Article

2019-11-27 Government

Foggy Bottom official describes frantic effort to save recalled Ukraine ambassador

[The Hill] A top State Department official told impeachment investigators in newly released testimony about a frantic but unsuccessful effort among senior diplomats to save the U.S. ambassador in Ukraine from a politically motivated smear campaign launched by allies of President Trump.

Philip Reeker, acting assistant secretary of European and Eurasian Affairs, testified privately last month that a "media storm" of negative but "highly inaccurate" stories targeting Marie Yovanovitch led to her recall from Kyiv in May, even as veteran State officials sought "a formal statement from the department" in her defense.

"There would be no statement," Reeker told investigators, according to a transcript of his testimony released Tuesday by Democrats leading the impeachment inquiry into Trump. "We would continue to use the press guidance that we had that had been cleared."

While his Oct. 26 testimony contained few new details surrounding the campaign to oust Yovanovitch, it supported the narrative delivered by a number of other veteran diplomats testifying in the impeachment investigation who have painted a graphic picture of efforts by Trump’s allies ‐ led by his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani ‐ to go after Yovanovitch, a career diplomat described by Reeker as "one of the foreign service great leaders."

"There was a lot of unhappiness ‐ without anything explicit, because we were speaking on open lines ‐ there was unhappiness from the White House that Ambassador Yovanovitch was still there, and the belief that she needed to come back," Reeker testified, relaying a conversation with State Department counselor Ulrich Brechbuhl in April.

Reeker testified that the public effort to target Yovanovitch began weeks earlier with a column from John Solomon, a conservative opinion writer formerly with The Hill, who had interviewed Yuriy Lutsenko, Ukraine’s top prosecutor at the time. Lutsenko told Solomon that Yovanovitch had given him a list of figures he was not to prosecute, even as U.S. policy sought to rein in corruption in a country well known for it.

Posted by Besoeker 2019-11-27 02:06|| || Front Page|| [8 views ] Top

#1 >a career diplomat described by Reeker as "one of the foreign service great leaders."

That might even be true... Which shows how much the foreign service needs a refectoring.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2019-11-27 03:23|| 2019-11-27 03:23|| Front Page Top

#2 Save her for what?

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2019-11-27 04:26|| 2019-11-27 04:26|| Front Page Top

#3 Term limits - they're not just for elected officials.

Posted by M. Murcek 2019-11-27 07:27|| 2019-11-27 07:27|| Front Page Top

#4 "Yovanovitch used a Soros tool to illegally monitor U.S. conservatives," By M. Dowling, Oct 26, 2019.
The State Department utilized a powerful Facebook-owned social media tracking tool linked to leftist billionaire George Soros to unlawfully monitor U.S conservative figures, journalists and persons with ties to Donald Trump, according to an agency source, Judicial Watch reported.
The source — a State Department veteran — identified Crowdtangle as the tool used to closely watch more than a dozen U.S. citizens, including the president’s son, personal attorney and popular television personalities such as Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, among others, Judicial Watch reported.
Disgraceful former U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, an Obama embed, enlisted a Ukraine agency to conduct the unlawful monitoring using the search terms, Biden, Giuliani, Soros, and Yovanovitch, according to a Judicial Watch investigation.

Posted by b 2019-11-27 09:38|| 2019-11-27 09:38|| Front Page Top

#5 "Reeker" - what came first? the name or the personality?

Posted by Mercutio 2019-11-27 10:48|| 2019-11-27 10:48|| Front Page Top

#6 Reduce the size of the mess by at least a factor of 10.

If somebody is released/fired from a job in the D.C. bureaucracy they can quickly get another job in a different sector of the bureaucracy. After all looking at D.C. rationally it is a COMPANY TOWN. It's just the COMPANY (no not the CIA) is the US Government.

Just like Amazon, Boeing and others are diversifying away from Company Towns - the US Government need to do the same. It's way past time to play musical chairs with the bureaucracy and move it all over the country. If some cogs get let go they can find replacement jobs with another Company just not the taxpayer's one. Let them compete in the open labor pool of useful careers!

Posted by 3dc 2019-11-27 13:16|| 2019-11-27 13:16|| Front Page Top

#7 Disperse them the way the Federal Reserve is dispersed... Dallas, Cincinnati, Richmond, Minneapolis etc

Posted by Lex 2019-11-27 13:18|| 2019-11-27 13:18|| Front Page Top

#8 Forbid the use of air-conditioning in Government buildings.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2019-11-27 13:23|| 2019-11-27 13:23|| Front Page Top

21:04 swksvolFF
20:11 Omomomble Glusoter5572
19:12 SteveS
18:02 swksvolFF
17:55 swksvolFF
17:45 Grom the Reflective
16:31 jpal
16:02 Beldar+Uneter3543
16:01 M. Murcek
15:59 Super Hose
15:43 Procopius2k
15:42 Procopius2k
15:39 49 Pan
15:37 M. Murcek
15:36 M. Murcek
15:28 Dale
15:28 Grom the Reflective
15:27 Dale
15:26 M. Murcek
15:23 Dale
15:15 Beldar+Uneter3543
15:02 Besoeker
15:00 Uleremp and Company7042
14:59 NoMoreBS