Yovanovitch Testifies

“President Donald Trump launched a Twitter attack on a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine on Friday while she was testifying to an impeachment hearing in Congress… Trump’s tweet about former U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch during her testimony on Friday drew a furious response from Democrats who accused him of witness intimidation.” (Reuters)

The left criticizes Trump’s firing of Yovanovitch, arguing that it was detrimental to US foreign policy interests, and contends that the tweet was highly inappropriate.

“As Yovanovitch herself affirmed numerous times over the course of her testimony, US ambassadors serve at the pleasure of the president. But it can also be newsworthy if the president removes an ambassador because he’s been duped by a campaign of lies being pushed by corrupt foreign officials — which is what Yovanovitch’s defenders (and Yovanovitch herself) believe happened.”
(Andrew Prokop and Alex Ward, Vox)

The right dismisses Yovanovitch’s testimony as irrelevant to the issue at hand, and argues that Trump’s tweet was counterproductive but not intimidation.

“Yovanovitch was not the ambassador to Ukraine during the period when the Trump administration withheld military aid. She has no knowledge as to why the aid was held up. That’s the only issue of relevance to the impeachment proceedings. The proceedings aren’t about whether Yovanovitch should have been removed as ambassador. Schiff’s committee isn’t a human resources body or a personnel review board…

“Democrats may say that Yovanovitch’s removal is relevant because it was the first step in making U.S. policy towards Ukraine subservient to Trump’s political interests. It set the stage, so to speak. But this argument collapses the moment one remembers that Yovanovitch was replaced by Bill Taylor (officially, he’s the chargé d’affaires, but he acts as ambassador). If there’s one thing on which Democrats and Republicans on Schiff’s committee agree, it’s that Taylor is an exemplary diplomat.” (Paul Mirengoff, Power Line Blog)