Pass live, but at a distance, between Donald Trump and Marie Yovanovitch. On Twitter, the US president violently attacked the former US ambassador in Kiev, Friday, November 15, while it was heard in Congress in the investigation for "impeachment" that threatens.
"Wherever Marie Yovanovitch passed, things went wrong," wrote Donald Trump, an hour after the televised audition of the diplomat, which he recalled urgently in Washington last May.
"It started in Somalia, and look at how it ended," he added, referring to the country of the Horn of Africa plunged into chaos since 1991, before defending its "absolute right" to choose his ambassadors.
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 US President's absolute right to fill ambassadors.
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2019Immediately called by the elected Democrat Adam Schiff, who interrupted his interrogation to read him the tweets of the president, to react to these words, Marie Yovanovitch replied, "I do not believe I have such powers, nor in Mogadishu in Somalia, neither elsewhere ".
After a moment of hindsight, she added, weighing her words: "It's very intimidating".
"Some of us here take intimidation of witnesses very seriously," concluded Adam Schiff, suggesting that the leader could support a possible impeachment case against Donald Trump in the US House of Commons. representatives.
According to Kenneth Starr, the former special prosecutor in charge of the "impeachment" investigation against Bill Clinton in 1998, Donald Trump showed "extraordinary bad judgment" by launching this salvo in full hearing.
Blocked military aid
After conducting a dozen hearings behind closed doors, elected officials of the lower house began Wednesday public hearings in the context of the investigation for "impeachment" which aims Donald Trump.
Two senior diplomats then reported on the pressure on Kiev to convince him to investigate Joe Biden, the main challenger of the current US president for the 2020 presidential election, at the hearing attended by nearly 14 million Americans. , according to the firm Nielsen.
William Taylor, who replaced Marie Yovanovitch, said he learned, through another ambassador, that Donald Trump had opened the inquiry as a condition for the release of military aid to Ukraine. .
"A vague threat"
Marie Yovanovitch, 61, had left the Ukrainian capital when this aid (of about $ 400 million), crucial for this country at war, had been frozen. She can not say much more about it.
The latter, on the other hand, returned to the smear campaign waged against her by the personal lawyer of President Rudy Giuliani in the months preceding his recall.
"I did not understand why he was attacking me," she said, confiding to "worrying" to see the president and his son relay his attacks.
The diplomat, who vows to have "no political bias" also assured that his recall was "a blow to the morale" of American diplomats in Kiev, and throughout the US network.
Democrats are convinced that the departure of the ambassador, known for her efforts in the fight against corruption, has left the field open to relatives of the president to put pressure on Kiev.
She also reversed her reaction when she discovered that Donald Trump had criticized her in her appeal with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. "Things are going to happen to him," he said. The words they said were "like a vague threat".
With AFP