Marie Yovanovitch

Burisma oil and gas officials posted to Instagram a photo from a meeting at Ambassador Yovanovitch's residence in October 2018.

Marie Yovanovitch was the Obama appointee as Ambassador to the Ukraine. She had previously served as Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan and Ambassador to Armenia for President George W. Bush. She is a registered Democrat.

Yovanovitch was removed from her post after making public comments suggesting the removal of a Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating the Soros-backed NGO AntAc. Her comments were regarded as a violation of diplomatic protocol and conventions to refrain from interfering in a host country's internal affairs, particularly three weeks in advance of a presidential election. The Soros-backed Anti Corruption Action Center (AntAc) is regarded by many a vehicle to promote Soros business interests and shut down competitors and political opponents.

As ambassador, Yovanovich never raised the issue of Ukrainian government officials meddling in the U.S. 2016 presidential election during the Poroshenko regime. Poroshenko was voted out of office in April 2019 carrying only 24% of the vote, with anti-corruption reformer Volodymyr Zelensky receiving 73%.

A Ukrainian court determined in December 2018 that Ukrainian government officials had in fact meddled in the U.S. presidential election during Yovanovitch's tenure by leaking information that ultimately proved detrimental to Paul Manafort.

Yovanovitch was removed from her post months before President Trump spoke with President Zelensky about CrowdStrike's interference in the 2016 presidential election, nor had any relevant knowledge or information regarding the Democrat's impeachment/coup attempt. The circumstances of her recall are currently a subject of the House's impeachment hearings on President Trump.

Political spying

On October 14, 2019 is was reported Judicial Watch Reveals Surveillance Targets Requested by U.S. Ambassador Yovanovitch and State Department – But Bigger Question is Missing.

• former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, initiated a request for State Dept. officials to conduct surveillance on: Jack Posobiec, Donald Trump Jr., Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, Michael McFaul (Obama’s ambassador to Russia), Dan Bongino, Ryan Saavedra, Rudy Giuliani, Sebastian Gorka, John Solomon, Lou Dobbs, Pamella Geller and Sara Carter.
• Yovanovitch reportedly ordered monitoring keyed to the following search terms: Biden, Giuliani, Soros and Yovanovitch. Judicial Watch (JW) has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the State Department and will continue gathering facts from government sources.
• Prior to being recalled as ambassador to Ukraine in the spring Yovanovitch reportedly created a list of individuals who were to be monitored via social media and other means. Ukraine embassy staff made the request to the Washington D.C. headquarters office of the department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs. Yovanovch’s staff was informed that the request was illegal and the monitoring either ceased or was concealed via the State Department Global Engagement Center, which has looser restrictions on collecting information. JW reports:

“This is not an obscure rule, everyone in public diplomacy or public affairs knows they can’t make lists and monitor U.S. citizens unless there is a major national security reason,” according to a senior State Department official. If the illicit operation occurred, it seems to indicate a clear political bias against the president and his supporters.
Yovanovitch, a career diplomat who has also led American embassies in Kyrgyzstan and Armenia, was appointed ambassador to Ukraine by Obama in 2016. She was recalled by the State Department in May [2019] and remains a State Department employee in Washington D.C.

Under oath in public testimony during Adam Schiff's impeachment inquiry Yovanovitch gave false and misleading information claiming no knowledge of Hunter Biden and Burisma oil and gas before President Obama appointed her as ambassador to Ukraine, when in fact she admitted the Obama State Department had coached her on answering questions about Hunter Biden and Burisma in preparation for her Senate confirmation hearings.

Biden-Ukraine scandal

Ukrainian prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko said Yovanovitch gave him a "Do Not Prosecute" list with Hunter Biden's name on it.

Obama administration officials sought to suppress a Ukrainian corruption probe into an NGO bankrolled by both the US government and George Soros. When Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office tried to investigate an alleged misallocation of $4.4 million in US funds, which was supposed to go toward anti-corruption initiatives, US embassy officials came down hard to shut down the investigation altogether. “We ran right into a buzzsaw and we got bloodied,” a senior Ukrainian official told The Hill.

Notably, former State Department official George Kent, a star witnesses in Adam Schiff's hearings, recommended in April 2016 that Ukraine stop investigating a Soros-funded entity in Ukraine, AntAC. "The investigation into the Anti-Corruption Action Center (sic), based on the assistance they have received from us, is similarly misplaced," wrote Kent.

The Hill reported,

While the 2016 presidential race was raging in America, Ukrainian prosecutors ran into some unexpectedly strong headwinds as they pursued an investigation into the activities of a nonprofit in their homeland known as the Anti-Corruption Action Centre (AntAC).

The focus on AntAC — whose youthful street activists famously wore “Ukraine F*&k Corruption” T-shirts — was part of a larger probe by Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office into whether $4.4 million in U.S. funds to fight corruption inside the former Soviet republic had been improperly diverted.

The prosecutors soon would learn the resistance they faced was blowing directly from the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, where the Obama administration took the rare step of trying to press the Ukrainian government to back off its investigation of both the U.S. aid and the group.

Kiev embassy official George Kent wrote a letter proving the Yovanovitch's meddling in Ukrainian internal affairs did indeed happen. State Department officials authenticated the letter. George Kent acknowledged in this Congressional testimony he signed that letter.

On March 9, 2019, three weeks in advance of Ukraine's March 31 presidential election, Yovanovitch called for Ukraine’s special anti corruption prosecutor to be removed. Yovanovitvh's comments were regarded in Ukrainian media as a violation of international diplomatic convention and protocols of the duty of foreign diplomats to refrain from interfering in a host country's internal affairs, particularly in advance of an election.

The New York Times claimed that Lutsenko denied ever making such allegations. Lutsenko later stated that the New York Timess mistranslated his comments, and that Yovanovotich did indeed provide a "Do Not Prosecute" list.

Hunter Biden received $3.1 million in 46 payments.

See also

• Muellergate timeline 2019
• Deep State coup 2.0
• Alexander Vindman