FBI investigating Hyde’s actions

Mystery deepens over state man’s involvement with Ukraine

SIMSBURY — Insider or fabulist, international Trump operative or expletive-slinging social climber, one thing can’t be taken away from Robert Finley Hyde, a wannabe congressional hopeful who insinuated himself into the Ukraine scandal and the president’s impeachment.

Hyde had inside knowledge of the administration’s desire to replace the U.S. ambassador.

In private, social media exchanges with now-indicted Trump operative Lev Parnas dating back to March, released this week by House Democrats,

Hyde clearly was aware of Trump inner-circle concerns with then-Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch — months before the issue burst into the news.

Hyde then wrote messages to Parnas that appeared to show he was tracking the whereabouts of Yovanovitch on behalf of President Donald Trump’s back-channel operations, led by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

Was that a joke between two alcohol-fueled political operatives? That’s what Hyde said Wednesday night in a conservative media interview, and what Parnas said, also Wednesday night, in an interview with the liberal MSNBC host Rachel Maddow.

Federal investigators aren’t treating it as a joke. They visited Hyde’s Simsbury home and his Avon office on Thursday morning. Was Hyde, a former landscaper and construction contractor, really involved in international espionage?

If he was, that could affect Trump’s upcoming impeachment trial in the

U.S. Senate.

Experts and political insiders acquainted with Hyde and with cybersecurity and intelligence said Hyde would have neither the contacts nor the clout to spy on Yovanovitch in the weeks before Trump recalled her last April.

“I always thought this guy was full of B.S. from the beginning,” said Dick Foley, a longtime state GOP consultant who has occasionally met Hyde at various political events. “I don’t think this guy could surveil a dead person. This never struck me as something he could do. The world is full of dreamers and for Democrats to put any stock in this guy at all is to mislead themselves tremendously.”

No one just waltzes into Kiev and starts conducting surveillance, said Arthur House, a former military intelligence officer and head of cybersecurity for the state of Connecticut under former Gov. Dannel Malloy.

“You don’t wander around Kiev for crying out loud, freelancing intelligence operations,” House said Thursday. “The Russians would track you, the Ukrainians would track you, the Americans would track you.”

House, who was in Kiev on security-related business in 2016, agrees with the fantasy theory.

“An awful lot of people have a modern novel or a James Bond sense of what intelligence does,” House said. “It is a field that is given to fantasies and you do see people who are not all that tightly wrapped imagining themselves in a cloak-and-dagger escapade, and celebrating it and bragging about it when nothing happened.”

Perhaps not coincidentally, Hyde, a 40-year-old decorated veteran of six years with the Marines Corps, was asked by Ballotpedia to name the fictional character he would most like to be. His answer: James Bond, 007.

In Washington, there’s even more skepticism on Hyde’s credibility, tempered with a need to get to the truth.

“This guy is a blow-hard,” said U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-4. “He’s outrageous. He’s a disgusting human being. Even the head of the Connecticut Republican party is making that argument.”

Behind the bluster, however, there might have been nuggets of facts of Trump’s agenda against Yovanovitch, who was seen as an opponent to

the president’s attempt to push Ukraine into investigating former Vice President Joe Biden’s son.

One expert in political operations suggested that Hyde was participating in a farce — but that Parnas might have actually thought Hyde was tracking Yovanovitch.

“My gut tells me it was a schemer scheming a schemer,” the person said.

In that scenario, Parnas thought he was a real contact and Hyde was trying to somehow collect a payday — a theory supported by Hyde mentioning money in at least one message.

All of which demands more digging.

“I think it is likely that he is showing off and bloviating,” Himes said of Hyde. “But the subject matter is so very serious that it has to be investigated, certainly by law enforcement. If there is a U.S. citizen who is in some way indirectly affiliated with the White House — maybe it goes Giuliani, Parnas, Hyde — that’s about as serious as it gets, particularly since there were threats, veiled threats.”

In the communications with Parnas, Hydes used explicit language disparaging the ambassador, with references to spying on her actions.

“From a law enforcement and security stand point – that’s why I say my opinion doesn’t matter – you check these things out,” Himes said. “Again, the other piece of this is: The president associates with these terrible people. Manafort, Gates, Stone, Cohen, it goes on and on and on. Those are just the ones who are in jail right now. All of the sleaze that surrounds the president is really horrifying. We’ve just become dulled to the fact that the most powerful man in the world is surrounded by people like this.”

United States Rep. Val Demmings, D-FL, a member of the House Intelligence

“This guy is a blow-hard. He’s outrageous. He’s a disgusting human being. Even the head of the Connecticut Republican party is making that argument.” U.S. Rep. Jim Himes

Committee and a House impeachment manager, said in an interview that he didn’t want to parse whether Hyde was drunk, as Parnas said, or joking, as Hyde said in an interview on the conservative Sinclair network.

“I’m not going to get into that, but the text messages speak for themselves. That’s why documentation is so important. What were the circumstances? What was the Mr. Hyde’s motivations, conditions, all of those things?”

“I don’t know if he was drunk, said U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill, of Hyde’s behavior portrayed by Parnas. “But I certainly believe that based on the fact that the night that (Yovanovitch) was called to depart Ukraine, she was told there were security concerns about her and now we’re seeing this follow up information. I actually think there should be an inquiry done. People should find out what the heck happened. Who was in the embassy helping with the surveillance?”

On Thursday afternoon, after federal agents left his home, Hyde posted a simple Twitter post: an image of the American flag.

Hydeforcongress.com / TNS Robert F. Hyde, left, with President Donald Trump in an undated photo Hyde provided. Hyde, a Republican candidate for Congress in the 5th District, has come under fire for offensive remarks and has emerged as a figure in Trump’s Ukraine operation.