Former US Ambassador to
Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch told House lawmakers last month that State Department leaders did not speak up for her because they had concerns that President
Donald Trump would undermine them, possibly by using Twitter.
"What I was told is that there was concern that the rug would be pulled out from underneath the State Department if they put out something publicly," Yovanovitch said according to a transcript of a closed-door interview released publicly Monday. "You know, that perhaps there would be a tweet of disagreement or something else."
The committees leading the House impeachment inquiry on Monday made public the closed-door deposition transcripts of Yovanovitch and former State Department adviser Michael McKinley, a step they're taking as they prepare to move toward holding public hearings later this month.
The transcripts from Yovanovitch and McKinley are the first that have been released, and House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, a
California Democrat, said more would be coming this week, including former special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker and US Ambassador to the
European Union Gordon Sondland on Tuesday.
Yovanovitch, whose ouster earlier this year has emerged as a key flashpoint in the impeachment inquiry, testified in private before House investigators on October 11. A career foreign service officer, Yovanovitch said she was removed from her diplomatic post because of pressure from Trump and his allies, including his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.
Democrats are investigating the circumstances surrounding her removal because it points to the broader role that Giuliani played in US-Ukraine policy that goes beyond just the push for Ukraine to announce an investigation into the President's political rivals.
Yovanovitch said that she had urged the State Department to put out a statement of support amid attacks from the President's allies — and his son, Donald Trump Jr. — but such a statement never came.
"If you have the President's son saying, you know, We need to pull these clowns, or however he referred to me, it makes it hard to be a credible ambassador in a country," she said.
According to the transcript, Yovanovitch said she was "shocked" and "apprehensive" when she learned that Trump privately told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that she was "going to go through some things."
'Go big or go home'Despite platitudes from colleagues, who describe Yovanovitch as a devoted public servant, Giuliani spread allegations that she was an anti-Trump partisan who should be removed. She testified that she was informed that Trump personally requested that she be recalled back to the US, and that she was told at 1 a.m. local time "that I needed to be on the next plane home to Washington."
Yovanovitch told the committees that she first learned from Ukrainian officials in late 2018 about attempts by Giuliani and his associate, the ex-prosecutor general of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko, to damage her reputation. She said it was people inside the Ukrainian government who told her Giuliani and Lutsenko "had plans, and that they were going to, you know, do things, including to me."
Yovanovitch said Giuliani's shadow diplomacy "cut the ground out from underneath us" at the US embassy and hampered her efforts to represent the US as the senior-most diplomat in Ukraine.
"Ukrainians were wondering whether I was going to be leaving, whether we really represented the President, U.S. policy, et cetera," Yovanovitch said.
Yovanovitch said she couldn't grasp at the time what was happening because it was so outside the realm of normal.
"You're going to think that I'm incredibly naive, but I couldn't imagine all of the things that have happened over the last 5 or 7 months, I just couldn't imagine it," she told lawmakers.
After there were stories written about her, Yovanovitch said she reached out to Sondland for advice, and he suggested she needed "to go big or go home" to respond, proposing that she put out a tweet stating her support for the President.
"Obviously, that was advice," Yovanovitch said. "It was advice that I did not see how I could implement in my role as an Ambassador, and as a foreign service officer."
Yovanovitch also said that the Trump administration made no effort to verify the accusations being made against her.
"Until today, nobody has ever actually asked me the question from the US government of whether I am actually guilty of all of these things I'm supposed to have done," she said. "Nobody even asked, because I think everybody just thought it was so outrageous."
'To advance domestic political objectives'McKinley, a senior adviser to
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who resigned amid the Ukraine controversy, testified behind closed doors on October 16. He raised concerns about Yovanovitch's removal, which was pushed by Giuliani and has become a central part of the inquiry.
McKinley testified that he chose to resign because in part because of what he saw as the use of ambassadors "to advance domestic political objectives."
"The timing of my resignation was the result of two overriding concerns: the failure in my view, of the State Department to offer support to Foreign Service employees caught up in the impeachment inquiry; and, second, by what appears to be the utilization of our ambassadors overseas to advance domestic political objectives," McKinley said.
McKinley told lawmakers that he learned of Giuliani's efforts in Ukraine through the media, but he did not speak to anyone at the State Department about it.
"I don't think his name ever crossed my lips," McKinley said. "And no one spoke to me about Rudy Giuliani."