The Story:
Robert F. Hyde is running a long-shot campaign to win the Republican Party’s nomination for the US Senate from Connecticut. If he wins that, he will oppose Richard Blumenthal (D – CT), who is running for his third term. But there are more intriguing things than that to say about Hyde, and if his campaign gets any traction all of them will be said, ad nauseum.
Background:
In January 2020, during the first impeachment proceedings against former President Trump, the Intelligence Committee of the US House of Representatives released certain text messages between Hyde and Lev Parnas. Parnas had decided to assist President Trump’s reelection efforts and to that end was keeping tabs on the US Ambassador to the Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, who was considered a hostile by the Trump circle. Hyde was helping Parnas in this.
The Thing to Know:
The text messages suggest that Hyde, in March 2019, was disturbingly thorough in his surveillance of a US Ambassador for Parnas’ edification. “She’s talked to three people. Her phone is off. Computer is off. She’s next to the embassy. Not in the embassy. Private security.”
Yovanovitch was fired two months later. She later testified during the impeachment proceedings that she was told she had better leave Ukraine by the “next plane” because her security was at risk.