Donald Trump launches Twitter attack on witness during her testimony

US President Donald Trump launched a Twitter attack on a former US ambassador to Ukraine on Friday while she was testifying to an impeachment hearing in Congress.

Marie Yovanovitch, a career diplomat, was explaining to the second day of televised impeachment hearings how she fought corruption in Ukraine and how the Trump administration pulled her back to Washington abruptly earlier this year. As Yovanovitch testified, Trump fired off his criticism on Twitter, a move Democrats labelled "real-time" witness intimidation.

 

“Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia, how did that go?" Trump asked. Adam Schiff, the Democrat chairing the hearing in the House Intelligence Committee, asked Yovanovitch for her reaction to the tweet. She said it was "very intimidating." "I can't speak to what the president is trying to do, but I think the effect is to be intimidating," she said.