Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch warned America against becoming a country where it is “dangerous” to speak out against leaders following President Trump’s impeachment acquittal.
Yovanovitch, 61, was one of several witnesses to testify before the House in the impeachment hearings against Trump. The former ambassador testified that she felt “threatened” by Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani while working in Ukraine because she disagreed with the president’s policy.
In a Thursday opinion piece in the Washington Post, Yovanovitch acknowledged that she was retiring from the State Department after a turbulent few years.
“After nearly 34 years working for the State Department, I said goodbye to a career that I loved,” she said. “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.”
Yovanovitch said she was proud of the way she and other diplomats handled the scandalous call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“When civil servants in the current administration saw senior officials taking actions they considered deeply wrong in regard to the nation of Ukraine, they refused to take part,” she explained. “When Congress asked us to testify about those activities, my colleagues and I did not hesitate, even in the face of administration efforts to silence us.”
She said it was the “American way” to speak out against world leaders without fear of retribution, and added, “I have seen dictatorships around the world, where blind obedience is the norm and truth-tellers are threatened with punishment or death. We must not allow the United States to become a country where standing up to our government is a dangerous act.”
Yovanovitch claimed she was “shocked” by the conspiracies that were pushed about her after she testified, and she urged Americans to be protective of their rights.
“I had always thought that our institutions would forever protect us against individual transgressors,” she said. “But it turns out that our institutions need us as much as we need them; they need the American people to protect them or they will be hollowed out over time, unable to serve and protect our country.”
The former ambassador said she remains optimistic in the future of the U.S., despite the “turbulent times” America faces.
Trump was acquitted on Wednesday on a party-line vote, with the exception of Republican Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, who voted that Trump was guilty on one article of impeachment. Trump attacked Romney for his vote and mocked him for his failed presidential bid in 2012.
