ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) — When Fernando Lugo was nearing the end of his lonely run as Paraguay’s elected president, the former priest appealed to what many followers of Latin American politics have long assumed to be a higher power: the U.S. government.

Lugo left the presidential palace and met for more than an hour with U.S. Ambassador James H. Thessin while congressmen prepared to vote to impeach him in a hasty Senate trial the next day. And while the leftist leader was lunching with the ambassador, his right-wing opponents also reached out to the embassy.