State Department documents link Mike Pompeo to Rudy Giuliani in the months leading up to Yovanovitch's recall

Giuliani Yovanovitch

Newly released documents revealed a paper trail connecting Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Trump's former personal assistant in a smear campaign against a former ambassador to Ukraine.
During the second day of public impeachment hearings, former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch claimed she was a target of a "smear campaign" orchestrated by Giuliani and Trump.
The documents released by the State Department show Pompeo's hand in facilitating Giuliani's smear campaign that Yovanovitch alleged during her damning testimony.
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Newly released documents have revealed a paper trail connecting Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Trump's former personal assistant in an alleged smear campaign against a former ambassador to Ukraine.

The documents were released by the State Department Friday night following a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by ethics watchdog American Oversight. The 100-page report shows emails linking Giuliani to Pompeo and Trump through his former assistant, Madeleine Westerhout, who served as the former Director of Oval Office Operations.

"If you look at these documents, you can understand why Mike Pompeo wouldn't want Congress to have them, and why Congress has been complaining for the last two weeks that they haven't received, I believe, the quote is, 'a single scrap of paper from Mike Pompeo,'" American Oversight Executive Director Austin Evers told MSNBC in an interview.

"Here it is. [These] are basically his call sheets showing multiple phone conversations with Rudy Giuliani at what looks to be the beginning of this scheme to smear the ambassador," Evers continued.

During the second day of public impeachment hearings, former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch claimed she was a target of a "smear campaign" orchestrated by Giuliani and Trump, telling "lawmakers she was 'kneecapped' by Americans who allied themselves with corrupt Ukrainian interests," Politico reported.

The documents show Pompeo's hand in facilitating Giuliani's smear campaign that Yovanovitch alleged during her damning testimony.

The documents show that in March, Giuliani's office emailed Westerhout to get in touch with Pompeo because he couldn't get through the secretary of state through "regular channels." The documents also included memos from Giuliani detailing his interviews with Ukrainian prosecutors who made claims about Yovanovitch.

"The president's personal assistant makes that connection happen," Evers said in an interview with MSNBC, referring to Trump's tie-in on the smear campaign. "Based on the timing, which is around March of this year, it looks apparent this was a connection to ensure that Rudy Giuliani's smear campaign against a sitting US ambassador made it to Mike Pompeo's desk."

"This is just the first set of disclosures American Oversight's litigation is going to expose," Evers said in the interview. "And for our first round to connect this scandal directly to the Oval Office is pretty significant."