A top deputy to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo testified about a plan to defend U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch against a “smear campaign” alleging she was undermining President Trump’s foreign policy agenda.
David Hale, under secretary of state for political affairs, told lawmakers that two statements were in the works in March, one from the State Department and one from Yovanovitch herself, possibly on camera, to put the rumors to rest. But this plan did not pan out and Yovanovitch was abruptly recalled from Kyiv in May.
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Yovanovitch and Hale are now witnesses in House impeachment proceedings against Trump. House investigators are looking into whether Trump abused his office by coercing Ukraine to conduct investigations that would be politically advantageous to him.
Hale is the third-ranking official at the State Department. He appeared in a closed-door deposition on Nov. 6 and the transcript was released Monday.
He did not say who put a stop to the idea to release two simultaneous statements, but he testified that Pompeo spoke on the phone with Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani about Yovanovitch in late March and “following those two calls, the State Department stood by its decision not to release a statement in her defense.”
Hale said Pompeo also called Fox News host Sean Hannity to show evidence of the allegations he often spoke about on his show. Hannity denies that Pompeo ever sought his input on this matter.
Hale said he took it upon himself to advocate for the State Department to release a statement in defense of Yovanovitch at about the time articles emerged “quoting Giuliani saying to a Ukrainian that the President really wants Ambassador Yovanovitch to go.”
The implication appeared to be that “this was a roundabout way the president was trying to get rid of the ambassador through this smear campaign,” Hale said. “I found it at the beginning very — I found it very hard to understand why a president of the United States would do it that way when he can just — I mean, all ambassadors are presidential appointees, they serve at the pleasure of the president, so it didn’t — it didn’t add up to me. I didn’t understand why that would be.”
As part of the plan to come out publicly in support of Yovanovitch, she would be expected to simultaneously put out a statement of her own. “And they were debating in her embassy whether she should do it on camera or in a written statement,” he said.
Hale explained that he believed that “it was a good idea for her to demonstrate that she — there was — because it had become so personal, that she needed to remind people what foreign services are and who we were loyal to and who we work for and that she committed to that, and that that would be backed up, of course, by the statement that she was also seeking from the State Department.”
Yovanovitch has testified that she wanted Pompeo to put out a statement to support her, but “there was concern that the rug would be pulled out from underneath the State Department if they put out something publicly.” During her public testimony last week, she said she believed she had become a target by certain Ukrainians and certain American allies, including Giuliani, because of her anti-corruption efforts.
Sources told the Washington Examiner that Pompeo “might have lost his job” if he tried to save Yovanovitch, considering Trump’s hostility toward her.
Hale will testify in public before the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday. He was one of the witnesses requested by Republicans because of his knowledge on U.S. policy on foreign assistance and “firsthand knowledge” surrounding Yovanovitch’s recall.
