Former mafia prosecutor: It sounds like Trump associates were plotting 'a mob hit' against Marie Yovanovitch

Text messages made public on Tuesday between Lev Parnas, the indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani, and Robert Hyde, a donor to President Trump now running for a House seat in Connecticut, deeply disturbed former federal prosecutor Mimi Rocah.

Parnas provided the texts to lawmakers as part of the impeachment inquiry. They show that last March, Parnas and Hyde discussed then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch's movements in Kyiv, including when she was at the U.S. Embassy, when her computer and phone were off, and her security situation.

Politico's Natasha Bertrand tweeted, "This certainly makes it sound like Parnas and Co. were actively tracking Yovanovitch's movements," to which Rocah responded, "As a former mafia prosecutor, this sure sounds like a mob hit was being planned on a public servant in a foreign country by associates of the POTUS. A POTUS who said she was 'going through some things.' This takes Trump's lawlessness & misogyny to new level."

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Rocah is referring to Trump telling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in July that Yovanovitch was "going to go through some things." In April, Yovanovitch received a call from the State Department, warning there were concerns about her safety. She was recalled in May.

After the text messages were released, Yovanovitch's lawyer Lawrence Robbins issued a statement, saying, "Needless to say, the notion that American citizens and others were monitoring Ambassador Yovanovitch's movements for unknown purposes is disturbing. We trust that the appropriate authorities will conduct an investigation."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.