Former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch issued a grim warning on Wednesday night during her first public appearance since her blockbuster hearing in the House’s impeachment investigation into President Donald Trump.
“We need a vigorous Department of State, but right now the State Department is in trouble,” Yovanovitch said as she was accepting a Trainor Award for “Excellence in the Conduct of Diplomacy” at Georgetown University.
“Senior leaders lack policy vision, moral clarity and leadership skills,” she continued. “The policy process has been replaced by decisions emanating from the top with little discussion.”
The diplomat said that as the department is “being hollowed out from within,” its officers “are increasingly wondering whether it is safe to express concerns about policy even behind closed doors.”
“This is no time to undercut our diplomats,” she warned.
Trump abruptly removed Yovanovitch from her post in Ukraine in May 2019 after an extended smear campaign by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Despite Yovanovitch’s reputation as a well-respected diplomat by her peers, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo refused to defend her amid Trump and Giuliani’s attacks.
Yovanovitch retired from the State Department at the end of January, several months after giving crucial testimony to impeachment investigators on Trump and Giuliani’s efforts to force Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe Biden.
Watch Yovanovitch speak below:
Marie Yovanovitch warns that "right now the State Department is in trouble." pic.twitter.com/Fgl6qz1r0x
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) February 13, 2020
Well the things Trump joked about in 2015/16 we were appalled, then we mocked him, and now we fear what he has wrought.
OT, but goddamn, it never fricking ends. It’s like drinking from a firehose.
Well, I guess now Yovanovitch will have to go through those things Trump eluded to. No one to blame but herself, had to go and open her big mouth. She asked for it. Practically begged actually.
Last night Rachel Maddow read a short book “On Tyranny” by Timothy Snyder (Twenty Lessons…)
Video of Interview in 2017 with Bill Maher
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOqVW4etYo0Lesson #2 = Defend institutions…we have to save the institutions
(See 1:10 minutes)
Lesson #3 = Believe in truth…
Without truth we do not have trust
Without trust we do not have the rule of law
Without the rule of law we do not have democracy
(See 1:38 minutes)
Holocaust did not happen by Hitler’s loathsome self alone, he had the Nazi Party to carry out his atrocities.
Let us be vigilant against the Criminal IMPotus and his RethugniCON Party against their attack on our democracy!
Make America Democratic Again
VoteBlue2020~ no matter who the nominee!
Yep. He is an abuser of other people.