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READ: Testimony Of Top State Department Official David Hale

By Elena Moore
Published November 18, 2019 at 8:39 PM EST
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale departs the U.S. Capitol after giving a closed-door deposition to the House committees conducting the impeachment inquiry into President Trump on Nov. 6.
Chip Somodevilla
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Getty Images
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale departs the U.S. Capitol after giving a closed-door deposition to the House committees conducting the impeachment inquiry into President Trump on Nov. 6.

House committees have released the transcript of David Hale's testimony before the impeachment inquiry.

Hale, the under secretary of state for political affairs, is the third-highest-ranked official at the State Department. He allegedly knew about the White House's push to recall Marie Yovanovitch from her post as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.

Hale reportedly told investigators during his Nov. 6 closed-door deposition that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and others at the State Department were reluctant to speak in support publicly of Yovanovitch because they feared it might have delayed the release of U.S. military assistance to Ukraine. He also said President Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani played a significant role in pushing Yovanovitch out.

Read Hale's testimony here.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Elena Moore
Elena Moore is a production assistant for the NPR Politics Podcast. She also fills in as a reporter for the NewsDesk. Moore previously worked as a production assistant for Morning Edition. During the 2020 presidential campaign, she worked for the Washington Desk as an editorial assistant, doing both research and reporting. Before coming to NPR, Moore worked at NBC News. She is a graduate of The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and is originally and proudly from Brooklyn, N.Y.
See stories by Elena Moore
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