Yovanovitch says attacks on civil servants is leading to a crisis within the State Department.

“This is not a time to undercut our diplomats,” she said when discussing how unfilled positions and low morale impacts their work on foreign policy.

9:42 a.m.

Yovanovitch says corrupt individuals oversees found \"Americans willing to partner with them.\" And she is denying that she ever delivered a \"do not prosecute\" list to Ukraine's former prosecutor.In her opening statement she said U.S. \"anti-corruption efforts got in the way of a desire for profit or power,\" and \"Ukrainians who preferred to play by the old, corrupt rules sought to remove me.\"

\"What continues to amaze me is that they found Americans willing to partner with them and, working together, they apparently succeeded in orchestrating the removal of a U.S. Ambassador. How could our system fail like this? How is it that foreign corrupt interests could manipulate our government?\"

She says she doesn't understand Giuliani's motives for attacking her but believed they were \"suspect\" and came from people with \"questionable motives.\"

9:35 a.m.

Ambassador Marie “Masha” Yovanovitch is recalling the hardships of serving as a U.S. diplomat in foreign countries whose governments are often faltering and in situations are dangerous. On Ukraine, she is describing going to its “front line” multiple times “to show the American flag” and witness first hand the country’s attempts to fend off Russian aggression.

“The U.S. is the most powerful country in the history of the world, in large part because of our values,” she says.

\"The history is not written yet, but Ukraine could move out of Russia's orbit,\" she said.

9:33 a.m.

In her opening statement Ambassador Marie “Masha” Yovanovitch shared multiple times she worked in difficult posts as a Foreign Service officer, including incidents when a gunman attacked an embassy where she was serving and being caught in crossfire during an attempted coup in Russia.

“It took us three tries, me without a helmet or body armor,to get into a vehicle to go to the embassy. We went because the ambassador asked us to come,” she said.

Yovanovitch said that between August 2016 and May 2019 she visited the front lines between Ukraine and Russia ten times, saying she wanted to show the American flag and see how U.S. aid was being put to use.

GOP Reps. Stefanik, Conaway and Jordan repeatedly tried to interject after the opening statement from Nunes, raising \"points of order\" to question Schiff's actions in the last hearing.

He parried them all -- but a much feistier beginning to today's hearing - and much more GOP focus on the process, ABC News' Benjamin Siegel reports.

9:30 a.m.

The April call between Presidents Trump and Zelenskiy is mostly congratulatory around Zelenskiy’s win, according to the rough transcript released by the White House.

Republicans may claim, based on this, that the president invited Zelensky to the White House in their first conversation - which on the surface would seem to undermine the case that a meeting was being used as leverage for investigations.

“When you’re settled in and ready, I’d like to invite you to the White House...” Trump says according to the transcript.

Multiple witnesses have testified, however, that a meeting was in fact later dangled as leverage along with aid.

White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement to the pool: “The President will be watching Congressman Nunes’ opening statement, but the rest of the day he will be working hard for the American people.”

Former U.S. Amb. to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch is sworn in ahead of her testimony at the second public impeachment hearing.

Follow along for live updates and analysis: https://t.co/5l2kdn0RWn pic.twitter.com/OF3F5KZwQH

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) November 15, 2019

9:27 a.m.

Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif. is recounting the president's first phone call with Ukraine's president from April 21, which the White House released as the hearing began. In that call, the two presidents exchange pleasantries and the tone is very upbeat.

That early phone call is not at the heart of the ongoing investigation. It wasn't until later that the Pentagon and State Department approved nearly $400 million in military aid and Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani publicly floated an unsubstantiated theory that Ukraine -- not Russia -- meddled in the 2016 election. The military aid wasn't frozen until July, shortly before Trump's subsequent phone call to Ukraine's president.

Schiff swore in Ambassador Marie “Masha” Yovanovitch and she is giving her opening statement to the committee.

“I come before you as an American citizen who has spent the majority of my life – 33 years – to service to the country,” she says.

9:25 a.m.

Rep. Devin Nunes, R-California, is hitting many of the same notes as his opening statement on Wednesday, accusing Democrats of a maniacal focus of impeaching a \"duly-elected president,\" and trumpeting \"Second and third-hand information\" of diplomats rather than the \"the record\" of the president's phone call.

Nunes also is reading out the transcript of the first phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy -- which the White House happened to release as this hearing began.

9:24 a.m.

Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes, R-Calif. accuses Democrats of a double standard. He says they pursued the Russia investigation based on unsubstantiated foreign-based intelligence, but “ignore Ukrainian election meddling.”

“They are blind to the blaring signs of corruption,” surrounding Democrat Joe Biden’s son.

Nunes is dismissing the findings of U.S. intelligence in these statements. While some Ukrainian politicians did support Clinton over Trump in largely public ways, U.S. intelligence and a bipartisan Senate inquiry found that Russian operatives -- at the behest of their government -- engaged in a far more widespread, invasive and secretive campaign to sway voters in support of Trump.

On Biden, it is correct that Biden in 2016 pressured Ukraine to fire the prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, and threatened to withhold nearly $1 billion in U.S. aid if Shokin wasn't removed. But according to testimony by U.S. envoy Kurt Volker and others, Biden’s position was in line with U.S. policy and backed by other international powers that agreed Shokin was ignoring corruption and needed to go.

No evidence has surfaced that Joe Biden acted to help his son, nor that his Hunter Biden violated any laws, and the Bidens deny any wrongdoing.

9:22 a.m.

ABC News' Political Director Rick Klein notes a key passage from House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff's, D-Calif opening statement: “The question before us is not whether Donald Trump could recall an American ambassador with a stellar reputation for fighting corruption in Ukraine, but why would he want to?” The issue with that, though, is Republicans would argue it doesn’t matter, Klein says. He’s president, and gets to do things like this as he likes.

9:14 a.m.

Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes, R-Calif. criticized the hearings as “TV spectacles” in his opening statement, continuing Republican arguments that the impeachment inquiry is a distraction from other issues.

He said Democrats had already decided to impeach President Donald Trump before concerns about his July 25 call with Ukranian President Zelenskiy surfaced, saying they’re trying to fulfill their “Watergate fantasies.”

Nunes is accusing Democrats of trying to fulfill their \"Watergate fantasies.\" This is a reference to the investigation of President Richard Nixon. The California Republican says their \"whole case\" relies on \"second-hand\" and \"third-hand\" information.\"

9:09 a.m.

House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff, D-Calif. began the second public hearing in the impeachment inquiry.

Schiff described Yovanovitch as an “exemplary officer” in his opening statement. Yovanovitch is expected to address the circumstances around her departure from the post amid attacks in conservative media and by Ukraine's former public prosecutor, who accused her of giving him a \"do not prosecute\" list and blocking him from traveling to the U.S. to investigate Democrats after she publicly criticized the country's lack of progress in tackling corruption.

This description of Yovanovitch is intentional in making the case that Trump and his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, targeted her because she wasn't willing to play along.\"Why did Rudy Giuliani want her gone, and why would Trump?\" Schiff asked.

Rep. Schiff said the president shouldn't use his powers to \"destroy others to advance his personal or political interests.\"

Rep. Adam Schiff praises Marie Yovanovitch, ex-ambassador to Ukraine: "She is an exemplary officer who is widely praised and respected by her colleagues. She is known as an anti-corruption champion whose tour in Kyiv was viewed as very successful." https://t.co/APRDkqce3Q pic.twitter.com/SWyTmObHtt

— ABC News (@ABC) November 15, 2019

8:45 a.m.

Even as testimonies in Washington have filled in much of the back channel efforts to pressure Zelenskiy, Ukrainian officials have determinedly avoided contradicting Trump’s version of events.

Ukraine’s foreign minister on Thursday insisted that it has never understood the hold of the military aid was linked to Trump’s demands it investigate the Bidens, even as multiple testimonies from U.S. officials said the Ukrainians had known.

“I’ve never seen the direct link between any investigations and the military aid. Yes, the investigations were mentioned and you know it was mentioned in the phone conversation, but there was not the immediate direct link between these events,” Prystaiko told ABC News following a press conference in Kyiv.

“We didn’t discover the aid was being held up. What we discovered is that there was a review of this aid. I would say a couple of months ago. So we actually did not find that it was a very painful decision, we just waited until it was resolved.”

In reality, the standard review process he referred to had been completed months earlier. The officials who have testified have said they were baffled and alarmed by the hold on the aid by the White House because it had come after the review and there seemed to be no good reason for delaying it.

Prystaiko asserted Sondland had never told any Ukrainian officials that unlocking the aid was linked to the investigations, despite Sondland himself testifying earlier this month he had told a key advisor to Zelenskiy, Andriy Yermak, that on Sept. 1st.

“Ambassador Sondland didn’t tell us— and didn’t tell me for sure— that there is a connection between the aid and the investigations,” Prystaiko said. “You should ask him what he was recalling — I didn’t remember any of these conversations, at least not with me as minister of foreign affairs. If he had somebody else to talk to, it was not us, not official government.”

8:36 a.m.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch arrived on Capitol Hill ahead of her public testimony in the ongoing impeachment inquiry.

Background

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., on Wednesday said Yovanovitch was the target of a \"smear campaign\" by the president's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.

A Democratic official working on the impeachment inquiry described Yovanovitch, a veteran diplomat, as an \"anti-corruption champion\" who was \"targeted for doing her job.\"

She was removed from her post before the July phone call between President Donald Trump and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, but Democrats believe she could help highlight the efforts of Giuliani and other officials working in the \"irregular\" policy channel to pressure Ukraine to launch investigations into the Biden family and the 2016 election.

In her closed-door deposition, Yovanovitch, who is still a State Department employee, told lawmakers that she was targeted in a \"concerted campaign,\" and that she had done nothing wrong in her post.

\"I do not know Mr. Giuliani's motives for attacking me,\" she said in last month's closed-door deposition, according to a transcript of the closed-door hearing released by Democrats. \"But individuals who have been named in the press as contacts of Mr. Giuliani may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.\"

She also said she felt threatened after Trump mentioned her in the July phone call with Ukraine's leader -- telling Zelenskiy that she was \"bad news\" and was \"going to go through some things.\"

\"I didn't know what it meant,\" she said, according to the transcript of her testimony. \"I was very concerned. I still am.\"

Yovanovitch told investigators she was informed that the State Department would not issue a statement defending her because of concerns it would be undermined by the White House.

\"I was told there was caution about any kind of statement, because it could be undermined,\" she told lawmakers.

Several of Yovanovitch's former colleagues have vouched for her in both public and private impeachment depositions and hearings.

Michael McKinley, a former adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a career diplomat, told House investigators in a closed session on Oct. 16 that he resigned because of the State Department's unwillingness to defend career diplomats.

He also told lawmakers under oath he that approached Pompeo repeatedly to raise concerns about the lack of support for Yovanovitch and did not get a response.

\"From the time that Ambassador Yovanovitch departed Ukraine until the time that he came to tell me that he was departing, I never heard him say a single thing about his concerns with respect to the decision that was made,\" Pompeo said in an appearance on ABC's \"This Week\" on Oct. 20. \"Not once, George, did Ambassador McKinley say something to me during that entire time period.\"

Republicans have defended the removal of Yovanovitch, arguing that Trump was well within his rights as president to assign and remove U.S. ambassadors from overseas posts.

Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said in Wednesday's hearing that Trump \"very clearly has the constitutional authority\" to hire and fire ambassadors.

\"Most everybody apparently understands that, but it doesn't include House Democrats,\" he said.

Yovanovitch appears on the Hill after the release of a new report from the State Department inspector general on retaliation against career officials.

The report from the independent watchdog on Thursday found that senior agency officials appointed by Trump retaliated against a career employee because of her perceived national origin and political views, based off allegations in a conservative media article.

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