A foreign policy of ‘threats, fear and confusion’
WASHINGTON — She was threatened and intimidated, but was former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch also under surveillance?
Congress, the State Department, Ukrainian police and reportedly the Federal Bureau of Investigations are all examining the possible dangers faced by Yovanovitch, whose abrupt removal from Kiev by President Donald Trump was a key element of the impeachment inquiry. And there are new indications this week that a probe by the House Foreign Affairs Committee is advancing.
Yovanovitch, who grew up in Kent, Conn., was a veteran diplomat when she received a call from the U.S. State Department telling her to immediately return to the United States in late April 2019.
She was viewed as an impediment to Trump’s efforts to get political information on his rivals and after a series of claims from Trump associates that she was badmouthing the president, Yovanovitch was told Trump no longer wanted her to work at the U.S. embassy in Kiev, she said.
After testifying against the president in the impeachment inquiry, Yovanovitch retired from the State Department on January 31.
In her first public appearance since her exit, Yovanovitch was honored with an award for Excellence in the Conduct of Diplomacy at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Wednesday. She said the State Department “is in trouble.”
"To be blunt, an amoral, keep-'em-guessing foreign policy that substitutes threats, fear and confusion for trust cannot work over the long haul," Yovanovitch said.
In January, the House Intelligence Committee, that led the impeachment inquiry, released text messages that raised the possibility that Trump associates may have conducted physical or electronic surveillance of Yovanovitch before she left Kiev.
The text messages exchanged by Lev Parnas and Connecticut congressional candidate Robert Hyde include chilling details like “She under heavy protection outside Kiev,” and “They are moving her tomorrow.”
They remind us of a line from Yovanovitch’s testimony to Congress in October: before she left Kiev, Yovanovitch was warned by a Ukrainian minister, whom the president’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani contacted, that “I really needed to watch my back.”
Hyde and Parnas both deny any real surveillance of the ambassador was occurring. Hyde has suggested he was just a middle-man passing on messages from a Dutch man Anthony De Caluwe, who has since sued Hyde for alleged defamation. Hyde filed his own complaint for alleged libel and slander against De Caluwe, as well as a request for a temporary restraining order against De Caluwe in court in Washington, D.C. on Monday.
Hyde also filed eight other complaints that day against individuals he said made false allegations against him or from whom he is seeking to get reimbursement for sums of money spent at the Trump International Hotel in Washington.
But more importantly, Hyde, a Republican running in the 5th District, said this week he has shared correspondence exchange between himself and Parnas with the House Foreign Affairs Committee and spoken to the committee staff or members.
When asked what he gave the congressional committee, Hyde told The Daily Beast: “Everything that I had between Parnas and I.”
He did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Hearst Connecticut Media. A spokesman for the House Foreign Affairs Committee also declined to comment.
After reading the HydeParnas
texts, chairman of the committee Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., said in a statement January 15 that he would start a probe of the matter, including requests for documents from senior State Department officials.
“The messages suggest a possible risk to Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch’s security in Kyiv before she was recalled from her post last year,” Engel wrote. “These threats occurred at the same time that the two men were also discussing President Trump’s efforts, through Rudy Giuliani, to smear the ambassador’s reputation.”
It’s unclear how far the House Foreign Affairs
Committee probe will go and when their findings may become public.
So far, we have no public conclusions from the investigations other entities have undertaken. Buzz Feed News reported in late January that State Department investigators interviewed diplomats and employees at the U.S. embassy in Ukraine to try to get to the bottom of the alleged surveillance effort.
Ukrainian police also said they opened an investigation into the matter in January. The Federal Bureau of Investigations visited Hyde’s home and business that month.