If Republicans had one goal going into the House Intelligence Committee's hearing with former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, it was do not be on the attack. Democrats' strategy on Friday hinged on painting Yovanovitch as a "sympathetic victim of bullying by [Rudy] Giuliani and the president, whose decision to pull her from Ukraine helped set the stage for the campaign to pressure that country's president," The New York Times reports. Republicans, naturally, did not want to give their opponents more ammo.
And then Trump tweeted:
Trump's tweet completely undermined the Republican strategy. For one thing, the tweet made clear that he did in fact single Yovanovitch out — which is exactly what the Democrats' line of question was intended to prove. Additionally, "Republicans did not want to attack Yovanovitch personally, just to portray her as a distraction from the main events," noted The New York Times' Nicholas Fandos. What's more, the Democrats' lawyer specifically undercut Trump's line of attack by asking Yovanovitch if anyone in the State Department "ever expressed concern about your job performance," to which the former ambassador answered "no."
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Trump's tweets also directly contradicted the White House, which had claimed earlier in the day that "the president will be watching [Republican Rep. Devin] Nunes' opening statement, but the rest of the day he will be working hard for the American people."
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