Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Ambassador Yovanovitch and the Kubuki Dance

Marie Yovanovitch typifies the type of resistance that President Trump faces at the State Department.

During the hearings she was asked to relate a question she was provided when prepping to go before her confirmation hearing as Ambassador to Ukraine. The question was essentially, how she should answer if asked about her knowledge of the Bidens, specifically Hunter's appointment to the board of a Ukrainian energy company. The answer she was prepped to give was essentially that she knew nothing and suggest the board members refer the matter to the Vice President's office if they wanted to know more.

What this shows is that the Biden involvement with Ukraine was known and that it represented a serious conflict of interest. While she was coached to answer as described above it is not clear the question was ever raised. What this showed was that bureaucrats in the State Department were very concerned that the subject might come up and Ambassador Yovanovitch was instructed on how to best respond.

At the very least this should have raised a red flag in her mind as this was clearly a very sensitive matter and that Vice President Biden was vulnerable to claims of nepotism and conflict of interest. It happens that Yovanovitch was aware of the simmering controversy as she and earlier witnesses related in their testimony.

So she knows this is an issue and that it has generated serious concerns at the State Department. Biden does not make matters any easier when he goes on a recorded video tape declaring how he personally intervened in getting a Ukrainian Prosecutor fired after threatening to withhold over a billion dollars in aid. The prosecutor, it is alleged, was closing in on a bribery scheme that involved Biden and his son.

Now anyone who thinks the State Department is not partisan is delusional. It is without a doubt the most partisan of all the cabinet agencies. The Agency is a bastion of anti-Trump sentiment.

So as Ambassador Yovanovitch continued in her testimony she quotes a truism that nobody can really argue with.

It was penned in 1948 by Arthur Vandenberg a Republican senator from Michigan. He immortalized a line, "We must stop politics at the water's edge."

What this means is that once diplomats go beyond the shores of the United States, they need to show a united foreign policy and not allow internal political differences to create a divided front. Anyone who read "The Godfather" should be familiar with this concept and the dangers it embodies. The question we have to ask is why Vandenberg felt compelled to utter these immortal words? He felt obliged, because he knew partisanship was a real problem and wanted it to stop overseas. Unfortunately, these things never really stop once they become part of an organization's culture. Once imbedded in the DNA at the State Department, "partisanship" has in the past and continues to rear its ugly head. The quote of Vandenberg by Yovanovitch is more a cover than a guiding principle. The Democrats are desperate for two reasons.. First, they want to protect Biden because he was a corrupt Vice President and could well become their nominee in 2020. Second because The State Department and the Ukrainian Embassy were up to their neck in partisan shenanigans. The evidence is out there, Rudy Giuliani is closing in and those political operatives from the State Department are desperate to cover it up. Ironically the strategy they are using is projecting onto President Trump the sins of the Obama administration. It is not an easy sell. Obama said, "Let them eat Cake." Trump delivered on providing Javelin missiles. The Democrats have a ready ally at the State Department and there is no shortage of partisan diplomats they can roll out as the need arises. Words of Wisdom that sound so very wise, often paint a false picture.

It is an understatement to say a "Soft Coup" has been underway to unseat a duly elected president since Trump won in 2016. The consequences of this unrelenting partisan battle have been ongoing ever since. Marie Yovanovitch was raised in the culture and cannot deny its influence. Now the real question becomes, was Yoanoavitch an active participant or unaware of details of the cover operation to protect Joe and Hunter Biden and the larger pervasive plot to destroy the Trump Administration.

Now much has been said in these impeachment proceedings about the use of a "regular" and an"irregular channel in the carrying out of foreign policy. What this means is, that the regular channel is the one that the embassy uses in its day to day work and the irregular channel is located one tier up at the State Department. In most Embassies Ambassadors have more control that Marie had because most countries overseas have not used their intelligence agencies to influence an American election. Normally Ambassadors exercise more foreign policy influence. In the past, however, the Ukrainian embassy was used for partisan purposes. It became a clearing house for anti-Trump propaganda. The Ukrainians were desperate, and fighting for their lives. They needed United States political support and Foreign aid. They were forced to do some bad things to get it. They allowed their Intelligence Services to be highjacked to influence a foreign election. As a consequence their behavior has been used to fuel corruption claims that tarnish an already, less than stellar, reputation.

There are however, Embassies, which because of the scope of their work and the potential for affecting higher level foreign policy that get a dose of the irregular channel. In this channel, ambassadors, higher in the hierarchy, monitor and sometimes intervene in what the lower level Ambassador sees as "regularly" their turf and who resent getting pushed out of the way in matters of policy. Most of the time this doesn't happen, but in sensitive postings like Ukraine it does. Without a doubt Ambassador Yovanovitch resented being cut out of the loop in certain operational matters but had to accept it as a fact of life. She should have realized that her ambassadorship was going to get plenty of oversight regardless, of what she thought was best.

So these are the two channels, termed the "regular" and "irregular." However, for Yovanovitch there were two additional channels she had to cope with. To understand how these worked the layman has to understand how a staff/cabinet, at least in theory, is supposed to work.

The idea of a staff surely existed in some form or another prior to Frederick The Great. However, this is where the idea solidified and took the form we now know. It was a military staff that was conceived because the scope and complexity of modern war had gone beyond the capability of most commanders to manage. So generals were given some assistance in areas such as Personnel, Intelligence, Operations, Logistics and Command and Signal. The reason for a staff was to serve two functions. First it would help the commander decide what was best, and second, once that was determined to insure the optimal course of action was implemented. It turned out that a staff was much more effective, in most cases, then the average general and so leaders trained in the art of war, who went on to serve in political life, often brought this staff idea with them. What was termed a staff in military parlance became Cabinet in political speak.

Move on now to how "Best" is determined. It is a process attributed to the Greeks for determining the optimal solution to a problem. It begins with defining the problem in broad terms, so the solution window allows for a range of options. Next Facts and Assumptions are identified. Next, discreet courses of action are proposed. These courses are examined to determine which one is optimal. Finally the best one is picked or elements of one or more amalgamated into what is felt to be the ideal approach.

This understanding brings us back to what Ambassador Yovanovitch described as a "regular" and an "irregular channel." Actually there are four channels in the case involving the Ukrainian Embassy. The third channel is the President's independent assessment and a forth is a Trusted Advisor's Channel. In the problem solving process, all four of these are happening routinely and in concert with one another. For this to be ignored and overlooked by the State Department's "Fact Witnesses" is a startling omission. The Iranian Embassy under President Obama, saw Valery Jarrett plop right down in the middle of things. Robert E. Lee depended on his trusted advisor, General Stonewall Jackson for his opinion and input. It is not uncommon for a President to seek advice outside himself or his staff. It has plenty of precedent and a staff/cabinet , hates to see it used. Ambassador Yovanovitch would have naturally preferred the regular channel. She would have been a bit irritated by the irregular channel because it meant operational decision-making of was being pulled up to a higher State Department level. She would have been deeply concerned to have the President exercising his decision-making authority and would have deplored the fact that the President's trusted advisor was becoming deeply involved in the process. That is "Tough Grits." What she was relegated to was little more than the Embassy administrator performing the housekeeping duties of every day Embassy life. This was not what she'd signed up for, this was not what her thirty-three of experience had prepared her for and it irked her when her input was not helping shape the operational policy making.

At this point understand that Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch had been regulated to the role of what in the military would be described as the Headquarter's Company Commander. Company command is a necessary ticket punch but operational or Line Companies are the better career assignment postings. It was not a role she relished. Her superiors felt that given her inexperience as a high profile Ambassador, she needed help. It wasn't that she was a bad ambassador and probably would have been fine at some low profile third world embassy but she would definitely need some help in the Ukraine. She was
not a strong presence as soon became apparent. As the testimony showed, she failed to stand up for the President when OPEDS about her boss began appearing. She should have stepped in and squelched that kind of talk. General McCrystal was fired by President Obama for pretty much the same thing. If you recall, his staff was referring to VP Biden as "Bite Me." She did nothing..... "NO No, No? she answered when questioned if she asserted herself as these slurs began surfacing. It wasn't that she did anything wrong but rather that she was not taking the proactive action to make things right, that is to shut down these divisive partisan expressions, bandied about "beyond our shores" and nip them in the bud. In the questioning she seemed clueless of why she'd been sacked. She repeatedly asked her superiors what she'd done wrong. She was expected to have the President's back but due to her upbringing in the culture of the State Department that thought probably never entered her mind. So it is no surprise that nobody could point to anything specifically wrong in her tenure but then again it appeared she was running a "Loose Ship." Second, there was the issue that not only was she not proactively supporting her boss but it was being said that she was "Badmouthing" him. One allegation was that she told a counterpart that he need not worry about President Trump because he would soon be impeached." Perhaps this is untrue, but somebody at the embassy was doing it and the buck, as with McCrystal, stops at the ambassador's desk. However, even this would not have gotten her fired. The more serious allegation was that she submitted a list naming people who were not to be prosecuted. Now again maybe she didn't personally do this but it appears that, at the very least, somebody on her staff did. It goes something like this..... "Listen Mr. Ukrainian, President's like Trump come and go but we are always going to be here. If you know what's best you better take heed..."

The story goes that Ambassador Yovanovitch was a point-woman in the war against corruption and when you jump into that fray you are liable to "Piss people off." I submit to you that the Ambassador was no such threat to the corrupt powers to be in Ukraine. The closest she came to that was a session to commemorate a real fallen Ukrainian hero, who did in fact "Piss Off" some powerful people in the war on corruption. Most Ukrainian officials probably can' t even tell you who Yovanovitch is. What "pissed off" these "Corrupt Officials" was the sheer duplicity, the double standard of what was going on under the table. On the one hand the Embassy was badmouthing President Trump and Ukrainian corruption while with the other was back channelling, "do not prosecute" names of various high profile Individuals. I submit that it was the sheer hypocrisy that was "Pissing People Off." The Embassy went to great lengths to disparage Ukrainian officials, who they accuse of a smear campaign to take out a selfless ambassador... a true champion in the war against corruption. This is baloney! What Rudy Giuliani and the President have come to realize is that the current administration's efforts to direct foreign policy are being continuously sandbagged by our own disgruntled diplomats, motivated by spite and the need to cover up the misdeeds of the Obama Administration.