Washington (AFP)

Shouts, furious glances and swear words: an American journalist told how the head of the diplomacy of the United States Mike Pompeo lost his composure Friday after being pressed with questions on the Ukrainian affair at the heart of the trial for dismissal of Donald Trump.

It all started with an interview given at the start of the morning to NPR, the American public radio station.

Most of the interview is about Iran, but journalist Mary Louise Kelly ends up in Ukraine, while President Trump is currently accused of abuse of power in the United States Senate for pressuring Kiev in order to get investigations into his Democratic opponents.

Mike Pompeo, pillar of Trumpism, is personally accused of not having defended the ex-ambassador of the United States in Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, abruptly relieved of her functions in the spring after being the subject of a smear campaign led by Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump's personal lawyer.

"Do you owe Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch an apology?" Asked the journalist.

Follows a tense exchange, where he claims to have "defended each head of the State Department", while she asks, in vain, on what occasion he would have publicly defended Marie Yovanovitch.

"I said everything I had to say today. Thank you," said Mike Pompeo sharply.

But the story doesn't end there, and Mary Louise Kelly told it on Friday night on NPR.

"He leaned over, glared at me" before "leaving the room," she said.

A ministerial adviser then asked the journalist to follow her into the private room of the secretary of state, but without a microphone.

"He was there waiting for me and he yelled at me" for about ten minutes, "he was not happy to have been questioned about Ukraine," she said, assuring that he had insulted throughout the conversation.

According to the journalist, Mike Pompeo launched him: "You think that the Americans are interested in Ukraine?". Then he asked his advisers to bring a map of the world without the names of the countries so that it proves that she knew where Ukraine is located - that she must therefore have pointed to the eyes of the Minister.

"People will hear about all this," then threatened the secretary of state, who has already publicly attacked journalists in the past.

© 2020 AFP