A Dutch supporter of President Trump said Saturday that he supplied a Republican candidate with purported intelligence on the movements of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine last year, taking responsibility for text messages that raised concerns the diplomat was placed under surveillance.
But the supporter, Anthony De Caluwe, said in a statement that he was not involved in any surveillance of then-Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, and that the messages were merely “ridiculous banter” with the congression*al candidate, Robert F. Hyde, who in recent days became entangled in the impeachment case against Trump.
“My engagement in this exchange with Rob is something that has no credibility,” De Caluwe said in the statement, which was emailed to The Washington Post by a spokeswoman. The spokeswoman, Karyn Turk, said that De Caluwe had never been to Ukraine and had no contacts in the country.
Text messages released Tuesday by the House Intelligence Committee showed Hyde passing purported details on Yovanovitch’s whereabouts in March of last year to Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian American associate of Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani. Parnas is under federal indictment for *alleged campaign finance crimes.
Additional material released late Friday by the committee indicated that the claims about Yovanovitch’s movements originated from a Belgian cellphone number. Some digits of the number were redacted, but the visible digits matched a number previously listed online as belonging to De Caluwe. An avatar accompanying the Belgian number in the released materials matched a photograph on De Caluwe’s Facebook page...…. Source: WaPo read More
