Former US Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, made news in recent weeks with her testimony in the congressional impeachment enquiry. She was appointed ambassador by President Obama in August 2016, and terminated by the Trump administration on May 20, 2019. The thrust of the impeachment enquiry has been the President Trump unfairly pressured the Ukrainian government regarding its criminal investigations that included prominent Democrats.
My observation is that there is good evidence that Yavanovitch supported US efforts to quash Ukrainian investigations of Democrat supporters, which sounds very similar to the Democrat allegations against Trump. Here is a summary investigations by John Solomon, who as served in an editor at the Hill and the Washington Times and is now a contributor to Fox News:
Myth : Former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko retracted or recanted his claim that U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch in 2016 identified people and entities she did not what to see prosecuted in Ukraine.
The Facts: In a March interview with me at Hill.TV captured on videotape, Lutsenko stated that during his first meeting with Yovanovitch in summer 2016, the American diplomat rattled off a list of names of Ukrainian individuals and entities she did not want to see investigated or prosecuted. Lutsenko called it a “do not prosecute” list. You can watch that video here. . .
Here is Lutsenko’s full explanation to me back last spring: “At no time since our interview have I ever retracted the statement I made about the U.S. ambassador providing me a list of names of people and organizations she did not want my office to prosecute. Shortly after my televised interview with your news organization I was asked by a Ukraine reporter if I had a copy of the letter that Ambassador Yovanovitch provided me with the names of those she did not want prosecuted. The reporter misunderstood how the names were transmitted to me. I explained to the reporter that the Ambassador did not hand me a written list but rather provided the list of names orally over the course of a meeting.” Lutsenko reaffirmed he stood by his statements again in September. . .
Separately, both U.S. and Ukrainian official confirmed to me a letter written by then-U.S. embassy official George Kent in April 2016 in which U.S. officials pointedly (and in writing) demanded that Ukrainian prosecutors stand down an investigation into several Ukrainian nonprofit groups suspected of misspending U.S. foreign aid. The letter even named one of the groups, the AntiCorruption Action Centre, a nonprofit funded jointly by the State Department and liberal megadonor George Soros.
“We are gravely concerned about this investigation, for which we see no basis,” Kent wrote the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office in April 2016. You can read the letter here.
Is Ms. Yovanovitch a victim as is claimed by many Democrats?
Or is she part of an Obama-era conspiracy to block in investigations into groups associated with Democrats?
Trump supporters have made the argument that the primary purpose of any pressure on Ukraine was to reduce corruption, which is consistent with US laws and interests. Is there a similar argument for the alleged pressure that Ms. Yovanovitch exerted to protect Soros-supported groups from possible prosecution?