President Trump can be heard calling for the firing of former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch in footage from a private dinner that was attended by two associates of Rudy Giuliani.
“Get rid of her. Get her out tomorrow. I don’t care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. OK? Do it,” the president can be heard saying in the footage obtained and released by Fox News on Saturday.
Trump’s comment came during an April 30, 2018, conversation in which Giuliani associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman informed the president that the ambassador had been talking badly about him.
“The biggest problem there, where you need to start, is we got to get rid of the ambassador. She’s still left over from the Clinton administration,” Parnas can be heard saying. “She’s basically walking around telling everyone, ‘Wait, he’s going to get impeached.'”
ABC News reported Friday about the existence of a recording of the conversation taken by Fruman, which the outlet later released. Parnas also released the recording to the Daily Beast Saturday.
Parnas’s lawyer Joseph Bondy provided the tape to Fox News, saying, “Given its importance to the national interest, we decided to release this recording in a manner intended to ensure equal public access, and in an effort to provide clarity to the American people and the Senate as to the need to conduct a fair trial, with witnesses and evidence.”
“I am not a fan of that ambassador,” Trump told The Ingraham Angle Friday when asked about the recording, while adding that he was not relying on Parnas to get rid of Yovanovitch. “I want ambassadors that are chosen by me. I have a right to hire and fire ambassadors.”
His remark echoed a statement from White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, which read, “Every president in our history has had the right to place people who support his agenda and his policies within his administration.”
Yovanovitch was recalled from her position in May 2019. She went on to testify in the House impeachment hearings into Trump’s conduct toward Ukraine following his July 25, 2019, phone call with the nation’s leader, whom he asked to open an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden while withholding crucial military aid.
The House then impeached Trump on two articles, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, in December. His Senate trial began this week.
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