In the latest instance of Trump’s administration obstructing the impeachment inquiry, the White House tried to block former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch from appearing today, forcing House Democrats to issue a subpoena.

White House talking points said that the administration was “not concerned with any information Yovanovitch might share, because the President did nothing wrong.” So why did they try to stop her from appearing? Well, let’s see…

Yovanovitch was told by a top-ranking official that her abrupt departure came as a direct result of Trump pressuring the State Department to remove her — not because she had done anything wrong.

Washington Post: “The former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine whose abrupt ouster in May has become a topic of interest for House impeachment investigators said Friday that her departure came as a direct result of pressure President Trump placed on the State Department to remove her, according to her prepared remarks before Congress obtained by The Washington Post. Marie Yovanovitch told lawmakers that she was forced to leave Kiev on ‘the next plane’ this spring and subsequently removed from her post, with the State Department’s No. 2 official telling her that, though she had done nothing wrong, the president had lost confidence in her and the State Department had been under significant pressure to remove her since the summer of 2018.”

Yovanovitch revealed that the State Department had previously asked her to extend her tour until 2020 before abruptly recalling her less than two months later — contradicting the State Department’s previous claims.

Yovanovitch Opening Statement: “Finally, after being asked by the Department in early March to extend my tour until 2020, I was then abruptly told in late April to come back to Washington from Ukraine “on the next plane.”

FLASHBACK, May 2019: “A State Department spokesperson said on Monday Yovanovitch was ‘concluding her 3-year diplomatic assignment in Kyiv in 2019 as planned,’ when asked whether she was being recalled early.”

The reason she was forced out? A “concerted campaign” against her. Rudy Giuliani accused her of interfering in his efforts to investigate Trump’s political opponent, and his associates could’ve been financially threatened by her anti-corruption efforts.

Washington Post: “In explaining her departure, she acknowledged months of criticisms by Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani, who had accused her of privately badmouthing the president and seeking to protect the interests of former vice president Joe Biden and his son who served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company … She also took direct aim at Giuliani’s associates whom she said could’ve been financially threatened by her anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine.”

Yovanovitch warned that Trump’s abuse of power could spread chaos and have lasting impacts that only serve our adversaries, like Russia.

Yovanovitch Opening Statement: “We need to rebuild diplomacy as the first resort to advance America’s interests and the front line of America’s defense. I fear that not doing so will harm our nation’s interest, perhaps irreparably … The harm will come when private interests circumvent professional diplomats for their own gain, not the public good. The harm will come when bad actors in countries beyond Ukraine see how easy it is to use fiction and innuendo to manipulate our system. In such circumstances, the only interests that will be served are those of our strategic adversaries, like Russia, that spread chaos and attack the institutions and norms that the U.S. helped create and which we have benefited from for the last 75 years.”