GOP lawmakers ask Yovanovitch questions in House Intelligence Committee’s Trump impeachment hearings


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Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was the third witness to testify publicly in the House’s impeachment inquiry into President Trump.

Ranking member Devin Nunes began the questioning and used his time to argue that Yovanovich shouldn’t be testifying in the impeachment proceedings. “You admitted in your opening statement that you don’t have any firsthand knowledge of any of the issues we’re looking into,” Nunes told Yovanovich.

Nunes yielded the remainder of his time to Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Republican of New York. Rep. Stefanik said that the Obama administration was concerned enough over the younger Biden’s Ukraine job that staffers prepared Yovanovitch to answer them for the confirmation hearing.

“The exact quote from your testimony, Ambassador, is, quote, ‘the way the question was phrased in this model Q&A was, what can you tell us about Hunter Biden’s, you know, being named to the board of Burisma?’ So for the millions of Americans watching, President Obama’s own State Department was so concerned about potential conflicts of interest from Hunter Biden’s role at Burisma that they raised it themselves while prepping this wonderful ambassador nominee before her confirmation,” Stefanik said.

“And yet our Democratic colleagues and the chairman of this committee cry foul when we dare ask that same question the Obama administration was so concerned about. But we will continue asking it.”

Later, Texas GOP Rep. John Ratliffe asked Yovanovitch what the answer in the Obama administration briefing book was. “It was something along the lines of, ‘I would refer you to the vice president’s office on that,’” Yovanovitch answered.

She said the briefing book she’d been given contained hundreds of questions, and Burisma wasn’t the only company named, adding that she couldn’t recall the names of the others.
Republicans have repeatedly stressed Hunter Biden’s position with Burisma, and charged that his father, while vice president, fired a prosecutor who was investigating the company, Viktor Shokin.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) started his question by going to Yovanovitch’s opening statement. He asks her, “Ambassador, should ambassadors ever try to influence host country elections?” He then leads her through all of her statements as to why bipartisan support of Ukraine was so vital. And then he returns back to 2016, when she was ambassador, and when the Ukraine government put on a full-court press to assist Hillary Clinton. Not only did the Ukraine president make statements in her favor, the Ukraine ambassador to the US wrote an op-ed in The Hill in which he directly criticized candidate Trump. Jordan asked her if she ever told the Ukraine government to butt out of the 2016 election. She says she didn’t. Jordan is never able to get her to explain why she refused to tell the Ukrainian government to back off.

Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) asked: “I would now feel compelled to ask you, Madam Ambassador, as you sit here before us, very simply and directly, do you have any information regarding the president of the United States accepting any bribes?” Yovanovitch answered: “No.”

Stewart: “Do you have any information regarding any criminal activity that the President of the United States has been involved with at all?”

Yovanovitch: “No.”

“The American people know this is nonsense,” Stewart said. “The American people know this is unfair.”
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During the hearing Trump posted a tweet attacking Yovanovitch. Even though Yovanovitch could not see the tweet during the hearing, Adam Schiff seized on the moment to accuse Trump of witness intimidation, which could be a serious crime, and read the tweets aloud. “Ambassador Yovanovitch, as we sit here testifying, the President is attacking you on Twitter. And I’d like to give you a chance to respond. I’ll read part of one of his tweets.”

Trump’s original tweet: “Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia, how did that go? Then fast forward to Ukraine, where the new Ukrainian President spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him. It is a U.S. President’s absolute right to appoint ambassadors.”

When he was finished reading the tweets, Schiff asked: “Ambassador, you’ve shown the courage to come forward today and testify. Notwithstanding the fact that you were urged by the White House or State Department not to, notwithstanding the fact that as you testified earlier the President implicitly threatened you in that call record, and now the President — in real time — is attacking you. What effect do you think that has on other witnesses’ willingness to come forward and expose wrongdoing?”

“Well, it’s very intimidating,” Yovanovitch responded.

“It’s designed to intimidate, is it not?” Schiff asked.

“I mean, I can’t speak to what the President is trying to do, but I think the effect is to be intimidating,” she said. Schiff reassured her “that some of us here take witness intimidation very, very seriously.”
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