Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani is doubling down on his admission that he was instrumental in getting former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch removed from her post, boasting during a Monday night Fox News interview that “of course” he forced her out.
In a recent interview with The New Yorker, Giuliani—who is a central figure in President Donald Trump’s impeachment proceedings—said he saw Yovanovitch as an obstacle to him digging up dirt on Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden. “I believed that I needed Yovanovitch out of the way,” he told the magazine. “She was going to make the investigations difficult for everybody.”
During a Monday evening interview, Fox News host Laura Ingraham asked Giuliani—fresh off his latest Ukrainian trip to gather fresh dirt on Biden—why he needed Yovanovitch gone, especially considering he was just the president’s personal attorney and not a government official.
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"Of course I did,” the former New York City mayor bragged, adding: “I didn’t need her out of the way. I forced her out because she’s corrupt.”
During her House impeachment testimony, Yovanovitch described a months-long smear campaign by Giuliani and other Trump allies, who accused her of bad-mouthing the president and protecting Biden and other Democratic interests. Yovanovitch, who was eventually removed as ambassador in May 2019, felt her termination was based on “unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives.”
Giuliani went on to claim that he has “documentary evidence” that Yovanvitch committed perjury, claiming he had four witnesses who will testify that she personally turned down their visa applications to come to the United States to give evidence against Biden and the Democratic Party.
“There is no question that she was acting corruptly in that position and had to be removed,” he said. “She should have been fired if the State Department were not part of the ‘deep state.’”
