Mr Lutsenko
Donald Trump and his enablers don’t just lie, they turn truth on its head. Such is the case with the claim that, when the president requested “favors” from the Ukrainian president and blocked aid to that country, he was attempting to fight corruption in Ukraine. No one captured what was at the heart of the Trump-Giuliani extortion scheme better than Representative Jim Himes, who said, “President Trump wasn’t trying to end corruption in Ukraine, I think he was trying to aim corruption in Ukraine at Vice-President Biden and at the 2020 election.”
With the release of some of the phone records of Giuliani’s associate, Lev Parnas, we might question whether that statement from Himes went far enough. As a reminder, Parnas was assigned the job of connecting Giuliani to Ukrainians who could provide him with dirt on the man Trump was likely to face as his opponent in 2020—Joe Biden. One of the key figures who was willing to cooperate in those efforts was Yuri Lutsenko, who was Ukraine’s top prosecutor at the time and a close political ally of then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
After noting that Lutsenko was spreading lies about Ukrainian officials, Ambassador Marie Yavanovitch, and Joe Biden, the whistleblower noted the following in his/her complaint:
Lutsenko also attended the late February meeting, the people said. Poroshenko didn’t ultimately announce that he was opening those investigations. Lutsenko, the prosecutor, gave an interview to the Hill in March in which he said he was opening an investigation into alleged interference by Ukrainians in the 2016 U.S. Before launching his political career, Lukashenko worked as director of a state farm (sovkhoz), and served in the Soviet Border Troops and in the Soviet Army. Leshchenko are two of Mr. Lutsenko's main domestic rivals. Lutsenko has no legal training and has been widely criticized in Ukraine for politicizing criminal probes. Lutsenko, the former Ukrainian Prosecutor General who made that allegation, has acknowledged that the list never existed. I did not tell Mr. Lutsenko or other Ukrainian officials who they.
The allegations by Mr. Lutsenko came on the eve of the first round of Ukraine’s presidential election on 31 March. By that time, Mr. Lutsenko’s political patron, President Poroshenko, was trailing Mr. Zelenskyy in the polls and appeared likely to be defeated. Mr. Zelensky had made known his desire to replace Mr. Lutsenko as Prosecutor General.
In other words, Lutsenko was about to lose his job and he primarily blamed the anti-corruption efforts supported by Ambassador Yavanovitch. If Trump and Giuliani were going to exploit that corruption, Yavanovitch needed to be removed. Here is how the Washington Postsummarized the recently released communication between Parnas and Lutsenko on that matter:
The messages, written in Russian, show Lutsenko urging Parnas to force out Yovanovitch in exchange for cooperation regarding Biden. At one point, Lutsenko suggests he won’t make any helpful public statements unless “madam” is removed.
“It’s just that if you don’t make a decision about Madam — you are calling into question all my declarations. Including about B,” Lutsenko wrote to Parnas in a March 22 message on WhatsApp.
Mr. Lutsenko
It’s unclear if ‘B’ is a reference to Biden or Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company on whose board Hunter Biden served from 2014 to 2019.
Four days later, Lutsenko told Parnas that work on the case against the owner of the gas company is proceeding successfully and evidence of the money transfers of “B” had been obtained.
“And here you can’t even remove one fool,” Lutsenko laments, using a sad-face emoticon as he again appeared to push for Yovanovitch’s ouster.
“She’s not a simple fool[,] trust me,” Parnas responded. “But she’s not getting away.”
Parnas, days later, told Lutsenko that “soon everything will turn around and we’ll be on the right course.”
Meanwhile, Parnas was communicating with Robert Hyde, a Republican candidate for Congress from Connecticut who was previously best known for a vile tweet about Kamala Harris. Since the release of Parnas’ records, there is photographic evidence suggesting that Hyde was part of Giuliani’s extortion team. That is him on the far right.
No no, it…. it can't be… Hyde with thumbs up and cigars with Giuliani, Parnas, Fruman…. can it?
I am shooketh!
Mr. Yuriy Lutsenko
😂 pic.twitter.com/B4pCXuApW7
— JΞSŦΞR ✪ ΔCŦUΔL³³º¹ (@th3j35t3r) January 15, 2020
Jonathan Chait summarized what Hyde communicated to Parnas about the attempts to get rid of Yavanovitch:
Wow. Can’t believe Trumo [sic] hasn’t fired this bitch. I’ll get right in [sic?] that.
She under heavy protection outside Kiev.
My guy thinks maybe FSB [the Russian security service]
The guys over asked me what I would like to do and what is in it for them
She’s talked to three people. Her phone is off. Computer is off.
She’s next to the embassy.
They know she’s a political puppet.
They will let me know when she’s on the move
They are willing to help if you/we would like a price.
Guess you can do anything in the Ukraine with money… what I was told.
Update she will not be moved special security unit upgraded force on the compound people are already aware of the situation my contacts are asking what is the next step because they cannot keep going to check people will start to ask questions
If you want her out, they need to make contact with security forces
In other words, Hyde was in contract with people who were stalking Yavanovitch (possibly FSB), including surveillance of her phone and computer. He also seems to make reference to the possibility of threatening her physically.
During her testimony before the House, Ambassador Yavanovitch stated that Ukrainian officials warned her that Guiliani and other associates “had plans, and that they were going to, you know, do things, including to me.” She also testified that, while in attendance at an event honoring a murdered Ukrainian anti-corruption activist, she received a call from the State Department’s director-general telling her to get on the next plane to Washington. A little while later she was told that an unspecified security issue demanded her departure from Kyiv.
At this point, we don’t know if Hyde’s communication to Parnas was in any way connected to the State Department claim of “an unspecified security issue.” But the possibility is chilling, to say the least. It is clear that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has some explaining to do.
There was an American plot against the security of a US Ambassador. State must turn over what it has and what steps were taken to protect her AND end the plot. You don’t pull the Ambassador because an American is threatening her. You have the threat arrested.
— Dana Shell Smith (@AmbDana) January 14, 2020
Beyond an attempt to aim Ukrainian corruption at the 2020 election, everything about this story reeks of mobster-like tactics from the Trump-Giuliani extortion team. Based on what we know about this president’s history, that doesn’t come as a big surprise. But to see it affecting this country’s foreign policy is enraging. To watch Republicans defend the president who is responsible is even more so.
On 17 April 2012 the European Court of Human Rights held a public chamber hearing in the case of Lutsenko v. Ukraine. The case concerns former Interior Minister Yury Lutsenko’s “complaint that his arrest and the decision on his detention were arbitrary and unlawful, and that he was not informed about the reasons for his arrest.”
The chamber hearing can be heard here:
The Court informs that following the hearing, it “will begin its deliberations, which will be held in private. Its ruling in the case will, however, be made at a later stage.
In comments to the Deutsche Welle Ukrainian Service, Mr Lutsenko’s lawyer Valentina Telychenko and Head of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union Board, Yevhen Zakharov, both saw the impact of a judgement in Yury Lutsenko’s favour lying in its moral significance.
Valentina Telychenko: “If the European Court finds political motives in Lutsenko’s being held in detention, that will firstly be something new in European Court case law, and secondly it will mean that it is hard to doubt the presence of political motives in Lutsenko’s whole prosecution. Taking that into account, one can also analyze the cases of other members of the opposition”.
If the ECHR judgement were to come into force before the appeal was heard, there would be a chance that the former Interior Minister could be released until the appeal. This, however, Yevhen Zakharov says seems improbable since the judgement would still need 3 months before coming into effect.
Valentina Telychenko stresses that other applications will follow. One, in fact, complaining of failure to provide medical assistance has already been lodged with the court. She mentions that last week the results of medical examinations were revealed. These showed that in September 2011 a blood test found viral hepatitis in Lutsenko’s blood, yet neither he nor his relatives were informed.
While also part of a separate application, Ms Telychenko has included this in the arguments presented on Tuesday for Yury Lutsenko’s release from detention.
The following is from the information on the Court’s website.
The applicant, Yuriy Vitaliyovych Lutsenko, is a Ukrainian national who was born in 1964 and is detained in Kyiv. He is a former Minister of the Interior and the leader of the opposition party Narodna Samooborona. In November 2010 the General Prosecutor’s Office brought criminal proceedings against Mr Lutsenko for unlawfully arranging different work-related benefits for his driver. On 11 December the same year, the prosecution brought another criminal case against Mr Lutsenko for abuse of office, for allegedly arranging the allocation of a one-room apartment to his driver. The two criminal cases were joined. On 13 December 2010 the prosecutor completed the investigation, formally indicted Mr Lutsenko and invited him to study the case file, which he did on several occasions between 15 and 23 December 2010.
Mr Lutsenko was arrested on 26 December 2010 near his home by officers of the Security Service and the investigator of the General Prosecutor’s Office in connection with another criminal case brought against him on 24 December 2010. According to him, he was not informed of the reasons for his arrest and was not given a copy of the charges against him. On 27 December 2010 Mr Lutsenko and his lawyer attended a hearing before the Pechersky court, which they had only found out about 20 minutes before it started. The hearing concerned the prosecutor’s request to keep Mr Lutsenko in detention pending his trial. According to Mr Lutsenko, he only discovered what the hearing was about after the hearing had started. The court allowed the prosecutor’s request, accepting their reasoning which included the arguments that the applicant and his lawyer had studied the case file slowly and had given information about it to the media. The court further found that Mr Lutsenko had tried to prevent the investigation and was capable of influencing it, and had not admitted his guilt. Mr Lutsenko’s lawyer appealed unsuccessfully. Mr Lutsenko remains in detention. He was convicted on 27 February 2012.
Procedure
The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 21 January 2011. Relying on Article 5 §§ 1 (b) and (c), 2 and 3 (right to liberty and security) of the
Convention, Mr Lutsenko complains in particular that his arrest and detention were
arbitrary and unlawful, and that he was not informed about the reasons for his arrest
Relying also on Article 6 §§ 1, 2 and 3 (a) and (b) (right to a fair trial), he complains that
he was not informed in advance about the subject of the court hearing of 27 December
2010.
The Court communicated the application to the Ukrainian Government in April 2011. It
asked the Government to reply to a number of questions, including whether Mr Lutsenko had been detained for a purpose other than those envisaged in Article 5, contrary to Article 18 of the Convention, given his active participation in political life in Ukraine and his opposition to the Government.
Representatives of the parties
Government
V. Lutkovska, Agent,
N. Kulchytskyy, Counsel
M. Bem, Adviser
I. Zinchenko, Adviser
Mr. Lutsenko On Hunter Biden
D. Loban, Adviser
Applicant
Mr Lutsenko
I.Y. Fomin, Counsel
V. Telychenko, Counsel
T. Tsiukalo, Adviser