The U.S. State Department has released about 100 pages of documents related to Ukraine and the activities of the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump involving the country.
The trove of documents sheds further light on the communications that took place between multiple Ukrainian and U.S. individuals that led to the current Trump impeachment inquiry.
The State Department was required to hand them over following the outcome of court proceedings in which the American Oversight watchdog sought their release. The watchdog is looking into the motives and methods involved in Trump policy toward Ukraine.
Documents obtained by the watchdog include emails, scheduled appointments, telephone call records, letters, and photographs of top US officials from the State Department, including members of congress, and former U.S. ambassadors to Ukraine.
According to American Oversight “the production includes emails that confirm multiple contacts in March of 2019 between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani.”
American Oversight’s executive director Austin Evers explained: “This is just the first round of disclosures. The evidence is only going to get worse for the administration as its stonewall strategy collapses in the face of court orders.”
The documents show that private attorney to Trump, Rudy Giuliani, spoke on the phone to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Mar. 26, 2019 during four minutes and another telephone conversation was scheduled for March 29, 2019. Pompeo’s staffers allotted 20 minutes for that talk.
Yet another document reports on the telephone interview with Ukraine’s former Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, which was held by Giuliani and his associates Igor Fruman, Lev Parnas, and George Boyle on Jan. 23, 2019.
In the conversation Shokin appears to have spoken about his dismissal, claiming it was at the request of former U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden. Shokin also complained about being a refused a U.S. visa, for which he put the blame on Marie Yovanovitch, then U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine.
Then Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko spoke twice to Giuliani and associates in person, while visiting New York on Jan. 25-26, 2019.
In the meetings Lutsenko spoke about his authority as the Prosecutor General and supported the good reputation of Shokin. Lutsenko also said he believed that Hunter Biden, the son of Joseph Biden, had been illegally lobbying the interests of the Ukrainian oil and gas company Burisma in the U.S. for millions in compensation.
Lutsenko’s report during his meetings with Giuliani and associates contained a lot of personal, legally unsubstantiated information about the workings of the U.S. embassy in Ukraine and the responsibilities of its diplomats, as well as their personal allegiances in Ukrainian politics and governance, especially law enforcement.
