[….]
A Well, if you have the President’s son saying, you know, We need to pull these clowns, or however he referred to me, it makes it hard to be a credible ambassador in a country.
Q And so what did you want Mr. Hale to do?
A What I wanted was the Secretary of State to issue a statement that said that, you know, I have his full confidence or something like that, to indicate that I, in fact, am the ambassador in Ukraine, and that I speak for the President, for the Secretary of State, for our country.
Q In contrast to Mr. Giuliani?
A I didn’t Put it that way.
Q But was that what you meant?
A Well, what I meant was that exactly what I just said.
Q So it wasn’t necessarily in direct relation to Mr. Giuliani. It was as much in response to the attacks on you from —
A Yes.
Q — others, including the President’s son?
[….]
THE CHAIRMAN: I just want to make sure I’m understanding. The statement you’re talking about, is that the requested statement by the Secretary of State?
MS. YOVANOVITCH: Yeah.
THE CHAIRMAN: So you were informed, basically, that the statement was not going to be issued by the Secretary of State because it could be undermined by the President?
MS. YOVANOVITCH: Yes. No statement was going to be issued, not by the Secretary, not by anybody else.
THE CHAIRMAN: Because if the secretary did issue a statement, it might be undermined by the President?
MS. YOVANOVITCH: Uh-huh.
THE CHAIRMAN: Is that a Yes?
MS. YOVANOVITCH: Yes, that is a Yes.
[….]
And when you know, of course, when the calls came from Mr. Giuliani to the White House and to the Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs, they got in touch with the European Bureau, and Mr. Mitchell, you know, held firm. I mean, it was a consular decision. The consular folks felt that they had made the right decision. And, you know, there was the added issue that, you know, basically the notorious reputation of Mr. Shokin. And, frankly, at the end of the day, he lied on his visa application.
Q How did he lie?
A He told us that he was going to visit a child or children, but then the next thing that we know is he was really going to see Mayor Giuliani.
Q And you learned that?
A From Mayor Giuliani.
Q Mr. Giuliani stated such?
A Yeah. I mean, I didn’t hear that directly, obviously, but —
[….]
