Testimony Friday by former ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was dramatic and powerful, and made more so by the acting president's attack on her in real time via Twitter.
....They call it “serving at the pleasure of the President.” The U.S. now has a very strong and powerful foreign policy, much different than proceeding administrations. It is called, quite simply, America First! With all of that, however, I have done FAR more for Ukraine than O.
Donald Trump sent a signal to Yovanovitch and to follow-up witnesses in these hearings that they might expect a similar digital broadside from the most powerful insecure man in the world. Former independent counsel Ken Starr described Trump's action as "extraordinarily poor judgment" and "quite injurious." Even Chris Wallace of Trump-friendly Fox News observed, "It does raise the possibility of witness intimidation or witness tampering as a new charge here."
Trump removed Yovanovitch as ambassador to Ukraine earlier this year after what she described as a "campaign of disinformation" against her by his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, Giuliani's associates, and former conservative opinion contributor John Solomon.
Yovanovitch refuted under oath accusations she had bad-mouthed Trump to embassy officials and circulated a "do not prosecute" list to Yuriy Lutsenko, the former prosecutor general of Ukraine. "These attacks were being repeated by the president himself and his son," she said.
While Trump's real-time attack on Yovanovitch drew the most attention Friday, a moment later in the hearing seemed to me more indelible.
Trump's defenders on Capitol Hill repeated Trump's assertion Friday that ambassadors serve at the pleasure of the president and can be removed at any time. At the end of his questioning, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) repeated the observation that any president has "the right to make his own foreign policy" and his own decisions, President Trump included.
At the end of Wenstrup's time, Yovanovitch asked to make her own observation about the president's prerogatives:
"What I'd like to say is, while I obviously don't dispute that the President has the right to withdraw an ambassador at any time for any reason, but what I do wonder is why it was necessary to smear my reputation ... falsely?"
A therapist friend once spoke of an encounter with a man at her condo association meeting. She stood up to raise a question about some detail in changes to the association rules under discussion. Out of nowhere, this man got up and launched into a personal attack on her. Had she not read the memo? Was it not clear to her? Etc., etc.
When he finished, she looked him coolly in the eye and asked, "Do you have a need to have an argument with me tonight?"
He shriveled, sat down, and the meeting continued.
Notice that Trump had not felt the need to give career diplomats William Taylor and George Kent the same treatment on Wednesday. But Yovanovich, a woman, a smart, accomplished one at that, was a target of opportunity to be put in her place. Somewhere under his heel.
Why was it necessary to smear her instead of simply dismissing her? Because even as President of the United States Trump is a small-minded man of low intelligence with an inferiority complex the size of Manhattan. He self-medicates his insecurity by demeaning everyone around him, or by browbeating them into demeaning themselves. (See: Republican congressional caucus.) Capable women threaten him. As a misogynist too, naturally he felt a need to smear her.
In Friday's Twitter feed, I noticed someone from another country, I think, using Adam Serwer's "cruelty is the point" to describe Trump's actions. That understanding has gone global.
Blogger Susie Madrak (help her out here, please) observed:
I almost feel sorry for Trump. He clearly has learning disabilities and his cruel father relentlessly ridiculed him for it. But you know who else went through the same thing? Henry Winkler, who is dyslexic and by all accounts in a real mensch. Trump chose to be an asshole.
