Pompeo: Allegations of threats won’t stick
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday broke nearly 72 hours of silence over alleged surveillance and threats to the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, saying he believed that the allegations would prove to be wrong but that he had an obligation to evaluate and investigate the matter.
In interviews with conservative radio hosts, Pompeo said he had no knowledge of the allegations until earlier this week, when congressional Democrats released documents from an associate of President Donald Trump’s personal attorney suggesting that Marie Yovanovitch was being watched. He also said he did not know and had never met Lev Parnas, the associate of Rudy Giuliani who made the claims.
The documents provided by Parnas suggested that there may have been a threat to Yovanovitch shortly before she was abruptly recalled last spring.
“We will do everything we need to do to evaluate whether there was something that took place there,” Pompeo said in a radio interview with Tony Katz, an Indianapolis-based broadcaster. “I suspect that much of what’s been reported will ultimately prove wrong, but our obligation, my obligation as secretary of state, is to make sure that we evaluate, investigate.”
House Democrats on Friday evening released a new batch of messages from Parnas that added to the questions about the ambassador’s security. In them, an unidentified individual with a Belgian country code appears to describe Yovanovitch’s movements.
“Nothing has changed she is still not moving checked today again,” the individual wrote in one message, later adding, “it’s confirmed we have a person inside.”
The ouster of Yovanovitch as ambassador is central to the impeachment inquiry into Trump. At the time, Trump’s allies were trying to have Yovanovitch, who was seen as a roadblock to opening an investigation of Hunter and Joe Biden, removed from her post. She was recalled in late May.