Sessions wrote a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo impugning Yovanovitch’s loyalty and suggesting she be removed.

In January 2019, Giuliani apparently reached out to the State Department regarding the inability of the previous Ukrainian prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, to obtain a visa to go to the United States. Kent said Shokin was known as “a typical Ukraine prosecutor who lived a lifestyle far in excess of his government salary, who never prosecuted anybody known for having committed a crime, and having covered up crimes that were known to have been committed.” Shokin did not have a valid visa, and Kent indicated that “under no circumstances should a visa be issued to someone who knowingly subverted and wasted U.S. taxpayer money.” Evidently, Giuliani was pushing to have theto have passed a dossier containing documents relating this false narrative to Pompeo, including copies of the articles from The Hill and notes from interviews Giuliani, Parnas, and Fruman had conducted with Shokin and Lutsenko in January 2019—all of which were enclosed in Trump Hotel stationary with a handwritten return address of “The White House.” According to records secured by the group American Oversight through a Freedom of Information Act request, Giuliani also spoke with Pompeo twice by phone.

The first major casualty of Giuliani’s efforts was Yovanovitch. On May 20, 2019, Yovanovitch, a 33-year career foreign service officer who had served as ambassador to Ukraine since August 2016, departed Kyiv after receiving word from the State Department that she needed to leave urgently. The directive was a surprise