promised to let the Ukrainian leader know “very soon” and added that he would see Mr. Zelensky “very soon, regardless.”130
Shortly after the April 21 call, Jennifer Williams, Special Advisor to the Vice President for Europe and Russia, learned that President Trump asked Vice President Pence to attend Mr. Zelensky’s inauguration.131 Ms. Williams testified that in a separate phone call between Vice President Pence and President-elect Zelensky two days later, “the Vice President accepted that invitation from President Zelensky, and looked forward to being able to attend … if the dates worked out.”132 Ms. Williams and her colleagues began planning for the Vice President’s trip to Kyiv.133
Rudy Giuliani and his Associates Coordinated Efforts to Secure and Promote the Investigations with Ukrainian President Zelensky
As previously explained in Chapter 1, Mr. Giuliani, acting on behalf of President Trump, had for months engaged corrupt current and former Ukrainian officials, including Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko. The April election of Mr. Zelensky, however, raised the possibility that Mr. Lutsenko might lose his job as Prosecutor General once Mr. Zelensky took power.
In the immediate aftermath of President-elect Zelensky’s election, Mr. Giuliani continued publicly to project confidence that Ukraine would deliver on investigations related to the Bidens. On April 24—before Ambassador Yovanovitch received calls abruptly summoning her back to Washington—Mr. Giuliani stated in an interview on Fox and Friends that viewers should,
- [K]eep your eye on Ukraine… I think you’d get some interesting information about Joe Biden from Ukraine. About his son, Hunter Biden. About a company he was on the board of for years, which may be one of the most crooked companies in Ukraine.134
Behind the scenes, however, Mr. Giuliani was taking steps to engage the new Ukrainian leader and his aides.
The day before, on April 23, the same day that Vice President Pence confirmed his plans to attend President-elect Zelensky’s inauguration, Mr. Giuliani dispatched his own delegation—consisting of Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman—to meet with Ihor Kolomoisky, a wealthy Ukrainian with ties to President-elect Zelensky. Instead of going to Kyiv, they booked tickets to Israel, where they met with Mr. Kolomoisky.135 Mr. Kolomoisky owned Ukraine’s largest bank until 2016, when Ukrainian authorities nationalized the failing financial institution. Although he denied allegations of committing any crimes, Mr. Kolomoisky subsequently left Ukraine for Israel, where he remained until President Zelensky assumed power.136
Mr. Kolomoisky confirmed to The New York Times that he met with Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman in late April 2019. He claimed they sought his assistance in facilitating a meeting between Mr. Giuliani and President-elect Zelensky, and he told them, “you’ve ended up in the wrong place,” and declined to arrange the requested meeting.137
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