Washington • President Donald Trump is nominating the No. 2 official at the State Department to be the next U.S. ambassador to Russia.
Trump announced Friday that he’s picked John Sullivan, deputy secretary of state, for the post. He’ll replace Jon Huntsman who announced in August that he was resigning and returning home to Utah.
Sullivan, who held senior positions in the Justice, Defense and Commerce departments in both Bush administrations, was mentioned Friday in former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch's deposition to the Democrats' impeachment inquiry.
She said Sullivan was the one who told her that her tenure in the job was being curtailed. Yovanovitch says Sullivan told her Trump had been pressuring the State Department to remove her since the summer of 2018. She left Ukraine in May.
Editor’s note : Jon Huntsman’s brother Paul Huntsman is the owner and publisher of The Salt Lake Tribune.