The Daily - The Latest: ‘It’s Very Intimidating’

Episode Date: November 15, 2019

Marie Yovanovitch, who was ousted as the ambassador to Ukraine on President Trump’s orders, came before the House Intelligence Committee on the second day of public hearings in the impeachment inquiry. At the very moment she was testifying about feeling threatened by the president, the president was tweeting about her.“The Latest” is a new series on the impeachment inquiry, from the team behind “The Daily.” You can find more information about it here.

It started with a whistleblower's complaint about President Trump's contact with a foreign leader. Tonight, allegations of a White House cover-up as details of a whistleblower's complaint are revealed. I had a perfect phone call with the president of Ukraine. Like, I mean, perfect. In that call, the president asked for an investigation of Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Today, I'm announcing the House of Representatives moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry. Now the burden is on the Democrats really to tell Americans the story of what happened and why it's impeachable.

Good morning, everyone. This is the second in a series of public hearings the committee will be holding as part of the House's impeachment inquiry. Hey, it's Nick Fandos. I'm a congressional reporter here in the Washington Bureau. Here's the latest. The United States ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, was in Kiev. We're on our second day of hearings, and we're hearing from Marie Yovanovitch, who is the former ambassador to Ukraine. And we're seeing basically why these public hearings matter. They're not going exactly as the closed-door depositions did before them. And some interesting things are kind of shaking out. In her time in

Kiev, Ambassador Yovanovitch was tough on corruption, too tough on corruption for some. So remember that Rudy Giuliani led this smear campaign, both in the media and with the president, to get Yovanovitch removed from her post, which she'd served in under multiple administrations. And in May of this year, she was removed, even as her boss at the State Department told her she'd done nothing wrong. And it's only two months later that the president has his July 25th phone call with Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, where he pressures him to investigate the Bidens.

And so there's this moment in the hearing today. You had left Ukraine by the time of the July 25th call. When the lead lawyer for the Democrats, Dan Goldman, asked her about that call. When was the first time that you saw the call record for this phone call? When it was released publicly at the end of September, I believe. In the call, the president brings up Yovanovitch twice. The first time… President Trump says the former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad

news and the people she was dealing, the woman, was bad news. And the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news. So I just want to let you know. That woman was bad news. And prior to reading that call record, were you aware that President Trump had specifically made reference to you in that call? No. What was your reaction to learning that? I was shocked, absolutely shocked, and devastated, frankly. What do you mean by devastated?

I was shocked and devastated that I would feature in a phone call between two heads of state in such a manner, where President Trump said that I was bad news to another world leader. So I was, it was a terrible moment. A person who saw me actually reading the transcript said that the color drained from my face. I think I even had a physical reaction. I think, you know, even now words kind of fail me. The next excerpt when the president references you is a short one. But he said, well, she's going to go through some things. What did you think when President Trump told President Zelensky and you read that you were going to go through some things? I didn't know what to think, but I was very concerned.

What were you concerned about? She's going to go through some things. It didn't sound good. It sounded like a threat. Did you feel threatened? I did. This is the moment that Democrats had been hoping for with Yovanovitch's testimony. This moment where a woman who has established in her opening statement that she's the child of refugees who fled the Soviet Union, whose mother grew up stateless in Nazi Germany, who had spent 33 years working for the United States government, where she's feeling threatened by the President of the United States, acting in his own personal interest and not the interest

of the American people. But then... Mr. Goldman, if I could fall upon that question, it seems like an appropriate time. Goldman is continuing his questioning, and all of a sudden, Adam Schiff, the committee's chairman, interrupts him and starts making his own point. Ambassador Yovanovitch, as we sit here testifying, the president is attacking you on Twitter. It turns out that while Yovanovitch has been testifying about the president, the president has been tweeting about her.

And I'd like to give you a chance to respond. I'll read part of one of his tweets. Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia. How did that go? And as we're watching this, you can actually see Yovanovitch processing in real time. She looks surprised. She looks uncomfortable.

She's just been testifying as to how the president made her feel threatened back in September when she first heard about his call with President Zelensky. And here it's happening again as she's testifying on Capitol Hill about that exact thing. But would you like to respond to the president's attack that everywhere you went turned bad? Well, I mean, I don't think I have such powers, not in Mogadishu, Somalia, not in other places. have such powers, not in Mogadishu, Somalia, not in other places. I actually think that where I've served over the years, I and others have demonstrably made things better. Ambassador, you've shown the courage to come forward today and testify. And now the president in real time is attacking you. What effect do you think that has on other witnesses' willingness to come forward

and expose wrongdoing? Well, it's very intimidating. It's designed to intimidate, is it not? I mean, I can't speak to what the president is trying to do, but I think the effect is to be intimidating. Well, I want to let you know, Ambassador, that some of us here take witness intimidation very, very seriously. So what you're seeing here is some pretty deft maneuvering on the part of the Democrats. Clearly some aide or somebody sitting behind Schiff saw what was happening on Twitter and started whispering in his ear. All of a sudden, he's able to then bring the president's behavior into the hearing room in real time to strengthen the very case that Democrats are making, to illustrate the same points that they're talking about.

And very quickly after this happens, the committee goes on break, and you already have Democrats talking about what Trump had done on Twitter, may have just earned him an additional article of impeachment, or at least cause for impeachment, that in addition to the case for bribery or abuse of power that they're currently making, this may constitute witness intimidation, potentially another impeachable offense. So that's the latest.