John Sullivan, nominee for US ambassador to Russia, said during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday that he knew about the campaign of President Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani against former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th October, 2019) John Sullivan, nominee for US ambassador to Russia, said during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday that he knew about the campaign of President Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani against former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.Yovanovitch, a career diplomat who was abruptly removed from her post in May, told lawmakers earlier this month that she was forced out based on unfounded claims for political reasons.
"My knowledge in the spring and summer of this year about any involvement of Mr. Giuliani was in connection with a campaign against our Ambassador to Ukraine," Sullivan told the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
Sullivan confirmed that he was aware individuals outside the State Department had been seeking to smear Yovanovitch and remove her. Further questioned whether he knew that Giuliani was one of those people, Sullivan said, "I believed he was."
Sullivan also told the committee that there was a basis to recall Yovanovitch given the US president "had lost confidence in her."
Yovanovitch's ouster was one of several incidents listed in a whistleblower complaint filed by a CIA officer alleging that Trump withheld foreign assistance from Ukraine in order to pressure the country into investigating his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden. The whistleblower complaint has spawned a House impeachment inquiry into whether Trump abused the power of his office to solicit foreign interference in a US election.
The complaint alleged that Trump during a July 25 phone call pressed Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate Biden and the former vice president's son Hunter for business dealings with a Ukraine gas company. Trump has provided no evidence to support claims that Hunter Biden violated any US laws.
Trump denies any wrongdoing, released the call transcript and insists that the conversation with Zelenskyy was "perfect." The US president has called the impeachment probe a "witch hunt" designed to reverse the 2016 election results.
