As Former Ambassador Testifies to Feeling Threatened by Trump, He Smears Her in Real Time

The attack was quickly raised in the impeachment hearing, where the committee chair suggested it was witness intimidation.

Alex Brandon/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Marie Yovanovitch, the former US ambassador to Ukraine, testified on Friday to feeling threatened after learning that President Donald Trump had told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that she would be “going through some things” during a July 25 phone call. But as she detailed her trauma to lawmakers, Trump was on Twitter smearing her again, in a move that both Yovanovitch and House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff slammed as a form of intimidation.

Yovanovitch, testifying in the second day of impeachment hearings this week, said she was “devastated” after reading that Trump had described her as “bad news” on his call with Zelensky. “The color drained from my face,” she said. “I think I even had a physical reaction.”

Yovanovitch’s moving testimony laid bare the emotional and personal consequences of Trump’s efforts to coerce a foreign government into interfering in the 2020 election. But as Yovanovitch spoke, Trump took to Twitter to launch a stunning attack on the former diplomat:

Schiff, a Democrat from California, interrupted the proceedings to inform Yovanovitch that the president was attacking her in real time. “Would you like to respond to the president’s attack that everywhere you went turned bad?” Schiff asked after reading the tweet.

“I actually think that where I’ve served over the years, I, and others, have demonstrably made things better, for the US, as well as the countries that I’ve served in,” Yovanovitch said, describing the president’s new attack against her as “very intimidating.”

“Well, I want to let you know, ambassador, that some of us here take witness intimidation very, very seriously,” Schiff said.

The extraordinary moment was even recognized on Fox News, where Bret Baier suggested that it could add another article of impeachment to Democrats’ case against Trump. “This whole hearing turned on a dime when the president tweeted about her in real time,” he said.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate