Democrats worked methodically to portray Yovanovitch’s removal as the opening act of Trump’s impeachable abuse of power, suggesting the smears against her were in service of a sinister effort by Trump to pressure Ukraine to investigate his Democratic rivals.

Though Republicans noted that Trump has the authority to recall any ambassador at any time — a fact Democrats didn’t dispute — Yovanovitch left them with a question they similarly declined to address.

“I do wonder,” she mused, “why it was necessary to smear my reputation.”

If Yovanovitch’s testimony to impeachment investigators revealed anything, it’s that the president’s defenders didn’t share his limitless capacity to tear down his critics. Furthermore, the Republicans’ unwillingness or inability to undermine Yovanovitch’s narrative underscores the tremendous difficulty they face in mounting a factual defense against impeachment.

Republicans appeared particularly hamstrung by the sympathetic nature of a witness like Yovanovich, who has won virtually unanimous admiration from her colleagues in nearly every facet of the federal government, including among Trump’s own appointees.

One by one, Republicans praised Yovanovitch for her service, which includes 30 years handling some of the State Department’s most difficult postings.

“You're tough as nails and you're smart as hell,” said Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas). “You’re a great example of what our ambassadors should be like. You are an honor to your family. You are an honor to the foreign service. You are an honor to your country.”

“I appreciate your years of service and enduring years of moving around the world to dangerous places,” said Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), who sympathized with her abrupt removal by comparing it to his own sudden deployment to Iraq in 2005.

Lawmakers sat rapt while Yovanovitch described an almost cinematic tale of the circumstances of her ousting in May.

She had been hosting a ceremony at her home in Kyiv to commemorate an anti-corruption activist who had been attacked with acid and killed. Rumors of a “concerted campaign” by Giuliani and his allies to remove Yovanovitch had been circulating for months and had broken open publicly in recent weeks, but she had also just had her tour in Ukraine extended by another year.

That night, Yovanovitch got a call from a State Department official in Washington telling her that something suspicious was afoot and that there were ill-defined concerns about her security.

Yovanovitch never got an explanation of what those concerns were, she said, but added that the official told her to hop on the first plane back to the United States, which she did a few hours later.

Trump’s fiercest allies never sought to undercut Yovanovitch’s credibility or intentions.

Instead, they diverted their defense of the president away from Yovanovitch and toward broader questions about, say, Barack Obama’s Ukraine policies, or Rep. Adam Schiff’s handling of the impeachment inquiry.