Of all the names featured in the private depositions and public testimonies of the Presidential impeachment inquiry – Donald Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani; Giuliani’s associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman; Joe Biden and his son, Hunter – that of Yuriy Lutsenko has been cited more often than almost any other. In the sworn depositions of Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent, Lutsenko’s name appears two hundred and thirty times, nearly twice as often as Trump’s. Lutsenko, sometimes referred to simply as “the corrupt prosecutor general” of Ukraine, has been portrayed, hardly without reason, as an unscrupulous politician prone to telling lies to further his personal ambitions. As those closely following the news have learned, Lutsenko fed information to Giuliani, which Giuliani, Trump, and their allies spun to smear the reputations of the Bidens and of Yovanovitch, whom Trump fired in April. One of the House’s star witnesses told me, of Lutsenko, “I don’t think we’d be here if not for him.”
Ukraine-U.S. Relations
The New Yorker: Ukrainian prosecutor behind Trump’s impeachment
General Prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko speaks at a press briefing at his office on March 7, 2019.
