Documents: Hyde talked of tracking ambassador

Documents released late Friday by House impeachment investigators in Washington show that Robert F. Hyde, a congressional hopeful from Simsbury, had further contact with President Donald Trump’s team that worked behind the scenes in the weeks before the U.S. ambassador to the Ukraine was abruptly recalled last year.

“It’s confirmed we have a person inside,” Hyde apparently wrote to Lev Parnas about contacts of Hyde’s in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine in March of last year. “Nothing has changed she is still not moving they

check today again,” an unpunctuated missive said.

The nearly two dozen additional documents are part of a trove of evidence surrounding Parnas, the indicted associate of Trump’s private attorney, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. The two Hyde files, contained on a thumb drive surrendered by Parnas to House investigators, further indicates that Hyde might have known people who were tracking U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch’s whereabouts in the

early spring of 2019.

While on Thursday night, in separate media interviews, both Hyde and Parnas said the exchange of texts were alcohol-fueled jokes, they have prodded the curiosity of investigators, including FBI agents who Thursday visited Hyde’s home and former landscaping business on South Main Street in Avon.

“Hey broski tell me what are we doing what’s the next step? She had visitors.” another Hyde message reads on the excerpt from Whatsapp, released by U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence

Committee.

Another message said “She been there since Thursday never left the embassy.”

“It’s confirmed she’s in the Ukraine,” said an accented voice in a brief audio, on another of the documents released by the Intelligence Committee to reporters.

Most of Hyde’s messages appear to have been sent in March, well before Trump recalled Yovanovitch, following a monthslong campaign by Giuliani and his associates to possibly subvert her authority, because she apparently opposed the president’s alleged campaign to persuade Ukrainian

officials to investigate Hunter Biden, the son of Joe Biden, a presumed Democratic opponent in the 2020 presidential.

By early May, Yovanovitch was fired. This week Ukrainian officials have begun an investigation into the possible spying operation.

“She had visitors,” another Hyde message reads. “Hey brother do we stand down??? or you still need intel be safe.”

Hyde on Friday night did not return a request for comment.

Hearst Connecticut Media Washington correspondent Emilie Munson contributed to this story.

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