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John Solomon: Ex-ambassador Yovanovitch blocked Ukraine investigation before being ousted by Trump
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John Solomon: Ex-ambassador Yovanovitch blocked Ukraine investigation before being ousted by Trump

Is this why the president pushed for her dismissal?

On Friday's radio program, award-winning investigative journalist John Solomon joined Glenn Beck to detail how Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, obstructed investigations into potential corruption and interference by Democratic and Ukrainian officials in the 2016 U.S. election.

The Trump administration recalled Yovanovitch from her post in May. The whistleblower complaint at the center of the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump alleged that Yovanovitch was recalled because of claims made by former Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko.

A White House memo of the July 25 phone call referenced in the whistleblower complaint, documents President Trump speaking to Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky about Yovanovitch. "The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news, so I just want to let you know that," he said.

During a House deposition on Friday, Yovanovitch told congressional investigators, "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."

In this clip, Solomon breaks down the timeline. Starting last year, several Ukraine officials working under Prosecutor General Lutsenko raised alarms concerning Yovanovitch's conduct, saying not only was she meddling in Ukraine domestic affairs, trying to control who the government there could and couldn't prosecute, but that former Vice President Joe Biden was also up to something fishy concerning his son, Hunter, and Ukrainian gas company Burisma. But when they tried to bring it to the attention of American politicians, Yovanovitch blocked their visa applications from ever going further than her desk.

"There were three waves of concern expressed by Ukrainian authorities including the prosecutors and other officials. In May of 2018, then-House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions, Republican from Texas and one of the most powerful chairmen in all of Congress at the time, he made a trip over to the Ukraine. He came back and wrote a letter to the brand-new Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and he said, 'I have heard some deeply troubling reports from both Ukrainians and Americans, that our ambassador is bad-mouthing President Trump, and I think you should recall her.' That was the first time that Ukrainians on the ground raised concerns that they saw the ambassador engaged in inappropriate behavior, interfering investigations, that sort of stuff," Solomon explained.

"A few months passed and nothing happened. So the Ukrainian prosecutors under Lutsenko ... hired an American lawyer. This is in the October-November time frame of 2018," he continued. "They hired a former U.S. attorney here in the United States and they gave him a packet of information of things that they felt were wrong. One, that the ambassador was interfering in the Ukrainian internal affairs, like telling who he could prosecute and not prosecute. Two, that Joe Biden had fired a prosecutor, who was investigating his son's company, Burisma. And, three, there is some significant evidence and there is about to be a court ruling in Ukraine ... that Ukraine inappropriately interfered in the U.S. election in 2016."

Solomon pointed out that the Ukrainian prosecutors "tried on their own to get visas to come to the United States," but that the U.S. Embassy would not process the request. "They were just sitting there unprocessed. They wouldn't reject them, they wouldn't approve him. So they were in limbo," he said.

"The third wave is when, eventually, Lutsenko ... reaches out to me and agrees to do an interview," Solomon added. "He says, on the record, what had happened, confirming what Pete Sessions said, confirming what the prosecutors had done in the fall, and legitimately raising concerns.... When we have a diplomat on our soil in Ukraine, their job is not to tell us what to do in our internal affairs, it's to deal with American policy. It's not to tell us who we can and can't prosecute on our own soil. So three waves over a year ... and all before Rudy Giuliani got on the ground in Ukraine."

Watch the video below for more details:


UKRAINE OFFICIALS CAN'T GET VISAS: Ambassador Yovanovitch blocks entry for Trump investigationyoutu.be


Watch the full episode here.

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