A Republican candidate for Congress is denying that he spied on a U.S. ambassador after he claimed to be doing so in texts made public Tuesday.
The House Intelligence Committee released pages of messages between GOP candidate Robert Hyde and Lev Parnas, an associate of Rudy Giuliani, on Tuesday. Parnas gave the messages to the House as part of its impeachment investigation into President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.
Hyde claimed to be surveilling former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. The two men also expressed interest in getting Yovanovitch fired from her post.
“Wow. Can’t believe [Trump] hasn’t fired this bitch,” Hyde told Parnas in one message. “I’ll get right in that.”
In other messages, Hyde claimed to be tracking Yovanovitch, sending messages such as, “She’s talked to three people. Her phone is off. Computer is off.” Hyde told Parnas that “she’s next to the embassy” and “not in the embassy.”
Hyde appeared on Eric Bolling’s Sinclair TV show, AMERICA This Week, to discuss his role in the House’s impeachment proceedings. He denied that he was tracking Yovanovitch and said the messages were just jokes.
“We sent a few colorful texts. We had a few pops way back when I used to drink,” Hyde said, describing his relationship with Parnas. “It was just colorful. We were playing. I thought we were playing. I didn’t know he was so serious.”
Hyde grew agitated after Bolling asked whether the Connecticut Republican had “eyes” on Yovanovitch.
“Absolutely not, are you kidding me?” Hyde said. “I’m a little landscaper from f—ing Connecticut.”
“I’d like to see the full texts come out, because there was some real colorful stuff said by Parnas,” Hyde added.
Parnas sat for an interview with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow on Wednesday and supported Hyde’s explanation for the texts about tracking Yovanovitch.
“I don’t believe it’s true. I think he was either drunk or he was trying to make himself bigger than it was, so I didn’t take him seriously,” Parnas told Maddow. “If you see, I didn’t even respond to him most of the time, and if I did, it was something like, ‘LOL’ or ‘OK’ or ‘great,’ or, you know, something like that.”
