Ambassador Laurie Fulton comments on the letter she and more than 50 other female ambassadors signed calling on the Trump administration to protect foreign service officers from political retaliation in the wake of Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch's dismissal. Watch on CNN.
Quotes from the interview:
"We are a group of women ambassadors serving America and we wrote in support of Ambassador Yovanovitch because she is a very well-respected diplomat and the way she has been treated is not only personally offensive to me to watch this happen to a diplomat that I respect but it undermines our system of American foreign policy and the career foreign service and I think that’s just way out of line. I know Ambassador Yovanovitch. During the last half of my tenor in Denmark she was the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs which made her one of my primary contacts at the Department of State. I always found her to be intelligent, prepared, responsive and extremely dedicated to the American point of view. So I was pleased to join my fellow women ambassadors and support Ambassador Yovanovitch and I look forward to hearing more about her testimony next week."
"Now I was in Ukraine on the 21st of April the day Zelensky was elected president. I was there as part of an election monitoring team with the National Democratic Institute. International Republican Institute was with us and we were briefed prior to the balloting by Ambassador Yovanovitch who was the ambassador then. She was extremely well prepared, she was perfect. And then a few weeks later after I’m back in the United States I see that she has been dismissed from her post and I was astounded. My initial reaction this is bad for the United States. Why would we, after a new president in Ukraine has been elected, a president with no political experience, why would we pull our extremely dedicated and terrific ambassador? Why would we do that? That does not benefit United States’ interest. So I’m dismayed that it happened and I think that it undermines our career foreign service."
"As you say I know Bill Taylor and he is again dedicated to American interests and dedicated to diplomacy and he is as bright as they come. He’s not going to misunderstand what’s going on. We don’t have all of the texts here, we have whatever these few are. His position his extremely revealing to me, that he understands that the United States is now trying to make military assistance to Ukraine contingent upon the new president saying that he will investigate, an investigation that benefits President Trump politically. I’m astounded."
"I’ve never seen anything like this. I confess I do not quite understand Rudi Juliani’s role with the President, I certainly do not understand his role visavi Ukraine or United States foreign policy at all. I’ve never seen anything like this."
Ambassador Laurie Fulton served as U.S. Ambassador to Denmark from 2009 to 2013. As Ambassador, she managed U.S. relations with Denmark in areas related to national security, counter-terrorism, arctic policy, piracy, and international law enforcement, among others.
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