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Ousted U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Gives Opening Statement in Public Impeachment Hearing; Ousted U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine: I Do Not Understand Giuliani's Motives For Attacking Me. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired November 15, 2019 - 9:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[09:30:00] REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): -- reprisal or attempt to retaliate against any U.S. government official for testifying before Congress, including you or any of your colleagues.

If you would please rise and raise your right hand, I will begin by swearing you in.

Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

Let the record show that the witnesses answered in the affirmative.

Thank you, and please be seated.

Without objection, your written statement will be made part of the record. With that, Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, you are recognized for your opening statement.

YOVANOVITCH: Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Nunes and other members of the committee...

SCHIFF: Ambassador, you'll need to speak very close to the microphone.

YOVANOVITCH: Thank you for the opportunity to start with this statement, to reintroduce myself to the committee and to highlight parts of my biography and experience.

I come before you as an American citizen who has devoted the majority of my life, 33 years, to service to the country that all of us love -- love. Like my colleagues, I entered the Foreign Service understanding that my job was to implement the foreign policy interests of this nation as defined by the president and Congress and to do so regardless of which person or party was in power. I had no agenda other than to pursue our stated foreign policy goals.

My service is an expression of gratitude for all that this country has given to me and to my family. My late parents did not have the good fortune to come of age in a free society. My father fled the Soviets before ultimately finding refuge in the United States. My mother's family escaped the USSR after the Bolshevik Revolution and she grew up stateless in Nazi Germany before also eventually making her way to the United States.

Their personal histories, my personal history, gave me both deep gratitude towards the United States and great empathy for others, like the Ukrainian people who want to be free.

I joined the Foreign Service during the Reagan administration and subsequently served three other Republican presidents, as well as two Democratic presidents. It was my great honor to be appointed to serve as an ambassador three times, twice by George W. Bush and once by Barack Obama.

There is a perception that diplomats lead a comfortable life, throwing dinner parties in fancy homes. Let me tell you about some of my reality. It has not always been easy. I have moved 13 times and served in seven different countries, five of them hardship posts.

My first tour was Mogadishu, Somalia, an increasingly dangerous place as that country's civil war kept grinding on and the government was weakening. The military took over policing functions in a particularly brutal way and basic service -- services disappeared.

Several years later, after the Soviet Union collapsed, I helped open our embassy in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. As we were establishing relations with a new country, our small embassy was attacked by a gunman who sprayed the embassy building with gunfire.

I later served in Moscow. In 1993 during the attempted coup in -- in Russia, I was caught in crossfire between presidential and parliamentary forces. It took us three tries, me without a helmet or body armor, to get into a vehicle to go to the embassy. We went because the ambassador asked us to come and we went because it was our duty.

From August 2016 until May 2019 I served as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. During my tenure in Ukraine I went to the front line approximately 10 times, during a hot war, to show the American flag, to hear what was going on, sometimes literally as we heard the impact of artillery, and to see how our assistance dollars were being put to use.

I worked to advance U.S. policy, fully embraced by Democrats and Republicans alike, to help Ukraine become a stable and independent democratic state with a market economy integrated into Europe. A secure, democratic and free Ukraine serves not just the Ukrainian people but the American people as well. That's why it was our policy, continues to be our policy, to help the Ukrainians achieve their objectives. They match our objectives.

[09:35:00] The U.S. is the most powerful country in the history of the world, in large part because of our values. And our values have made possible the network of alliances and partnerships that buttresses our own strength.

Ukraine, with an enormous land mass and a large population, has the potential to be a significant commercial and political partner for the United States, as well as a force multiplier on the security side.

We see the potential in Ukraine. Russia sees -- by contrast, sees the risk. The history is not written yet, but Ukraine could move out of Russia's orbit. And now Ukraine is a battleground for great power competition, with a hot war for the control of territory and a hybrid war to control Ukraine's leadership.

The U.S. has provided significant security assistance since the onset of the war against Russia in 2014, and the Trump administration strengthened our policy by approving the provision to Ukraine of antitank missiles known as Javelins.

Supporting Ukraine is the right thing to do. It's also the smart thing to do. If Russia prevails and Ukraine falls to Russian dominion, we can expect to see other attempts by Russia to expand its territory and its influence.

As critical as the war against Russia is, Ukraine's struggling democracy has an equally important challenge: battling the Soviet legacy of corruption which has pervaded Ukraine's government.

Corruption makes Ukraine's leaders ever-vulnerable to Russia, and the Ukrainian people understand that. That's why they launched the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, demanding to be a part of Europe, demanding the transformation of the system, demanding to live under the rule of law. Ukrainians wanted the law to apply equally to all people, whether the individual in question is the president or any other citizen. It was a question of fairness, of dignity.

Here again, there is a coincidence of interests. Corrupt leaders are inherently less trustworthy, while an honest and accountable Ukrainian leadership makes a U.S.-Ukrainian partnership more reliable and more valuable to the United States. A level playing field in this strategically located country bordering four NATO allies creates an environment in which U.S. business can more easily trade, invest and profit.

Corruption is also a security issue because corrupt officials are vulnerable to Moscow.

In short, it is in America's national security interest to help Ukraine transform into a country where the rule of law governs and corruption is held in check. It was and remains a top U.S. priority to help Ukraine fight corruption, and significant progress has been made since the 2014 Revolution of Dignity.

Unfortunately, as the past couple of months have underlined, not all Ukrainians embraced our anticorruption work. Thus perhaps it was not surprising that when our anticorruption efforts got in the way of a desire for profit or power, Ukrainians who preferred to play by the old corrupt rules sought to remove me.

What continues to amaze me is that they found Americans willing to partner with them, and working together, they apparently succeeded in orchestrating the removal of a U.S. ambassador.

How could our system fail like this? How is it that foreign corrupt interests could manipulate our government? Which country's interests are served when the very corrupt behavior we have been criticizing is allowed to prevail?

Such conduct undermines the U.S., exposes our friends and widens the playing field for autocrats like President Putin. Our leadership depends on the power of our example and the consistency of our purpose. Both have now been opened to question.

With that background in mind, I'd like to briefly address some of the factual issues I expect you -- you may want to ask me about, starting with my timeline in Ukraine and the events about which I do and do not have firsthand knowledge.

I arrived in Ukraine on August 22nd, 2016, and left Ukraine permanently on May 20th, 2019. There are a number of events you are investigating to which I cannot bring any firsthand knowledge.

The events that predated my Ukraine service include the release of the so-called black ledger and Mr. Manafort's subsequent resignation from President Trump's campaign, and the departure from office of former Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.

[09:40:00]

Several other events occurred after I returned from Ukraine. These include President Trump's July 25th, 2019, call with President Zelensky, the discussions surrounding that phone call, and any discussions surrounding the delay of security assistance to Ukraine in the summer of 2019.

As for events during my tenure in Ukraine, I want to -- to reiterate first that the allegation that I disseminated a do-not-prosecute list was a fabrication. Mr. Lutsenko, the former Ukrainian prosecutor general who made that allegation, has acknowledged that the list never existed.

I did not tell Mr. Lutsenko or other Ukrainian officials who they should or should not prosecute. Instead, I advocated the U.S. position that rule of law should prevail and Ukrainian law enforcement, prosecutors and judges should stop wielding their power selectively as a political weapon against their adversaries, and start dealing with all consistently and according to the law.

Also untrue are unsourced allegations that I told unidentified embassy employees or Ukrainian officials that Presidents (sic) Trump's orders should be ignored because he was going to be impeached, or for any other reason. I did not and I would not say such a thing. Such statements would be inconsistent with my training as a Foreign Service officer and my role as an ambassador.

The Obama administration did not ask me to help the -- the Clinton campaign or harm the Trump campaign, nor would I have taken any such steps if they had. Partisanship of this type is not compatible with the role of a career Foreign Service officer.

I have never met Hunter Biden, nor have I had any direct or indirect conversations with him. And although I have met former Vice President Biden several times over the course of our many years in government service, neither he nor the previous administration ever raised the issue of either Burisma or Hunter Biden with me. With respect to Mayor Giuliani, I have had only minimal contact with him: a total of three, none related to the events at issue. I do not understand Mr. Giuliani's motives for attacking me, nor can I offer an opinion on whether he believed the allegations he spread about me. Clearly no one at the State Department did.

What I can say is that Mr. Giuliani should have known those claims were suspect, coming, as they reportedly did, from individuals with questionable motives and with reason to believe that their political and financial ambitions would be stymied by our anticorruption policy in Ukraine.

After being asked by the undersecretary of state for political affairs in early March 2019 to extend my tour until 2020, the smear campaign against me entered a new public phase in the United States. In the wake of the negative press, State Department officials suggested an earlier departure, and we agreed upon July 2019. I was then abruptly told just weeks later, in late April, to come back to Washington from Ukraine on the next plane.

At the time I departed, Ukraine had just concluded game-changing presidential elections. It was a sensitive period with much at stake for the United States, and called for all the experience and expertise we could muster.

When I returned to the United States, Deputy Secretary of State Sullivan told me there had been a concerted campaign against me, that the president no longer wished me to serve as ambassador to Ukraine, and that, in fact, the president had been pushing for my removal since the prior summer.

As Mr. Sullivan recently recounted during his Senate confirmation hearing, neither he nor anyone else ever explained or sought to justify the president's concerns about me, nor did anyone in the department justify my early departure by suggesting I had done something wrong. I appreciate that Mr. Sullivan publicly affirmed at his hearing that I had served capably and admirably.

Although, then and now, I have always understood that I served at the pleasure of the president, I still find it difficult to comprehend that foreign and private interests were able to undermine U.S. interests in this way.

Individuals who apparently felt stymied by our -- our efforts to promote stated U.S. policy against corruption -- that is, to do our mission -- were able to successfully conduct a campaign of disinformation against a sitting ambassador using unofficial back channels.

[09:45:00]

As various witnesses have recounted, they shared baseless allegations with the president, and convinced him to remove his ambassador despite the fact that the State Department fully understood that the allegations were false and the sources highly suspect. These events should concern everyone in this room. Ambassadors are the symbol of the United States abroad. They are the personal representative of the president. They should always act and speak with full authority to advocate for U.S. policies. If our chief representative is kneecapped, it limits our effectiveness to safeguard the vital national security interests of the United States.

This is especially important now, when the international landscape is more complicated and more competitive than it has been since the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Our Ukraine policy has been thrown into disarray and shady interests the word -- the world over have learned how little it takes to remove an American ambassador who does not give them what they want.

After these events, what foreign official, corrupt or not, could be blamed for wondering whether the U.S. ambassador represents the president's views? And what U.S. ambassador could be blamed for harboring the fear that they can't count on our government to support them as they implement stated U.S. policy and protect and defend U.S. interests?

I'd like to comment on one other matter before taking your questions. At the closed deposition, I expressed grave concerns about the degradation of the Foreign Service over the past few years, and the failure of State Department leadership to push back as foreign and corrupt interests apparently hijacked our Ukraine policy.

I remain disappointed that the department's leadership and others have declined to acknowledge that the attacks against me and others are dangerously wrong.

This is about far, far more than me or a couple of individuals. As Foreign Service professionals are being denigrated and undermined, the institution is also being degraded. This will soon cause real harm if it hasn't already.

The State Department as a tool of foreign policy often doesn't get the same kind of attention or even respect as the military might of the Pentagon. But we are, as they say, the pointy end of the spear. If we lose our edge, the U.S. will inevitably have to use other tools even more than it does today. And those other tools are blunter, more expensive, and not universally effective.

Moreover, the attacks are leading to a crisis in the State Department as the policy process is visibly unraveling. Leadership vacancies go unfilled and senior and mid-level officers ponder an uncertain future.

The crisis has moved from the impact on individuals to an impact on the institution itself. The State Department is being hollowed out from within at a competitive and complex time on the world stage.

This is not a time to undercut our diplomats. It is the responsibility of the department's leaders to stand up for the institution and the individuals who make that institution, still, today, the most effective diplomatic force in the world. And Congress has a responsibility to reinvest in our diplomacy. That's an investment in our national security. It's an investment in our future, in our children's future.

As I close, let me be clear on who we are and how we serve this country. We are professionals. We are public servants who, by vocation and training, pursue the policies of the president regardless of who holds that office or what party they affiliate with.

We handle American citizen services, facilitate trade and commerce, work security issues, represent the U.S. and report to and advise Washington, to mention just some of our functions. And we make a difference every day. We are people who repeatedly uproot our lives, who risk -- and sometimes give -- our lives for this country.

We are the 52 Americans who, 40 years ago this month, began 444 days of deprivation, torture and captivity in Tehran. We are the dozens of Americans, stationed at our embassy in Cuba and consulates in China, who mysteriously and dangerously and in some cases perhaps even permanently, were injured and attacked from unknown sources, several years ago.

[09:50:00]

And we are Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Patrick Smith, Ty Woods, and Glen Doherty, people rightly called heroes for their ultimate sacrifice to this nation's foreign policy interests in Libya, eight years ago. We honor these individuals. They represent each one of you here and every American. These courageous individuals were attacked because they symbolized America.

What you need to know, what Americans need to know, is that while, thankfully, most of answer the call to duty in far less dramatic ways, every Foreign Service officer runs the same risks and, very often, so do our families. They serve too.

As individuals, as a community, we answer the call to duty to advance and protect the interests of the United States. We take our oath seriously, the same oath that each one of you take: to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same.

I count myself lucky to be a Foreign Service officer, fortunate to serve with the best America has to offer, blessed to serve the American people for the last 33 years. I thank you for your attention; I welcome your questions.

SCHIFF: Thank you, Ambassador. We count ourselves lucky to have you serve the country, as you have for decades.

We'll now move to the 45-minute rounds. I recognize myself and majority counsel for 45 minutes.

Ms. Yovanovitch, thank you again for appearing today. All Americans are deeply in your debt. Before I hand it over to Mr. Goldman, our staff counsel, I want to ask you about a few of the pivotal events of interest to the country.

irst of all, was fighting corruption in Ukraine a key element of U.S. policy and one on which you placed the highest priority?

YOVANOVITCH: Yes, it was.

SCHIFF: And can you explain why?

YOVANOVITCH: It was important and it was actually stated in -- in -- in our -- in our policy and in our strategy. It was important because corruption was undermining the integrity of the governance -- governance system in Ukraine.

And as I noted in my statement, countries that have leaders that are honest and trustworthy make better partners for us. Countries where there's a level playing field for our U.S. business makes it easier for our companies to -- to do business there, to trade and to profit in those countries.

And what had been happening since the Soviet Union -- and this is very much a Soviet legacy -- is that corrupt interests were undermining not only the governance, but also the economy of -- of Ukraine.

We see enormous potential in Ukraine and would like to have a more capable, more trustworthy partner there.

SCHIFF: And I know this may be awkward for you to answer, since it's a question about yourself and your reputation, but is it fair to say that you earned a reputation for being a champion of anticorruption efforts in Ukraine?

YOVANOVITCH: Yes. Yes.

SCHIFF: I don't know if you had a chance to watch George Kent's testimony yesterday (sic), but would you agree with his rather frank assessment that if you fight corruption, you're going to piss off some corrupt people?

YOVANOVITCH: Yes.

SCHIFF: And in your efforts fighting corruption to advance U.S. policy interests, did you anger some of the corrupt leaders in Ukraine?

YOVANOVITCH: Yes.

SCHIFF: Was one of those corrupt people Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko?

YOVANOVITCH: Yes, I believe so.

SCHIFF: Was another one of those corrupt people Lutsenko's predecessor, another corrupt prosecutor general named Viktor Shokin?

YOVANOVITCH: Apparently so, although I've never met him.

SCHIFF: At some point, did you come to learn that both Lutsenko and Shokin were in touch with Rudy Giuliani, President Trump's lawyer and representative?

YOVANOVITCH: Yes.

SCHIFF: In fact, did Giuliani try to overturn a decision that you participated in to deny Shokin a visa?

YOVANOVITCH: Yes, that is what I was told.

SCHIFF: And that denial was based on Mr. Shokin's corruption?

YOVANOVITCH: Yes, that's true.

SCHIFF: All right.

And was it Mr. Lutsenko, among others, who coordinated with Mr. Giuliani to peddle false accusations against you as well as the Bidens?

YOVANOVITCH: Yes, that is my understanding.

SCHIFF: And were these smears also amplified by the president's son Donald Trump Jr., as well as certain hosts on Fox?

YOVANOVITCH: Yes. Yes, that is the case.

[09:55:00]

SCHIFF: In the face of this smear campaign, did colleagues at the State Department try to get a statement of support for you from Secretary Pompeo?

YOVANOVITCH: Yes.

SCHIFF: Were they successful?

YOVANOVITCH: No.

SCHIFF: Did you come to learn that they couldn't issue such a statement because they feared it would be undercut by the president?

YOVANOVITCH: Yes.

SCHIFF: And then were you told that, though you had done nothing wrong, you did not enjoy the confidence of the president and could no longer serve as ambassador?

YOVANOVITCH: Yes, that is correct.

SCHIFF: In fact, you flew home from Kyiv on the same day as the inauguration of Ukraine's new president?

YOVANOVITCH: That's true.

SCHIFF: That inauguration was attended by three who've become known as the three amigos, Ambassador Sondland, Volker and Perry, was it?

YOVANOVITCH: Yes.

SCHIFF: And three days after that inauguration, in a meeting with President Trump, are you aware that the president designated these three amigos to coordinate Ukraine policy with Rudy Giuliani?

YOVANOVITCH: Since then, I have become aware of that.

SCHIFF: This is the same Rudy Giuliani who orchestrated the smear campaign against you?

YOVANOVITCH: Yes.

SCHIFF: And the same Rudy Giuliani who, during the now-infamous July 25th phone call, the president recommended to Zelensky in the context of the two investigations the president wanted, into the 2016 election and the Bidens?

YOVANOVITCH: Yes.

SCHIFF: And finally, Ambassador, in that July 25th phone call, the president praises one of these corrupt former Ukrainian prosecutors and says they were treated very unfairly. They were treated unfairly, not you, who was smeared and recalled, but one of them. What message does that send to your colleagues in the U.S. embassy in Kyiv?

YOVANOVITCH: I -- I'm just not sure what the basis for that kind of a statement would be; certainly not from our reporting over the years.

SCHIFF: Did you have concern, though, and do you have concern today about what message the president's action sends to the people who are still in Ukraine representing the United States, when a well-respected ambassador can be smeared out of her post with the participation and acquiescence of the president of the United States?

YOVANOVITCH: Well, it's, I think, been a big hit for morale both at U.S. Embassy Kyiv but also more broadly at the State Department.

SCHIFF: Is it fair to say that other ambassadors and others of lesser rank who serve the United States in embassies around the world might look at this and think, "If I take on corrupt people in these countries that could happen to me"?

YOVANOVITCH: I think that's a fair statement, yes.

SCHIFF: Mr. Goldman?

GOLDMAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ambassador Yovanovitch, on April 24th of this year, at approximately 10 p.m., you received a telephone call while you were at the embassy in Kyiv from the director general of the State Department. This was just three days after President Zelensky's election and the call between President Trump and President Zelensky that we just heard from Ranking Member Nunes.

At the time that this urgent call came in, what were you in the middle of doing?

YOVANOVITCH: I was hosting an event in honor of Katya Handziuk, who is an anticorruption activist -- was an anticorruption activist in Ukraine. We had given her the Women of Courage Award from Ukraine. And in fact, the worldwide Women of Courage event -- at the worldwide Women of Courage event in Washington, D.C., Secretary Pompeo singled her out for her amazing work in -- in Ukraine to fight corrupt interests in the -- in the south of Ukraine.

She very tragically died, because she was attacked by acid and several months later died a very, very painful death. We thought it was important that justice be done for Katya Handziuk and for others who fight corruption in Ukraine. Because this is -- it's not a -- you know, kind of a tabletop exercise, their lives are in the balance.

And so, we wanted to bring attention to this. We held an event and gave her father, who of course is still mourning her, that -- that award at the Women of Courage event.

GOLDMAN: And her Women of Courage Award stemmed from her anticorruption efforts in Ukraine?

YOVANOVITCH: Yes, that is true.

GOLDMAN: Was it ever determined who threw the acid and killed her?

YOVANOVITCH: There have been investigations, but while some of --

[10:00:00]