Third-highest ranking U.S. diplomat expected to testify in impeachment inquiry Wednesday

The room where impeachment inquiry interviews are conducted.
(Image credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

David Hale, the third-highest ranking U.S. diplomat, is expected to testify before House impeachment investigators on Wednesday, two people with knowledge of the matter told The Washington Post.

Hale is a career ambassador, having served in Pakistan, Lebanon, and Jordan, and as under secretary of state for political affairs, is ranked below Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his deputy secretary, John Sullivan. Investigators will likely ask Hale why the State Department refused to issue a statement supporting former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. Yovanovitch was the target of a smear campaign, with Rudy Giuliani and others circulating unfounded conspiracy theories about her in order to get the ambassador removed from her post.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.