Ex-Ukraine ambassador Yovanovitch says she was told to tweet 'support' for Trump if she wanted to keep her job
There's apparently one surefire way to President Trump's heart, and it's exactly what you'd expect.
Marie Yovanovitch was still serving as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine when she heard Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani had it out for her, she said in her congressional testimony. So she asked U.S. Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland for advice on saving her job, and learned she should praise Trump on his favorite medium, a transcript of her Congressional testimony reveals.
Giuliani's beef with Yovanovitch began when consular officials planned to reject a visa application from Viktor Shokin, the former Ukraine prosecutor, "based on his known corrupt activities," Yovanovitch said. "The next thing we knew, Mayor Giuliani was calling the White House" and a consular official "saying that I was blocking the visa for Mr. Shokin" even though Shokin was coming to "provide information about corruption at the embassy, including my corruption," Yovanovitch continued.
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At first, Yovanovitch said she had the support of the State Department and a congressional delegation in her decision. But after the whistleblower allegations got Trump wrapped up in the Ukraine story, things got more tricky, and Yovanovitch says she asked Sondland for advice. "You need to... tweet out there that you support the president, and that all these are lies," Yovanovitch says she was told. "It was advice that I did not see how I could implement in my role as an ambassador," Yovanovitch continued.
Find her whole testimony here.
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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.
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