House Minority Whip Steve Scalise downplayed testimony offered by recalled U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, pointing out that she was a holdover from former President Barack Obama's administration who did not necessarily support President Donald Trump.
"What you see and by the way, other people that testified, gave different kinds of backgrounds," the Louisiana Republican said on Fox News' "America's Newsroom."
"It depends on who you voted for in the election. She was an Obama holdover. Somebody who didn't necessarily support President Trump's agenda."
Yovanovitch, he added, was not elected to set foreign policy, as Trump was.
"Some of these career bureaucrats will bring in their people to carry out their foreign policy," said Scalise. "Barack Obama had a failed foreign policy as it relates to Ukraine and other countries. President Obama did not support Ukraine standing up to Russia, for example. Donald Trump did." According to a transcript of her testimony released Monday, Yovanovitch told investigators about efforts led by Trump's attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and other Trump allies to push her out of her post. The career diplomat was recalled from her job in May on Trump's orders.
"(Trump) brought in somebody to carry out a better foreign policy and by the way, the results are there," said Scalise. "We have a much better foreign policy including a week and a half ago (we) took out the head creator of ISIS as well as the number two head of ISIS. That's pretty good foreign policy."
Meanwhile, even though transcripts are being released after last week's House procedures vote, Republicans are not happy because Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff has veto power over Republican witnesses.
"They've been hoping for 2 1/2 years there was a crime," he said. "The Mueller investigation, no crime. They moved on to look for something else. They thought the phone call would yield something. The president released the transcript. You can see in the transcript there is no quid pro."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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