Marie Yovanovitch, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, who testified last week in House impeachment inquiry hearings, was praised by six former ambassadors in new documents a watchdog released Friday. File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI |
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Nov. 23 (UPI) -- A watchdog has released nearly 100 pages of court-ordered documents showing communications between President Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Ukraine.
The new information corroborates Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland's allegations in testimony earlier this week that senior administration officials were "in the loop" on Trump and Giuliani's efforts to get Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden's family. It also backs up other witnesses testimony, including Kurt Volker, the former U.S. envoy for the Ukraine peace talks, and David Hale, top career diplomat at the State Department's testimony that Pompeo had communicated with Giuliani.
House Democrats said that Pompeo missed a deadline last month to hand over information despite subpoena. Pompeo has said scheduled depositions of State Department officials didn't allow enough time, and House Intelligence Committee leaders have accused him of "stonewalling" the impeachment inquiry.
An April 5 letter is also included in the released documents, which shows six former ambassadors raising concerns about smear campaign against then U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch before she was recalled from her post in May.
The documents also contain emails between Giuliani and Pompeo a couple months before Yovanovitch's firing, including one facilitated by Trump's assistant Madeline Westerhout.
And the documents also reveal that Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, was on Pompeo's call list a few days after Giuliani.
"We can see why Mike Pompeo has refused to release this information to Congress," Executive Director Austin Evers of the nonprofit watchdog American Oversight, which released the documents, said in a statement. "It reveals a clear paper trail from Rudy Giuliani to the Oval Office to Secretary Pompeo to facilitate Giuliani's smear campaign against a U.S. ambassador."
Evers added that the watchdog's ability to obtain these documents shows that there is "no legal basis" to block them from Congress and "shows that the administration is engaged in obstruction of justice."
The release comes amid CNN reporting that Lev Parnas, a recently indicted man who worked with Giuliani, would be willing to tell Congress that Nunes met with ex-official Ukrainian official to get dirt on Biden.
