Barack Obama fired all ambassadors appointed by former President George W. Bush in 2008

Shelby Talcott reports in the Daily Caller,

The former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch testified Friday about President Donald Trump firing her amid an alleged “smear campaign,” but firing ambassadors appointed by former presidents is commonplace.

Former President Barack Obama fired all ambassadors appointed by former President George W. Bush in 2008, The Washington Post previously reported. Yovanovitch testified Friday that the Trump administration, including the president’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, “kneecapped” her. She said State Department leaders did not support her after being recalled in May.

“Political ambassadors sometimes are permitted to stay on briefly during a new administration, but the sweeping nature of the directive suggests that Obama has little interest in retaining any of Bush’s ambassadorial appointees,” WaPo’s 2008 article about Obama’s decision to fire all political ambassadors reads.

Yovanovitch was appointed by Obama in 2016, and newly elected presidents typically re-vamp the positions with their own choices once taking office. Yovanovitch was allowed to stay on for three years after Trump took office, but has testified that senior officials “declined to acknowledge” the “smear campaign” against her leading up to her firing, Politico reported.

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