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NYT: Trump Had Ukraine Envoy Removed on ‘False Claims,’ She Tells House Inquiry

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chadskin

chadskin

Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,013

WASHINGTON — 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.
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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.

She spoke to investigators on Capitol Hill in defiance of the White House's declaration that administration officials would not cooperate with the House impeachment inquiry.
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Lonestar

Lonestar

Roll Tahd, Pawl
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
3,560
See the mention of a copy of her statements, I'd like to give them a read.

Was this open to the public or closed session?
 

Deleted member 11637

Oct 27, 2017
18,204
I'm horny for that transcript, gimme.
 
Stinkles

Stinkles

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
20,459
Presumably there was no state department lawyer present? That was one of the ludicrous baseless conditions the Whitehouse tried to insist was necessary legally (it's made up) like when their lawyers (in the same week) made the case to one judge that cooperation would only be required if the house held a full impeachment vote (creamy nonsense) and a second case stated to a judge that impeachment (the device in the constitution designed to deal with the constitutional crisis a rogue president would present) was unconstitutional.

The judge in that last one apparently said "wow."

And Bill Barr's fanfic legal theories now make the case that the entire Nixon impeachment process was also wrongly decided on basic principles of evidence. Despite that evidence proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that congress really does need to have that power.
 
Sho_Nuff82

Sho_Nuff82

Member
Nov 14, 2017
18,447
JaseC64 said:
Thank you for doing your duty and proving your statement! Glad she didnt follow WH orders.
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The career employees who've been bullied or made obsolete for the past two years have nothing to lose except their paychecks. And firing them at this point just makes the State Department look worse.
 
Lonestar

Lonestar

Roll Tahd, Pawl
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
3,560
This bit at the end of page 4 is sad and knowingly obvious:
Many of those events—and the false narratives that emerged from them—resulted from an unfortunate alliance between Ukrainians who continue to operate within a corrupt system, and Americans who either did not understand that corrupt system, or who may have chosen, for their own purposes, to ignore it.
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sangreal

sangreal

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
10,890
President Trump had pushed for her removal for months
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Can't Trump appoint (subject to confirmation) and remove ambassadors as he pleases? It's a political, not career position. If so, that doesn't make much sense. We do know Trump associates were pushing for her removal for months

At any rate, I don't think it's a scandal that he fired her for bullshit reasons (which we knew) -- the scandal is about the real reason he fired her (which has been tied to several angles of corruption)
 
dabig2

dabig2

Member
Oct 29, 2017
5,116
She got absolutely done dirty by the Trump admin.

I've shared this article in the past, but posting again if people want to get caught up on why this is a pretty big deal. And this is from early May.
The trouble for Yovanovitch can be traced, in part, to a speech she gave in March, during which she took a firm stand against political corruption in Ukraine and called for the ouster of Nazar Kholodnytskyy, the chief of the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office. Those remarks, notable for their asperity, outraged Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko. Two weeks later, he gave an interview to The Hill's John Solomonin which he alleged, without evidence, that Yovanovitch had given him "a list of people whom we should not prosecute" during their first meeting, presumably to shield Obama–Clinton allies.

The State Department bluntly dismissed the allegation at the time as an "outright fabrication." And in April, Lutsenko walked back his remarks entirely. (In this new telling, it was Lutsenko who asked for a "do-not-prosecute list," and Yovanovitch who said no.) But by that point, the allegation had already been injected into the bloodstream of the conservative media.

The same day the Solomon–Lutsenko interview was published, frequent Fox News guest Joseph diGenova called for Yovanovitch's removal as ambassador to Ukraine in an interview with Trump confidant Sean Hannity, saying she "has bad-mouthed the president of the United States to Ukrainian officials and has told them not to listen or worry about Trump policy because he's going to be impeached." Later that week, Fox News host Laura Ingraham piled on, revealing a May 2018 letter former congressman Pete Sessions had sent to Secretary of State Pompeo, which accused Yovanovitch of having "reportedly demonstrated clear anti-Trump bias." Two days after Ingraham's show, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted a Daily Wire roundup of conservative attacks on the diplomat. "We need more ⁦@RichardGrenell's and less of these jokers as ambassadors," the president's eldest son wrote on Twitter, referencing the current U.S. ambassador to Germany.
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As the attacks on Yovanovitch were escalating, Congressmen Eliot Engel, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Steny Hoyer, the House majority leader, privately called on Pompeo to publicly defend Yovanovitch. "It is disappointing that certain political actors within Ukraine have criticized Ambassador Yovanovitch, given her anti-corruption efforts that touch on their interests," the lawmakers wrote in an April 12 letter. "It is critical that State Department leadership support ambassadors and foreign service officers in the field and make clear that they will not be subjected to any politically motivated attacks. We urge you to make public statements personally defending your team and those who represent our country from these spurious disparagements."
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and more.

So the House has been aware of the fuckery for awhile now, and now we get to finally hear her side personally after months and months of right-wing disinformation and outright lies.

I've been looking forward to this testimony for weeks now, and I hope they leak more of it throughout the day.
 
WarMacheen

WarMacheen

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
3,549
The only thing better than infrastructure Fridays is if we didn't have them.

The amount of corruption is simply astounding, even more astounding are the people that refuse to see it.
 
Lonestar

Lonestar

Roll Tahd, Pawl
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
3,560
Yep, so much of this goes back to this Lutsenko getting pissed/scared at losing his position, that he starts blurting out lies aimed to please the Trump administration. They continue to push his lies and ignore that he's long since recounted.
 
Quality Garbage

Quality Garbage

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,650
San Francisco
Republicans have accused Democrats of being bad actors for so long theyve convinced themselves that they can do this without repricussions because there weren't any for Democrats.

There is a reason why Democrats never got investigated to this extent:

THEY HAVE NEVER FUCKING ACTED LIKE THIS!!!
 

Shoeless

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,000
WarMacheen said:
The only thing better than infrastructure Fridays is if we didn't have them.

The amount of corruption is simply astounding, even more astounding are the people that refuse to see it.
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Maybe conservatives have simply convinced themselves that everyone does this, and anyone that claims they didn't is a liar, and if no evidence can be found, it's just because it was well-hidden. Kind of like how a murderer might argue "Well, I'm a murderer, so of course EVERYONE else is... they just haven't been caught yet."
 
sangreal

sangreal

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
10,890
Quality Garbage said:
Republicans have accused Democrats of being bad actors for so long theyve convinced themselves that they can do this without repricussions because there weren't any for Democrats.

There is a reason why Democrats never got investigated to this extent:

THEY HAVE NEVER FUCKING ACTED LIKE THIS!!!
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reminds me of a (politico?) story early in the Trump admin about how the GOP was shocked by how little they could overturn from Obama because they convinced themselves that he had ruled by fiat
 
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