Documents reveal Pompeo, Giuliani were in contact at same time as events at center of impeachment inquiry

A series of documents unveiled Friday night have thrown Secretary of State Mike Pompeo even deeper into the midst of the impeachment inquiry.

The documents, which were comprised of 100 pages, revealed that President Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani spoke to Pompeo on the phone at least twice in March. The timeframe lines up with events currently under investigation in the House impeachment inquiry, per Fox News.

The timing of the phone call seemingly bolsters testimony from witnesses in the impeachment inquiry that senior Trump administration officials were involved in or aware of Giuliani's efforts to push Ukraine to launch corruption investigations and possibly tie Democrats like former Vice President Joe Biden to them. The specific contents of the conversations remain unknown, however.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

That hasn't stopped people from considering the mere fact that the calls took place as a knock against Pompeo. Austin Evers, the executive director of American Oversight — a non-profit ethics watchdog that published the documents — said they show a clear paper trail from Giuliani to Trump to Pompeo which allowed for Giuliani's alleged smear campaign against former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch to come to fruition. Yovanovitch was ousted from her post in May, not long after the conversations took place.

Among the documents are records of a March 27 email exchange between Trump's former personal assistant Madeleine Westerhout and Giuliani's team. Giuliani's assistant asked Westerhout for help getting in touch with Pompeo because she was unable to "through regular channels." Read the documents at American Oversight and more on the story at The Guardian and Fox News.