WASHINGTON — Former U.S. Rep. Bob Livingston of Metairie resigned from Congress amid scandal in 1999, but his behind-the-scenes role in the hottest story on Capitol Hill — the impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump — was brought to light with the testimony of a State Department employee this week.

Catherine Croft, a witness giving a behind-closed-doors deposition for the ongoing investigation into the Trump administration's dealings with Ukraine and a July call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, was expected to testify that Livingston pushed for the ouster of the American ambassador to Ukraine because of her association with Democrats, according to reports from the New York Times and other national media outlets.

“(Livingston) characterized Ambassador (Marie) Yovanovitch as an ‘Obama holdover’ and associated with George Soros,” Croft, a foreign service officer, was expected to say in opening statements in the closed-door hearing, according to the New York Times' report on the statement.

Livingston, 76, represented Louisiana's 1st Congressional district as a Republican from 1977 to 1999, when he resigned amid allegations of extramarital affairs, after helping lead the charge on then-President Bill Clinton's infidelities-focused impeachment.

Livingston didn't immediately respond to The Advocate's request for comment on the reports.

According to Croft's leaked opening testimony, she received several calls from Livingston, who said Yovanovitch should be fired.

"It was not clear to me at the time — or now — at whose direction or at whose expense Mr. Livingston was seeking the removal of Ambassador Yovanovitch," Croft was expected to testify.

Yovanovitch was fired earlier this year and testified this month that Trump was behind the push to remove her from her post.

The New York Times reported that it's unclear whether Livingston’s work, or those financing it, had any connection to efforts by two Americans with business interests in Ukraine now under scrutiny or to Trump's private lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.

U.S. House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, a Jefferson Republican who represents Livingston's former district, said he wasn't familiar with the details, but he didn't find it unusual that an ambassador would be replaced under a new administration.

"It's the way foreign policy has been done for years," Scalise said.

Read more from the New York Times here.

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