WASHINGTON _ House Democrats on Friday questioned President Donald Trump's former ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, whose direct knowledge about the administration's shadowy efforts to push Ukraine's leaders to investigate a Democratic presidential candidate could be critical to the House impeachment inquiry.
The deposition was conducted behind closed doors and it wasn't immediately clear if Yovanovitch, who remains a State Department employee, was defying the White House vow Tuesday to block any administration cooperation with the committees, if she had received permission to testify, or if her testimony was restricted in some way.
The State Department ordered Yovanovitch back to Washington from Kyiv, Ukraine, in May, several months before her tenure was up, after she came under criticism from Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president's lawyer, as he sought to get Ukraine's newly elected government to reopen an investigation into an energy company that previously had hired former Vice President Joe Biden's son, Hunter.
Giuliani and other Trump allies argued that Yovanovitch, a career diplomat with 33 years of experience, had become an impediment to their efforts to search for damaging material on Biden, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination.
California Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, attacked Yovanovitch on Friday on Fox News for "badmouthing the Trump administration," and called her a "partisan ambassador" who was "coordinating" with Democrats.
Earlier this week, the White House directed Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, not to testify to the same committees. Sondland's lawyer said Friday that the former Oregon hotelier, who was appointed ambassador after donating $1 million to Trump's inauguration, will testify on Thursday.
Fiona Hill, who served as senior director for Europe and Russian affairs at the National Security Council until she stepped down in August, is scheduled to testify on Monday and is expected to offer further insight into Trump's efforts to use foreign policy to boost his political campaign.
Yovanovitch's name featured prominently in the indictment in New York of two businessmen who helped Giuliani set up meetings in Ukraine.
The indictment, made public Thursday after the two men were arrested while allegedly attempting to flee the country, charged Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman with campaign finance law violations for allegedly funneling foreign money to numerous candidates and committees, including a super PAC supporting the president and a congressman who later encouraged Trump to recall Yovanovitch.
Parnas was born in Ukraine, while Fruman was born in Belarus. The two were held on $1 million bond after their arrests at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, and remain in federal custody.
The three House committees involved in the impeachment inquiry have subpoenaed Parnas and Fruman, and again warned that noncompliance with document requests and deposition orders would be viewed as evidence of obstruction.
Although it's unclear if matters beyond Trump's dealings with Ukraine ultimately will be part of the Democrats' impeachment probe, his opponents won a round in the courts Friday when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld Congress' right to demand Trump's business and accounting records.
A three-judge panel on the court affirmed, 2-1, that Congress has broad investigative powers. The judges rejected the argument from Trump's lawyers that the House Oversight and Reform Committee had no legitimate legislative reason to demand the files from the accounting firm Mazars USA.
Disputes between Congress and the president "are a recurring plot in our national story," the judges wrote.
"And that is precisely what the Framers intended," they wrote. "Having considered the weighty interests at stake in this case, we conclude that the subpoena issued by the Committee to Mazars is valid and enforceable."
Trump's lawyers can ask the entire court to rehear the case or take it to the Supreme Court.
