Marie Yovanovitch was fortunate that House Republicans could not bring in additional witnesses to prove her hatred for President Trump, according to Rep. Devin Nunes.
The House Intelligence Committee ranking member remarked on the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine during an interview on Fox News one day after Trump was acquitted on two Ukraine-related articles of impeachment.
“There’s a reason why she got fired,” the California Republican said Thursday evening. “This is one of the things we could never really get out because we couldn’t bring in witnesses, but you know, we had people that we were ready to bring in that said that she was anti-Trump, espousing anti-Trump administration views while she was ambassador to Ukraine. That’s her boss.”
Nunes added, “She’s lucky we couldn’t bring any actual witnesses in, because there are people that wanted to testify against her.”
Yovanovitch was the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine before Trump had her recalled from the post in May 2019, and she has since retired from the foreign service. She had become the target of Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani and others who accused her of being a political enemy of the White House.
During impeachment proceedings in the House, Yovanovitch testified that a superior told her that she had done nothing wrong but that Trump had lost faith in her. She also condemned the “smear campaign” against her, saying allegations that she put together a “do not prosecute” list were a “fabrication” and denying claims that she had told anyone at the embassy or in Ukraine that Trump’s orders should be ignored.
On Thursday, Yovanovitch had an opinion piece published describing the “turbulent times” she faced at the end of her career in the State Department. She referred to Trump as an “individual transgressor” from whom America’s diplomatic institutions need protection, adding that “we must not allow the United States to become a country where standing up to our government is a dangerous act.”
As Nunes mentioned, Republicans did not have the votes to bring forward witnesses who could contradict her impeachment testimony because they are not in the majority in the House.
“We don’t have subpoena power. So if they don’t give us witnesses, that’s the whole — I mean we talked about this last time,” Nunes said, adding, “We’ve got to win back the majority.”
Senate Democrats felt similarly disenfranchised by being in the minority. They tried to force the Senate to hear from additional impeachment witnesses during the trial but failed to earn enough support from Republicans to make that happen. Trump was acquitted on the charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress on Wednesday.
