Tag: Marie Yovanovitch

Marie Yovanovitch: These are turbulent times. But we will persist and prevail.

Washington Post logoMarie L. Yovanovitch served most recently as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.

After nearly 34 years working for the State Department, I said goodbye to a career that I loved. It is a strange feeling to transition from decades of communicating in the careful words of a diplomat to a person free to speak exclusively for myself.

What I’d like to share with you is an answer to a question so many have asked me: What do the events of the past year mean for our country’s future?

It was an honor for me to represent the United States abroad because, like many immigrants, I have a keen understanding of what our country represents. In a leap of optimism and faith, my parents made their way from the wreckage of post-World War II Europe to America, knowing in their hearts that this country would give me a better life. They rested their hope, not in the possibility of prosperity, but in a strong democracy: a country with resilient institutions, a government that sought to advance the interests of its people, and a society in which freedom was cherished and dissent protected. These are treasures that must be carefully guarded by all who call themselves Americans. Continue reading.

“TAKE HER OUT”: Donald Trump’s Role in the Ukraine Scheme is Reportedly Caught on Tape

Lordy, there are tapes—or, at least, one tape. When Lev Parnas, one of Rudy Giuliani’s Ukraine bagmen, gave an interview to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow last week, he recalled attending a private dinner in April, 2018, at the Trump International Hotel, on Pennsylvania Avenue, where the hotel’s proprietor, who works part time as the forty-fifth President of the United States, ordered a White House aide to fire Marie Yovanovitch, a veteran diplomat who was then serving as the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine.

This was one of many damaging claims that Parnas made to Maddow, prompting Trump’s supporters to dismiss him as a self-serving fantasist. But, on Friday, it emerged that Igor Fruman, Parnas’s sidekick and fellow-defendant, has provided a tape recording to federal prosecutors that features Trump using mob-boss language to order Yovanovitch’s axing. ABC News, in a reportpublished on Friday morning, as the House managers were preparing to wrap up their presentation in the Senate impeachment trial, said that it has reviewed a tape recording in which a voice that “appears to be President Trump’s” says of Yovanovitch, “Get rid of her! Get her out tomorrow. I don’t care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. O.K.? Do it.”

The White House’s response to the ABC News story didn’t deny that Trump attended the dinner, which reportedly took place on April 30, 2018, or that the President used the language attributed to him in the ABC News report. “Every President in our history has had the right to place people who support his agenda and his policies within his Administration,” the White House press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, said in a statement.

Pompeo says he ‘never heard’ about any efforts to surveil Yovanovitch

The Hill logoSecretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday said he was not aware of any surveillance of Marie Yovanovitch during her time in Kyiv as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, his first public comments on allegations that associates of Rudy Giuliani surveilled the career diplomat as they pushed for her removal.

“I never heard about this at all,” Pompeo said in an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt when asked if he was aware that Yovanovitch was being surveilled.

Pompeo said he was only aware of the suggestion that the ambassador was being followed after the release of text messages describing the effort, released this week by the House Intelligence Committee as part of evidence in the impeachment trial against President Trump.  Continue reading.

Pompeo under pressure over threats to Yovanovitch

The Hill logoPressure is building on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to reveal what he knew about any threats to the personal safety of former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch following allegations that associates of Rudy Giuliani surveilled the career diplomat as they pushed for her removal.

The State Department on Thursday agreed to brief senators on what they knew of efforts to track the ambassador’s movements and what steps were taken to protect her. The move was in response to demands by congressional Democrats to launch investigations.

“I got a message from my staff director that they are talking about briefing us and at the highest levels,” Sen. Bob Menendez (N.J.), the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told CNN on Thursday.  Continue reading.

Trump Jr. spreads another wild, debunked conspiracy theory: Former Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was ‘monitoring’

AlterNet logoDonald Trump Jr. is making a wild accusation: former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was “monitoring” him.

Dan Bongino, a conspiracy theory spreading Trump sycophant, took to Twitter Wednesday to falsely claim: “Why was Marie Yovanovitch monitoring me, and others, when we began exposing her role in the Ukrainian collusion scandal with the Obama administration and the Democrats? Has she truthfully answered that question yet?”

There is no Ukrainian collusion scandal with the Obama administration and the Democrats. Continue reading.

Lev Parnas Steps Back From Texts Alleging Surveillance Of U.S. Ambassador In Ukraine

A lawyer for former U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch is calling for an investigation after materials released Tuesday night as part of the impeachment inquiry suggested she was under surveillance by individuals linked to President Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.

That detail was among a trove of documents provided by Giuliani associate Lev Parnas that were made public by the House Intelligence Committee late Tuesday. The House impeached Trump last month for abuse of office and obstruction of Congress, and lawmakers delivered articles to the Senate Wednesday, where a trial is likely to open next week.

The records provided by Parnas, who has been indicted in New York for alleged campaign finance violations, add to the evidence already released documenting Giuliani’s efforts to get the new Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to publicly announce an investigation related to former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, who had ties to a Ukrainian energy company.  Continue reading.

Former White House official drops the hammer on Mike Pompeo after ‘two-bit criminals’ stalked Ukraine ambassador

AlterNet logoAddressing a House document dump that provided more evidence in Donald Trump’s still-growing Ukraine scandal, a former White House official claimed on CNN that to all appearances White House foreign policy has been being conducted by “two-bit mobsters.”

“New Day” hosts John Berman and Alisyn Camerota skipped over Tuesday night’s Democratic debate to point to notes and texts from Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas that indicated that former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was being stalked with hints of personal threats.

“These new text messages were provided to Congress by Giuliani’s foreign associate Lev Parnas,” host Camerota explained. “To dig up dirt on the Bidens and to take down Marie Yovanovitch. The materials include this letter to Ukraine’s president, and in it Giuliani requested a meeting indicating he is working with the U.S. president’s knowledge and consent. That this is the first where Giuliani links efforts to President Trump. There is also this note in Vienna that mentions to get Zelensky to announce an investigation of the Bidens.” Continue reading.

What does female authority sound like? Marie Yovanovitch and Fiona Hill just showed us.

Washington Post logoPublic impeachment hearings began last week, if you’ll recall, with “Walter Cronkite” trending on Twitter. Why? One of the first witnesses, acting Ukraine ambassador William B. Taylor Jr., sounded somewhat like the legendary newscaster — a bourbon barrel of a baritone, mellow and oaky with age.

If a bureaucrat is going to testify before the House Intelligence Committee and be streamed into households around the country, it doesn’t hurt for him to remind Americans of the most trusted man in news. That kind of tone-based credibility goes a long way. Rightly or not, you felt like you could trust a man like this; you’d heard and trusted his voice before.

The next day, Marie Yovanovitch took her turn at the witness table. Impressively credentialed and equally poised, the former Ukraine ambassador’s testimony prompted a standing ovation in the hearing room, but it didn’t prompt adoring comparisons to any deceased icons. Her voice did not, after all, sound like Walter Cronkite’s. Hers was the precise, measured tone of a polite 61-year-old woman. And we simply don’t have as many reference points for 61-year-old women who’ve been elevated to the status of most trusted voice in anything.

View the complete November 22 column by Monica Hesse on The Washington Post website here.

Top Diplomat Testified Pompeo Called Hannity About Yovanovitch Smears

“It did come up at some point with the secretary,” David Hale said. “I understood that he did call Sean Hannity.”

David Hale, the under secretary of state for political affairs, said in his closed-door impeachment testimony that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Fox News host Sean Hannity last spring to ask about the smear campaign launched against former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, according to a transcript that was made public Monday night.

Discussing efforts by Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and pro-Trump media to besmirch the reputation of Yovanovitch ahead of her ouster as ambassador, Hale noted that Pompeo spoke to Giuliani twice in late March regarding the allegations.

At the time, conservative columnist John Solomon had reported that former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said Yovanovitch had given him a “do not prosecute list.” (Lutsenko would later walk back that claim.)

View the complete November 18 article by Justin Baragona on the Daily Beast website here.