Last week’s House impeachment inquiry testimony from former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was so thorough, so loaded with factual evidence, so damning against Donald Trump that as it concluded, it received a standing ovation.
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After delivering 6 hours of testimony to the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday, former Ambassador Yovanovitch is today being called a national hero. The career diplomat with 33 years of experience under both Democratic and Republican presidents doesn’t have a partisan bone in her body. She didn’t come to bury Donald Trump — she came to deliver the facts. Too bad for him her facts didn’t gel with the version of “truth” he preferred to be told.
In the words of CNN, Yovanovitch’s testimony was “powerful, credible and moving.” She told the tale of how she was removed from her post not because she failed to do her job but because she was doing it too well and too “by the book” for the free-wheeling Donald Trump. She also told of how under Trump, US policy went from supporting anti-corruption efforts to combating them.
“Our Ukraine policy has been thrown into disarray, and shady interests the world over have learned how little it takes to remove an American Ambassador who does not give them what they want,” Yovanovitch said during opening remarks. “After these events, what foreign official, corrupt or not, could be blamed for wondering whether the Ambassador represents the President’s views? And what U.S. Ambassador could be blamed for harboring the fear that they cannot count on our government to support them as they implement stated U.S. policy and defend U.S. interests?”
As the former ambassador spoke and systematically dismantled brick by brick the feeble argument by Trump and his GOP protectors that this is all a partisan witch hunt, Trump himself couldn’t stand to sit silent. Instead, he broke ranks, went off script and tweeted a series of insults against Yovanovitch in what was seen as a bully-move meant to intimidate and undermine her truth.
“Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad,” a tempestuous Trump tweeted in real-time as Yovanovitch testified. “She started off in Somalia, how did that go? Then fast forward to Ukraine, where the new Ukrainian President spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him,” he continued.
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Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia, how did that go? Then fast forward to Ukraine, where the new Ukrainian President spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him. It is a U.S. President’s absolute right to appoint ambassadors.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2019
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Apparently, the ambassador’s air-tight testimony got under Trump’s thin-skin and he just couldn’t handle the truth. That and the simultaneous news that his former flunkie, Roger Stone, was found guilty on ALL counts against him related to his dealings with ‘The Donald’ (expect Trump to pardon Stone as a reward for keeping his mouth shut).
How Donald Trump and the Republicans will continue down their unified road of attempting to coddle him and pretend that his actions in Ukraine and more are all OK is anyone’s guess. Despite the fact that it’s a dead-end street and that more credible testimony from other credible witnesses is on the horizon, expect the Republicans to continue putting party above country and allowing the dangerous crook in the Oval Office to continue to make a mockery of democracy.
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Thanks for this DJ. I only got to see a little of her testimony in real-time last week but I was able to watch more of it when C-SPAN reran it, over the weekend. Let me just say, the standing ovation she received was well deserved, especially given ALL that she’d already gone though – and then to have that evil-azz Fake alpha in the White attempt to bully her in real time no less!?!
Gotta be a special place in H*ll for creatures like Trump. I just have to believe that *his day of judgement* will be something he will FEEL for all of eternity.