Ukraine investigating whether ex-US ambassador was surveilled, after impeachment document dump

Ukraine’s government announced Thursday that police are investigating whether ousted U.S. ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was subject to illegal surveillance, in response to new documents released ahead of President Trump’s impeachment trial.

Those documents, released by Democratic lawmakers, showed Lev Parnas -- an associate of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani -- communicating about the removal of Marie Yovanovitch as the ambassador to Ukraine.

In some of those communications, Trump donor Robert F. Hyde seemed to indicate intimate knowledge of Yovanovitch’s activities – claiming at one point her phone and computer were off, and at another point that she was next to the embassy, adding, “Not in the embassy. Private security. Been there since Thursday."

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif, wrote Tuesday that Hyde's texts indicated "that he had Ambassador Yovanovitch under physical surveillance." Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders said it was "outrageous that the president’s personal lawyers appear to have directed the surveillance of a U.S. ambassador" and demanded that the matter be "fully investigated." Yovanovitch herself called for a probe.

Yet Parnas, in an interview Wednesday with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, undercut such claims by dismissing Hyde’s messages as either inflated or influenced by alcohol.

"I don't believe it was true, I think he was either drunk or was trying to make himself bigger than he was," Parnas told Maddow. "I didn't take him seriously. I didn't even respond to him most of the time. If I did, it was something like 'LOL' or 'Okay' or 'Great' or something like that."

Parnas said that after he received the texts from Hyde about the apparent surveillance, he called up a mutual acquaintance at the super PAC America First -- and that the acquaintance told Parnas to stay away from Hyde.