Marie Yovanovitch , the former American ambassador to Ukraine, told impeachment investigators in a closed-door interview that a top State Department official told her that President Trump had pushed for her removal even though the department believed she had “done nothing wrong.”

Ms. Yovanovitch said people associated with Rudy Giuliani , Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, “may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.”

Gordon Sondland, the American ambassador to the European Union, like Ms. Yovanovitch, agreed to comply with a House subpoena and testify, defying a State Department order not to appear.

What Marie Yovanovitch is thinking

Ms. Yovanovitch delivered her searing account before Congress at the risk of losing her job, since the White House has ordered officials not to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry. This afternoon I stopped by the desk of Sharon LaFraniere, who has written about Ms. Yovanovitch, to discuss why the former ambassador to Ukraine was so intent on speaking out.

Sharon, how unusual was her participation? And how unusual was her testimony?

She testified despite a White House declaration that there would be no more cooperation with Congress. She’s acting in defiance of the White House. Her testimony today was a really damning indictment of how the Trump administration is conducting foreign policy. She warned against people who in search of personal gain or private influence undermined the work of American government officials and threatened the policy goals of the United States. And on top of all that, she said the State Department is being hollowed out from within, because diplomats don’t feel the government has their back.

What does she know that House Democrats want to know?

She seemed to suggest that businesspeople who are allies of Rudy Giuliani may have orchestrated this campaign to get her out for their own private gain. Was she removed because she was standing in the way of some sort of quid pro quo deal that the White House was planning to execute? Did they see her as unwilling to play ball in what might have been a corrupt game? Those are the questions impeachment investigators want to answer.