The White House’s promise to stonewall a congressional impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump will get an early test on Friday, when the former ambassador to Ukraine is scheduled to testify to House of Representatives investigators, APA reports citing Reuters.
Marie Yovanovitch, a career diplomat who was abruptly recalled from Ukraine in May, is scheduled to give a deposition to congressional investigators probing Trump in a scandal that has cast a pall over his presidency.
Congressional lawmakers were waiting to see if she shows up after the White House said earlier this week it would refuse to cooperate with an impeachment inquiry that Trump has termed “a kangaroo court.”
The pledge from White House lawyer Pat Cipollone came hours after the administration blocked another key witness, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, from testifying to congressional panels.
The inquiry was launched after a whistleblower complaint about a July 25 phone call in which Trump pressed his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to investigate former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, a leading Democratic contender for the right to face Trump in the November 2020 election.
The testimony from Yovanovitch is the first of several depositions of key figures planned by the House committees spearheading the probe, and whether she makes her appearance will offer an early gauge of White House cooperation.
Yovanovitch was still expected to appear as of late Thursday, a House aide said.
Yovanovitch, described by colleagues as a consummate professional, became the target in March of allegations - vehemently denied by the State Department - that she gave a Ukrainian prosecutor a list of people not to prosecute.
Trump allies called for her removal, accusing her of criticizing the president to foreign officials, something current and former colleagues found inconceivable. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, alleged she blocked efforts to persuade Ukraine to investigate the Bidens.
According to a White House summary, Trump described her as “bad news” to Zelenskiy in the July call in which he sought Zelinskiy’s help to investigate Biden and his son. “She’s going to go through some things,” Trump added.
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