During the president’s grossly unjust and completely partisan impeachment by unhinged deep state Democrats that began last fall, the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, Ukraine, came under increasing scrutiny by Republicans and allies of the president because it was a den of corruption.
Led during the Obama regime by Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, the embassy was used as a political operation by the former president and his then-vice president (and now Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden) to exploit Ukraine, which was in dire need of U.S. assistance because Russian-backed rebels had begun a separatist movement.
Though Yovanovitch was fired by the president last summer, it appeared that those who were assigned to the embassy and who served with her were just as corrupt.
Officials at the U.S. embassy in Kiev ordered the monitoring of 13 prominent Americans' social media accounts during the early days of the Ukraine scandal in spring 2019 and later were informed their activities potentially violated the Privacy Act, according to State Department memos made public on Tuesday.
The memos, released under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the conservative watchdog Judicial Watch, show those targeted for monitoring included President Trump's eldest son, Don Jr., the president's personal lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and Fox News personalities Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Lou Dobbs. This reporter was one of the 13 individuals on the list targeted.
Emails show that Yovanovitch and a top assistant, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent, were kept apprised of the monitoring, an email reveals.
According to the records, officials with the U.S. embassy utilized search terms that showed they were interested in social media posts regarding the ambassador, that Left-wing billionaire snake George Soros, and the scandal surrounding Biden and his son Hunter Biden, as well as the son’s association with Burisma, an energy company that hired Hunter Biden to be a board member for several hundred thousand dollars per year.
“Key thing is to get up to ramming speed from the get go,” Kent wrote March 27, 2019, in an email discussing the efforts to monitor social media.
That same day, according to Just The News, Yovanovitch got an email that updated her on the monitoring operation.
“Thanks Ambassador — I just wanted you to be aware as we are really trying to help them and recognize how hard everyone is working in this especially trying time," an official whose name was redacted wrote. "The good news is our social media team back here is now helping to provide them with the reports they want when Kyiv is asleep/offline — through existing PD tools — so this should greatly help.”
By April 1, the embassy’s staff appears to have been told by officials in Washington to end the surveillance. (Related: Schiff’s phony baloney impeachment recommendation blames Trump for everything DEMOCRATS have done in Ukraine.)
“Thank you so very much for alerting everyone to this issue. We appreciate you shutting down the automated report," an email with the subject line "Ukraine Twitter report" read.
The following month, someone with Digital Media Associate for EUR/PD Keniya-Trusant Group gave the State Department a brief about the legal perils of targeting American citizens.
“Going to chime in here — so regarding the influencers, there are some legal implications of making a list of Facebook influencers of Twitter influencers since they are technically private citizens (even though they're publicly on the internet) and we cannot compile them into a list and monitor what they are saying using a third-party application without their knowledge," the email said.
"To see what they're saying, you unfortunately need to use the old school way and manually go to their feeds and view that way. Cumbersome but it's in compliance with the Privacy Act of 1974."
Just The News’ John Solomon added to the list of persons illegally monitored: “In addition to the Fox hosts, this reporter, the president's son, and the president's personal lawyer, the other figures whose social media were targeted include Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton, radio host and former Trump White House adviser Seb Gorka, One America News personality Jack Posobiec, and Fox News personalities Sara Carter and Dan Bongino.
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