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Envoy refused to hang Trump’s photo

President Donald Trump has pilloried an envoy who testified in the impeachment inquiry, claiming she refused to hang his photo in the US embassy in Ukraine.

Mr Trump told Fox News’ morning show former ambassador Marie Yovanovitch “didn’t want to hang my picture in the embassy” in Ukraine.

The president did not offer further details about the matter.

Ms Yovanovitch testified last week that she was fired over “false claims” by people with “questionable motives”.

She was one of 12 witnesses to testify over the last two weeks in the impeachment inquiry, which is looking into alleged abuse of power by the president.

In a phone call to Fox and Friends on Friday morning, Mr Trump referred to Ms Yovanovitch as “the woman” and said he had heard “bad things about her”.

“This ambassador, who everybody says was so wonderful,” Mr Trump said, “she wouldn’t hang my picture in the embassy.

“She’s in charge of the embassy, it took, like, a year and a half, two years.”

He added that his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, “didn’t say good things” about her.

Mr Giuliani has come up repeatedly in the impeachment hearings as witnesses say he pursued an irregular channel of US-Ukraine relations.

“She said bad things about me, she wouldn’t defend me, and I have the right to change the ambassador,” Mr Trump added.

“The standard is you put the president of the United States’ picture in the embassy,” he continued. “This was not an angel, this woman, OK?”

It was not the first time the president has attacked Ms Yovanovitch.

The Republican president lambasted her in a tweet while she was testifying last Friday – a move that Democrats argued amounted to witness intimidation.

A career diplomat, Ms Yovanovitch was recalled as the American ambassador to Kyiv in May, two months before a phone call between Mr Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that is at the heart of the congressional inquiry that may seek to remove the US president from office.

A rough transcript of July’s call revealed that Mr Trump urged President Zelensky to investigate unsubstantiated allegations against Democratic White House contender Joe Biden and claims of 2016 election meddling. -BBC

The president spent a significant portion of Friday’s television interview discussing a conspiracy theory that it was Ukraine – not Russia – meddling in the US 2016 presidential election.

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