When former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch testified during House impeachment hearings last year, she did so despite President Donald Trump’s campaign to block witness testimony, and offer damning evidence of his crimes and corruption. Now she’s calling his administration out.
As it turns out, one of Lev Parnas’ jobs given to him by Trump and Rudy Giuliani was to spy on Yovanovitch and “get rid of her” because she would stand in the way of his scheme to extort Ukraine into opening a sham investigation into his political rivals.
In the end, Trump was only able to oust her by firing her, and he has continued trying to manufacture dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden ever since, a scheme that will go into overdrive now that Senate Republicans have acquitted him.
Still fearless, Yovanovitch wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post calling Trump out for having “undermined our democratic institutions,” and comparing him to a dictator.
“I have seen dictatorships around the world, where blind obedience is the norm and truth-tellers are threatened with punishment or death,” she wrote. “When civil servants in the current administration saw senior officials taking actions they considered deeply wrong in regard to the nation of Ukraine, they refused to take part. When Congress asked us to testify about those activities, my colleagues and I did not hesitate, even in the face of administration efforts to silence us.”
“We must not allow the United States to become a country where standing up to our government is a dangerous act,” she continued. “It has been shocking to experience the storm of criticism, lies and malicious conspiracies that have preceded and followed my public testimony, but I have no regrets. I did — we did — what our conscience called us to do. We did what the gift of U.S. citizenship requires us to do.”
“This administration, through acts of omission and commission, has undermined our democratic institutions, making the public question the truth and leaving public servants without the support and example of ethical behavior that they need to do their jobs and advance U.S. interests,” she concluded.
Clearly, Yovanovitch is unfazed by Trump and will continue calling him out as long as he is in office. Senate Republicans made a massive mistake by rigging the impeachment trial for him, and they will pay a heavy price for it come Election Day in November when Americans get a chance to right the ship before it’s too late and we lose our democracy forever. Because make no mistake, Trump wants to be a dictator. And Republicans have opened the door for him to become one. When his reign of terror is over, we will need experienced hands like Yovanovitch to help fix the damage.
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