Presidential lawyer Rudy Giuliani claimed Monday he forced out former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch because she was covering up corruption in Ukraine.
Giuliani accused Yovanovitch, who was a prominent witness before the House Intelligence Committee during the impeachment inquiry, of corruption and committing perjury to protect former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.
“I forced her out because she was corrupt,” the former mayor of New York City alleged when speaking to Fox News host Laura Ingraham.
Yovanovitch said during her testimony before the House committee that she was the victim of a smear campaign engineered by Giuliani. In her committee testimony, the former ambassador said, “Giuliani and the corrupt foreign prosecutor, had plans to quote, ‘do things to me.’” She claimed not to get the point at the time but “with the advantage of hindsight, I think that meant removing me from my job in Ukraine.”
The diplomat accused Giuliani of engineering articles that alleged she was engaging in improper behavior that included badmouthing the president and providing Trump with a “do not prosecute list.”
President Donald Trump eventually removed the ambassador from her position. (RELATED: Chris Wallace: If You Weren’t Moved By Yovanovitch Testimony, ‘You Don’t Have A Pulse’)
Speaking about a trove of documents that Giuliani says he brought back from his most recent trip to Ukraine, the president’s attorney alleged, “I came back with a document that will show unequivocally that she committed perjury when she said that she turned down the visa for [former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor] Mr. Shokin because of corruption.”
“I have four witnesses who will testify that she personally turned down their visas because they were going to come here and give evidence either against Biden or against the Democratic Party,” he continued. “There is no question that she was acting corruptly in that position and had to be removed. She should have been fired if the State Department were not part of the deep state.” (RELATED: Giuliani Says Ukraine Paid Hunter Biden $3M In Laundered Money, While Joe Biden And Obama Looked The Other Way)
![Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch testifies before the House Intelligence Committee in the Longworth House Office Building Nov. 15, 2019. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)](https://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/GettyImages-1182588476.jpg)
Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch testifies before the House Intelligence Committee in the Longworth House Office Building Nov. 15, 2019. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The former mayor said he’s researching all of the background material in an attempt to demonstrate that the current impeachment efforts directed against Trump are a diversion for Democrats.
“When the president of the United States was asking the president of Ukraine to investigate, he was asking him to investigate crimes at the highest levels from both governments that the president of Ukraine referred to as ‘we,’ meaning it’s our problem, a joint problem,” he said. “So he is being impeached for doing the right thing as president of the United States.”
Shokin claims in an affidavit that Joe Biden wanted him removed from his position because of an investigation into Burisma Holdings, where Biden’s son, Hunter, had a seat on the board of directors.