Opening Statement of Marie L.Yovanovitch to the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Committee on Foreign Affairs, & Committee on Oversight and Reform October 11,2019

Opening Statement of Marie L. Yovanovitch to the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Committee on Foreign Affairs, & Committee on Oversight and Reform October 11, 2019

(July 16, 2018) Marie Yovanovitch, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, is welcomed aboard the Blue Ridge-class command and control ship USS Mount Whitney by Capt. Richard Aguilar, CO, during exercise Sea Breeze 2018 in Odessa, Ukraine, July 16. Sea Breeze is a US and Ukraine co-hosted multinational maritime exercise held in the Black Sea designed to enhance interoperability of participating nations and strengthen Maritime security within the region. US Navy photo by Specialist 1st Class Justin Stumberg

Two Wars

But change takes time, and the aspiration to instill rule-of law values has still not been fulfilled. Since 2014, Ukraine has been at war, not just with Russia, but within itself, as political and economic forces compete to determine what kind of country Ukraine will become: the same old, oligarch-dominated Ukraine where corruption is not just prevalent, but is the system? Or the country that Ukrainians demanded in the Revolution of Dignity — a country where rule of law is the system, corruption is tamed, and people are treated equally and according to the law?

During the 2019 presidential elections, the Ukrainian people answered that question once again. Angered by insufficient progress in the fight against corruption, Ukrainian voters overwhelmingly elected a man who said that ending corruption would be his number one priority. The transition, however, created fear among the political elite, setting the stage for some of the issues I expect we will be discussing today. Understanding Ukraine’s recent history, including the significant tension between those who seek to transform the country and those who wish to continue profiting from the old ways, is of critical importance to understanding the events you asked me here today to describe. Many of those events — and the false narratives that emerged from them — resulted from an unfortunate alliance between Ukrainians who continue to operate within a corrupt system, and Americans who either did not understand that corrupt system, or who may have chosen, for their own purposes, to ignore it. It seems obvious, but bears stating, that when dealing with officials from any country — or those claiming connections to officialdom — one must understand their background, their personal interests, and what they hope to get out of a particular interaction before deciding how to evaluate their description of events or acting on their information.

To be clear, Ukraine is filled with many citizens and officials who want the very things we have always said we want for the United States: a government that acts in the interests of its people; “a government of the people, by the people and for the people.” The overwhelming support for President Zelenskiy in April’s election proved that. And it was one of our most important tasks at the embassy in Kyiv to understand and act upon the difference between those who sought to serve their people and those who sought to serve only themselves.

Addressing Specific Concerns

With that background in mind, I would like to briefly address some of the specific issues raised in the press that I anticipate you may ask me about today.

Events Before and After I served in Ukraine

I arrived in Ukraine on August 22, 2016 and left Ukraine permanently on May 20, 2019. Several of the events with which you may be concerned occurred before I was even in country. Here are just a few:

• the release of the so-called “Black Ledger” and Mr. Manafort’s subsequent resignation from the Trump campaign;

• the Embassy’s April 2016 letter to the Prosecutor General’s Office about the investigation into the Anti-Corruption Action Center or AntAC; and

• the departure from office of former Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.

Several other events occurred after I was recalled from Ukraine. These include:

• President Trump’s July 25 call with President Zelenskiy;

• All of the discussions surrounding that phone call; and

• Any discussions surrounding the reported delay of security assistance to Ukraine in Summer 2019.

During my Tenure in Ukraine

• As for events during my tenure in Ukraine, I want to categorically state that I have never myself or through others, directly or indirectly, ever directed, suggested, or in any other way asked for any government or government official in Ukraine (or elsewhere) to refrain from investigating or prosecuting actual corruption. As Mr. Lutsenko, the former Ukrainian Prosecutor General has recently acknowledged, the notion that I created or disseminated a “do not prosecute” list is completely false — a story that Mr.Lutsenko, himself, has since retracted.

• Equally fictitious is the notion that I am disloyal to President Trump. I have heard the allegation in the media that I supposedly told the Embassy team to ignore the President’s orders “since he was going to be impeached.” That allegation is false. I have never said such a thing, to my Embassy colleagues or to anyone else. • Next, the Obama administration did not ask me to help the Clinton campaign or harm the Trump campaign, nor would I have taken any such steps if they had. • I have never met Hunter Biden, nor have I had any direct or indirect conversations with him. And although I have met former Vice President Biden several times over the course of our many years in government, neither he nor the previous Administration ever, directly or indirectly, raised the issue of either Burisma or Hunter Biden with me.

• With respect to Mayor Giuliani, I have had only minimal contacts with him — a total of three that I recall. None related to the events at issue. I do not know Mr. Giuliani’s motives for attacking me. But individuals who have been named in the press as contacts of Mr.Giuliani may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine. • Finally, after being asked by the Department in early March to extend my tour until 2020, I was then abruptly told in late April to come back to Washington from Ukraine “on the next plane.” You will understandably want to ask why my posting ended so suddenly. I wanted to learn that too, and I tried to find out. I met with the Deputy Secretary of State, who informed me of the curtailment of my term.He said that the President had lost confidence in me and no longer wished me to serve as his ambassador. He added that there had been a concerted campaign against me, and that the Department had been under pressure from the President to remove me since the Summer of 2018. He also said that I had done nothing wrong and that this was not like other situations where he had recalled ambassadors for cause. I departed Ukraine for good this past May.

• Although I understand that I served at the pleasure of the President, I was nevertheless incredulous that the U.S. government chose to remove an Ambassador based, as best as I can tell, on unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives. To make matters worse, all of this occurred during an especially challenging time in bilateral relations with a newly elected Ukrainian president. This was precisely the time when continuity in the Embassy in Ukraine was most needed.

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