House Intelligence Committee chair Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) pressed former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch on Friday about a tweet posted in March by Donald Trump, Jr. criticizing her.
Schiff and other Democrats argued that Yovanovitch was the victim of a smear campaign pushed by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and others.
In her closed-door deposition last month, Yovanovitch said she had heard “gossip” about being recalled, and then an article in The Hill suggested that she had told Ukraine’s chief prosecutor not to prosecute certain individuals and organizations.
After that, she told the committee, “Mr. Giuliani spoke pubIicly, and DonaId Trump Jr. also tweeted that I should be removed.”
Donald Trump, Jr.’s tweet was as follows:
He did not call explicitly for her removal, though he did tweet an article that reported such calls were growing. (There have been recent concerns that some of those calls may have been pushed by Ukrainians pursuing their own agendas.)
Critics have countered that Yovanovitch and her staff “monitored” several conservative media figures in an attempt to understand the sources of accusations against her.
Yovanovitch was removed from her post in May. President Trump tweeted Friday morning about the reasons he fired her, noting that ambassadors serve at the pleasure of the president.
Donald Trump, Jr.’s new book, Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us, debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list this week.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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