing wrong.’
In a closed-door deposition that could further fuel calls for Mr. Trump’s impeachment, Ms. Yovanovitch delivered a scathing indictment of his administration’s conduct of foreign policy, warning that private influence and personal gain have usurped diplomats’ judgment, threatening to undermine the nation’s interests and drive talented professionals out of public service.
According to a copy of her opening statement obtained by The New York Times, the longtime diplomat said she was ‘incredulous’ that she was removed as ambassador ‘based, as far as I can tell, on unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives.’
Also:
According to her opening statement published by the Washington Post, Marie Yovanovitch said she had few interactions with Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer.
But she noted that, based on news reports, some of Giuliani’s associates may have believed they would suffer financial losses due to the ambassador’s anti-corruption efforts.
Yovanovitch told the House committees: “With respect to Mayor Giuliani, I have had only minimal contacts with him—a total of three that I recall. None related to the events at issue. I do not know Mr. Giuliani’s motives for attacking me.
“But individuals who have been named in the press as contacts of Mr. Giuliani may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.”
Could ambassadors from decent sane countries please come to the US to promote an anti-corruption policy here? As a matter of urgency? Please?
In her opening statement to the House committees, Yovanovitch sought to dispel some of the smears thrown at her by far-right pundits.
The former ambassador to Ukraine said: “I want to categorically state that I have never myself or through others, directly or indirectly, ever directed, suggested, or in any other way asked for any government or government official in Ukraine (or elsewhere) to refrain from investigating or prosecuting actual corruption.
“Equally fictitious is the notion that I am disloyal to President Trump. I have heard the allegation in the media that I supposedly told the Embassy team to ignore the President’s orders ‘since he was going to be impeached.’ That allegation is false. I have never said such a thing, to my Embassy colleagues or to anyone else.”
Yovanovitch added that she never discussed Hunter Biden or his Ukrainian company with Joe Biden or any other Obama official, although she has met the former vice president on several occasions.
Are we going to believe Yovanovitch, or Trump?
The question answers itself.
So, Trump &Co. are not opposed to corruption as such, just opposed to corruption that doesn’t benefit them.