WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Thursday released the following statement ahead of the former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch’s planned testimony before the House Committees on Oversight, Foreign Affairs and Intelligence as part of the House impeachment inquiry:

“This is already a bombshell story that demands more answers and attention. The fact that a U.S. Ambassador was fired after a pressure campaign based on illegal campaign contributions is a major new element of an already extraordinary story of corruption. My biggest question remains: where did these two guys get their money and who masterminded this operation? This is the kind of thing a normal State Department—and Congress—would investigate thoroughly. In the coming days, I will be writing to the Department of State to demand answers. I also believe that the House investigators should ask Ambassador Yovanovitch whether she knows why these two men, or the figure behind their operation, wanted her gone so badly. She may have key answers to these questions,” said Murphy.

In May and following reports that Rudy Giuliani was traveling to Ukraine, Murphy sent a letter to U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch to submit an official congressional inquiry to the Trump administration about why a private citizen was traveling to Ukraine to work with a foreign government in a Trump campaign re-election effort. After news broke of the whistleblowers complaint, Murphy again sent a letter to the Chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee U.S. Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho) to open an investigation into the matter. This week, Murphy also joined his colleagues on the Foreign Relations Committee in urging Chairman Risch to convene hearings on the Trump-Ukraine scandal.

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