If President Trump wanted to undermine Friday’s impeachment hearing with fired U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, he had several legitimate criticisms available to him. Instead, he chose nasty tweets that helped her case.
Yovanovitch no doubt has a sympathetic story to tell, backed up by other witnesses, that she was fired as the result of a smear campaign orchestrated by Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, even though she had earned a reputation for pushing Ukraine to fight corruption — which Trump’s allies claim was a primary interest of his.
Trump and his supporters, however, have an easy way to dismiss the relevance of Yovanovitch’s testimony. Since she left her post in May, she was not around for the events that are at the heart of the impeachment investigation. As Yovanovitch pointed out in her opening statement, she was not in her post during the time of the July 25 phone call between Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, discussions surrounding the call, or “any discussions surrounding the delay of security assistance to Ukraine in Summer of 2019.”
Furthermore, it isn’t as if Yovanovitch was dismissed in favor of some Trump toady. She was replaced by William Taylor, who Democrats spent Wednesday upholding as a dedicated public servant of the highest integrity.
Yovanovitch may have gotten a raw deal, but if you’d want to undercut Friday’s hearing, all of these arguments were available to Trump. He could have said she wasn’t a witness to any of the relevant events.
Instead, he did what he does:
….They call it “serving at the pleasure of the President.” The U.S. now has a very strong and powerful foreign policy, much different than proceeding administrations. It is called, quite simply, America First! With all of that, however, I have done FAR more for Ukraine than O.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2019
The idea that Yovanovitch, at the time a young foreign service officer on tour in Mogadishu, would have any influence — let alone responsibility — for a brutal civil war in Somalia is obviously completely absurd. But Trump’s nastiness as she was testifying bolsters her claim that she was fired as part of a baseless smear campaign.
Not to mention, it doesn’t make any sense. If Yovanovitch, as a foreign service officer, was responsible for the events in Somalia, does that mean, Taylor — the current ambassador to Ukraine that Trump has attacked as well — is responsible for the “very strong and powerful foreign policy” currently pursued in Ukraine?
