Hill: ‘Often when women show anger it’s not fully appreciated’

Fiona Hill, the former National Security Council senior director for Europe and Russia, said she was “angry” with U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and had “a few testy encounters” with the ambassador. 

“I was actually, to be honest, angry with him,” Hill said during her public testimony on Thursday. 

“And I hate to say it, but often when women show anger it’s not fully appreciated, it’s often pushed off onto emotional issues, perhaps, or deflected on other people,” she added. 

Here’s Fiona Hill on why she thinks Sondland misunderstood her anger — and how women’s anger is often viewed, more generally: “It’s not fully appreciated. It’s often pushed off onto emotional issues.” pic.twitter.com/AsMR3A9InI

— Sarah Mimms (@mimms) November 21, 2019

Hill said she was angry that Sondland “wasn’t coordinating with us.” 

However, Hill said she realized after watching Sondland’s deposition on Wednesday that the ambassador was “absolutely right — he wasn’t coordinating with us because we weren’t doing the same thing.” 

She said Sondland seemed to be “involved in a domestic political errand,” whereas she was involved in “national security foreign policy.” 

“I had not put my finger on that at the moment, but I was angry with him and irritated with him that he wasn’t fully coordinating,” Hill said. “I did say to him, ‘Ambassador Sondland, Gordon, I think this is all going to blow up.’ And here we are.”