Top Democrat demands probe of 'profoundly alarming' threats against former U.S. Ambassador Yovanovitch

Deirdre Shesgreen | USA TODAY

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WASHINGTON – A top House Democrat demanded an investigation Wednesday into new evidence suggesting that former U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was under surveillance by associates of Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump's personal lawyer.

The evidence emerged Tuesday when House Democrats released text messages and other documents gathered as part of the impeachment probe into Trump's efforts to pressure Ukraine for an investigation into a political rival.

The text messages reveal that an associate of Giuliani's, Lev Parnas, was in contact with Robert Hyde, a pro-Trump congressional candidate in Connecticut who claimed to have Yovanovitch under surveillance. Parnas worked with Giuliani to execute Trump's Ukraine pressure campaign.

In March, Parnas sent Hyde articles critical of Yovanovitch, to which Hyde responded, "Wow. can't believe Trumo [sic] hasn't fired this b****."

Hyde sent Parnas a series of messages suggesting he had hired people in Ukraine to surveil the ambassador and was getting updates about her whereabouts and activities.

“She’s talked to three people. Her phone is off. Computer is off,” Hyde wrote in one message. In another: “They will let me know when she’s on the move."

Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called the messages "profoundly alarming" and said he would demand documents and a briefing from State Department officials to find out what they knew, if anything, about the threats against Yovanovitch.

"The messages suggest a possible risk to Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch’s security in Kiev before she was recalled from her post last year," Engel said. Trump yanked her from the ambassador post early after Giuliani complained that she was obstructing efforts to get Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden.

"This unprecedented threat to our diplomats must be thoroughly investigated and, if warranted, prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Engel said.

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During her public testimony, Yovanovitch told lawmakers leading the impeachment investigation that she received an unexpected phone call last April from a top State Department official, who told her she needed to leave Ukraine on the next flight home.

"This is about your security. You need to come home immediately. You need to come home on the next plane,” Yovanovitch said she was told by Carol Perez, director general of the State Department's foreign service.

Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksy during a phone call July 25 that Yovanovitch was "bad news," adding that she was going to "go through some things."

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Giuliani also did not immediately respond to a message.

Giuliani accused Yovanovitch of being disloyal to Trump. Others said Giuliani wanted her out because her anti-corruption work in Ukraine was an impediment to Trump's efforts to pressure that country's leader to investigate Democratic presidential rival Biden and his son Hunter, who worked for the energy company Burisma Holdings.

"There was no basis for her removal," Fiona Hill, the Trump administration's former National Security Council senior director for Europe and Russia, told the House impeachment investigators during a deposition last fall. "The accusations against her had no merit whatsoever."