It is highly likely that the State Department will not include Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch in its Highlighting Heroes initiative. So we will do our own highlights here. No matter what is in the future for her, we and many others will remember her and honor her for her courage in speaking up first when it mattered most.
The secretary of state, proud … um defender of the rule of law only when convenient, told the committee Ambassador Yovanovitch may not attend the deposition without agency provided counsel (counsel that looks after the government not the employee’s interest), and the undersecretary for management, who oversees personnel at the State Department instructed her not to appear for a deposition. She was issued a congressional subpoena and appeared for her deposition and public testimony.
Her private counsel wrote to U/S Brian Bulatao: “Although the Ambassador has faithfully and consistently honored her professional duties as a State Department employee—including at all times following her abrupt termination as U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine—she is unable to obey your most recent directive.”
Excerpt from The Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report
Despite President Trump’s explicit orders that no Executive Branch employees should cooperate with the House’s impeachment inquiry and efforts by federal agencies to limit the testimony of those who did, multiple key officials complied with duly authorized subpoenas and provided critical testimony at depositions and public hearings. These officials adhered to the rule of law and obeyed lawful subpoenas.
Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Department of State
See PDF pp 245-247
On September 13, the Committees sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo seeking a transcribed interview with Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and other State Department officials.287
The Committees received no direct, substantive response to this letter. On September 27, the Committees sent a letter informing Secretary Pompeo that Ambassador Yovanovitch’s deposition was being scheduled on October 2, stating:
On September 13, the Committees wrote to request that you make State Department employees available for transcribed interviews. We asked you to provide, by September 20, dates by which the employees would be made available for transcribed interviews. You failed to comply with the Committees’ request.288
Also on September 27, the Committees sent a letter directly to Ambassador Yovanovitch seeking her appearance at a deposition on October 2.289
On October 1, Secretary Pompeo sent a letter to the Committees stating:
Therefore, the five officials subject to your letter may not attend any interview or deposition without counsel from the Executive Branch present to ensure that the Executive Branch’s constitutional authority to control the disclosure of confidential information, including deliberative matters and diplomatic communications, is not impaired.290
After further discussions with Ambassador Yovanovitch’s counsel, her deposition was rescheduled for October 11. On October 10, Brian Bulatao, the Under Secretary of State for Management, sent a letter to Ambassador Yovanovitch’s personal attorney directing Ambassador Yovanovitch not to appear for her deposition and enclosing Mr. Cipollone’s October 8 letter stating that President Trump and his Administration would not participate in the House’s impeachment inquiry. Mr. Bulatao’s letter stated:
Accordingly, in accordance with applicable law, I write on behalf of the Department of State, pursuant to the President’s instruction reflected in Mr. Cipollone’s letter, to instruct your client (as a current employee of the Department of State), consistent with Mr. Cipollone’s letter, not to appear before the Committees under the present circumstances.291
That same day, October 10, when asked whether he intended to block Ambassador Yovanovitch from testifying the next day, President Trump stated: “You know, I don’t think people should be allowed. You have to run a country, I don’t think you should be allowed to do that.”292
On the morning of Ambassador Yovanovitch’s deposition on October 11, the Committees sent a letter to her personal attorney transmitting a subpoena compelling her appearance, stating:
In light of recent attempts by the Administration to direct your client not to appear voluntarily for the deposition, the enclosed subpoena now compels your client’s mandatory appearance at today’s deposition on October 11, 2019.293
Later on October 11, Ambassador Yovanovitch’s personal attorney sent a letter to Mr. Bulatao, stating:
In my capacity as counsel for Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, I have received your letter of October 10, 2019, directing the Ambassador not to appear voluntarily for her scheduled deposition testimony on October 11, 2019 before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and the Committee on Oversight and Reform in connection with the House of Representatives’s impeachment inquiry. Just this morning, the Ambassador received a subpoena issued by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, requiring her to appear for the deposition as scheduled. Although the Ambassador has faithfully and consistently honored her professional duties as a State Department employee—including at all times following her abrupt termination as U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine—she is unable to obey your most recent directive. As the recipient of a duly issued congressional subpoena, Ambassador Yovanovitch is, in my judgment, legally obligated to attend the depositions as scheduled.294
Ambassador Yovanovitch participated in the deposition on October 11, in compliance with the Committees’ subpoena.295 During her deposition, Ambassador Yovanovitch’s personal attorney confirmed that “she received a direction by the Under Secretary to decline to appear voluntarily.”296
On November 15, the Committees transmitted a subpoena to Ambassador Yovanovitch compelling her to testify at a public hearing of the Intelligence Committee that same day.297 Ambassador Yovanovitch complied with the Committees’ subpoena and testified at the public hearing. During the hearing, Chairman Schiff acknowledged Ambassador Yovanovitch’s compliance, stating:
Ambassador, I want to thank you for your decades of service. I want to thank you, as Mr. Maloney said, for being the first one through the gap. What you did in coming forward and answering a lawful subpoena was to give courage to others that also witnessed wrongdoing, that they, too, could show the same courage that you have, that they could stand up, speak out, answer questions, they could endure whatever threats, insults may come their way. And so in your long and distinguished career you have done another great public service in answering the call of our subpoena and testifying before us today.298
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