Trump says 'get rid of' Ukraine ambassador in recording
January 26, 2020
A recording from April 2018 surfaced on Saturday depicting US President Donald Trump ordering staff to "get rid of" former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
The video, which is 1 hour, 23 minutes long, first shows Trump posing for photos at a donor dinner inside the Trump Hotel in Washington. Most of the rest of the video shows no images of the participants as the camera was pointed at the ceiling.
Halfway through the dinner, Trump's voice can be heard saying of Yovanovitch: "Get rid of her! Get her out tomorrow. I don't care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. Okay? Do it."
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Trump recalled Yovanovitch from her post in May 2019, later telling conservative television station Fox News that he was "not a fan" of the ambassador. Democrats claim Trump associates spent nearly a year trying to oust her because they saw her as an obstacle in their efforts to get Ukraine to investigate the son of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
The video was released to several news outlets by the legal team of Lev Parnas, an indicted associate of Trump's personal attorney Rudi Giuliani. Parnas and his business partner Igor Furman are key figures in Trump's alleged attempt to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate Biden's son.
dv/rc (AFP, Reuters)
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