Marie Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine, was greeted with a standing ovation from the crowd at a Washington, D.C., jazz club on Sunday night, days after her dramatic congressional testimony in the impeachment inquiry into President Trump.
Lisa Dickey, an author, shared a video of the crowd at Blues Alley Jazz greeting Yovanovitch with cheers and calls of “thank you” as she made her way to her seat.
Dickey agreed with someone who replied to the tweet that the audience was in “awe” of Yovanovitch.
“I swear, if she had walked in with Beyonce, everyone would have screamed and run toward the Ambassador,” Dickey wrote on Twitter.
The video quickly went viral, raking in more than 685,000 views as of Monday morning.
The 33-year veteran of foreign service was thrust into the limelight in recent weeks as part of the Democrats’ investigation into Trump’s handling of foreign policy in Ukraine.
In a five-hour hearing on Friday, Yovanovitch was credited by members of both parties for her long tenure in public service. She spoke about how she was abruptly ousted as ambassador to Ukraine by the Trump administration in May and described an effort to discredit her.
Trump tweeted an attack on Yovanovitch during the hearing, and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) gave her an opportunity to respond.
“It’s very intimidating,” Yovanovitch said. “I can’t speak to what the president is trying to do, but I think the effect is to be intimidating.”
Audience members in the hearing room on Capitol Hill broke out into applause when she concluded her testimony.