'Get rid of her': Trump reportedly called for removal of Ukraine ambassador

Donald Trump told associates to “get rid” of then-US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, a year before she was recalled from Kyiv over what she called “unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives”, according to a recording released by ABC News.

The recording, details of which were reported by ABC News on Friday and a clip of which was later released, appears to have been made at a small 2018 gathering that included Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two former associates of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Parnas and Fruman have been indicted on campaign-finance charges and implicated in the Ukraine controversy, which lays at the heart of the ongoing impeachment trial against Trump.

“Get rid of her!” Trump is heard saying, in response to Parnas’ suggestion that they get rid of the Ukraine ambassador. “Get her out tomorrow. I don’t care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. OK? Do it.”

Related: Impeachment: Democrats focus on cover-up of alleged Ukraine aid scheme

A lawyer for Parnas told PBS the report of the recording was accurate, and matched his recollections of the meeting. Trump has repeatedly denied knowing Parnas, a Soviet-born American, who appears to speak to Trump directly in the recording, ABC News reported.

Federal prosecutors in New York’s southern district, which indicted Parnas and Fruman on the campaign finance related charges, have a copy of the recording, according to ABC.

News of the recording came as Democrats prepared to lay out the details of the second of two impeachment charges against Trump – abuse of power and obstruction of Congress – on Friday afternoon. House Democrats will then wrap up their arguments against the president, before Trump’s team will begin presenting its defense on Saturday.

Over the past week, Democrats have presented the case against Trump in the Senate trial. Evidence gathered by the impeachment inquiry shows Giuliani and his associates, including Parnas and Fruman, were part of an effort to press the Ukrainian president to investigate Trump’s political rival Joe Biden, and Biden’s son, on baseless corruption charges as well as a discredited theory that Ukraine, not Russia, meddled in the 2016 presidential election. Nearly $400m in US military aid to Ukraine was temporarily frozen during the same period.

Yovanovitch was abruptly recalled from her post in May after coming under attack from Giuliani, as he attempted to persuade Ukrainian officials to carry out the investigation.

The recording is not part of the evidence being presented at the impeachment trial. Negotiations are expected to resume next week on whether new documents could be examined and new witnesses called.

During the third full day of the impeachment trial on Thursday, the lead prosecutor, Adam Schiff, told senators that in the United States, “right matters” and “you know that what he did was not right”.

“You know you can’t trust this president to do what’s right for this country,” said Schiff. “You can only trust this president to do what’s right for Donald Trump.”

Quoting the national security aide Alexander Vindman, who testified in November in public hearings before the intelligence committee and whose family were Soviet refugees, Schiff urged that Trump be removed from office.

Dozens of video clips, reams of emails and text messages, and hours of narration were presented, but so far, all the signs are that Republicans are unmoved.

“It seems like Groundhog’s Day,” the Republican senator John Barrasso of Wyoming told reporters. “It is the same thing, day after day after day. As if you could impeach by repetition.”

Trump seems almost certain to be acquitted by the 100-member Senate, where there are 53 Republicans and where a two-thirds majority of those present is needed to convict and remove him from office. But the political impact of the trial remains uncertain.

On Friday Trump unleashed a stream of Twitter attacks against Democrats as the impeachment managers prepared for their final day of opening arguments, accusing them of spreading “lies, fraud & deception”.