Victoria Ann Toensing is an American attorney,Republican Party operative and with her husband,Joseph diGenova,a partner in the Washington law firm diGenova &Toensing. Toensing and diGenova frequently appeared on Fox News and Fox Business channels,until diGenova used a November 2019 appearance to spread conspiracy theories about George Soros,leading to widespread calls for him to be banned from the network. In 2019,Toensing and diGenova began representing Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash in his efforts to block extradition to the United States under a federal indictment and became embroiled in the Trump–Ukraine scandal. The couple has worked with Rudy Giuliani in support of President Donald Trump beginning in 2018,and was named to join a legal team led by Giuliani to overturn the results of the 2020 United States presidential election in which Trump was defeated.
David Maclain Hale is an American diplomat and career ambassador,who previously served as the United States Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. He is currently a Distinguished Diplomatic Fellow at the Wilson Center,on detail from the Department of State.
William Brockenbrough Taylor Jr. is an American diplomat,government official,and former military officer. He served as the 6th United States ambassador to Ukraine from 2006 to 2009 under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama,and as chargéd’affaires to Ukraine from June 2019 to January 2020 under President Donald Trump.
Marie Louise"Masha" Yovanovitch is a Canadian-American former diplomat and retired senior member of the United States Foreign Service. She served in multiple State Department posts,including Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (2004–2005),U.S. Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan (2005–2008),U.S. Ambassador to Armenia (2008–2011),Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs (2012–2013),and Ambassador to Ukraine (2016–2019). Yovanovitch is a diplomat in residence at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University. On January 31,2020,it was reported that she had retired from the State Department.
Philip Thomas Reeker is an American diplomat and career foreign service officer with the Department of State who currently serves as the senior advisor for Caucasus negotiations. He was previously Chargéd'affaires of the United States mission to the United Kingdom from 2021 to 2022 and acting assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs from 2019 to 2021.
Kurt Douglas Volker is an American diplomat who served as George W. Bush's last U.S. Ambassador to NATO. Later he served as executive director of the McCain Institute for International Leadership and in a volunteer capacity as Donald J. Trump's U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine until his resignation on September 27,2019.
Peter Michael McKinley is an American diplomat. A career Foreign Service Officer,McKinley served as U.S. Ambassador to Peru (2007–2010),Colombia (2010–2013),Afghanistan (2015–2016),and Brazil (2017–2018),and then as Senior Adviser to the U.S. Secretary of State (2018–2019).
Gordon David Sondland is an American businessman. He is the founder and chairman of Provenance Hotels. He also served as the United States Ambassador to the European Union from 2018 to 2020. In November 2019,Sondland testified as a witness at the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump. After refusing to resign,he was fired by Trump on February 7,2020,two days after the conclusion of Trump's impeachment trial.
Mary Elizabeth Taylor is an American political aide who served as the Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs from 2018 to 2020. She resigned on June 18,2020 in protest of the handling of the George Floyd protests by President Donald Trump. She previously served in the Trump White House as the Deputy Director of Legislative Affairs of Nominations.
Lisa S. Dougherty Kenna is an American diplomat who served as the United States Ambassador to Peru from March 2021 to September 2023. She previously served as the Executive Secretary of the United States Department of State,succeeding Joseph E. Macmanus,under President Donald Trump.
Thomas Ulrich Brechbuhl is a Swiss-American businessman and former government official,having held the position of Counselor of the United States Department of State from May 1,2018,to January 20,2021. He was appointed by and reported to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo,and replaced Maliz E. Beams. Along with the role of Counselor,he served as the Acting Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs at the Department of State from March to September 2020.
The Trump–Ukraine scandal was a U.S. political scandal that arose from the discovery of U.S. President Donald Trump's attempts to coerce Ukraine and other countries into providing damaging narratives about 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden and giving misinformation relating to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Trump enlisted surrogates within and outside his official administration,including his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr,to pressure Ukraine and other foreign governments to cooperate in supporting conspiracy theories concerning American politics. Trump blocked payment of a congressionally-mandated $400 million military aid package in an attempt to obtain quid pro quo cooperation from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump released the aid after becoming aware of a whistleblower complaint about his activities relating to Ukraine,before the complaint was known by Congress or the public. A number of contacts were established between the White House and the government of Ukraine,culminating in a phone call between Trump and Zelenskyy on July 25,2019.
The inquiry process which preceded the first impeachment of Donald Trump,45th president of the United States,was initiated by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on September 24,2019,after a whistleblower alleged that Donald Trump may have abused the power of the presidency. Trump was accused of withholding military aid as a means of pressuring newly elected president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky to pursue investigations of Joe Biden and his son Hunter and to investigate a conspiracy theory that Ukraine,not Russia,was behind interference in the 2016 presidential election. More than a week after Trump had put a hold on the previously approved aid,he made these requests in a July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president,which the whistleblower said was intended to help Trump's reelection bid.
Igor Fruman is a Soviet-born American businessman. He is an associate of Rudy Giuliani who,along with Lev Parnas,aided in a search in Ukraine for detrimental information on U.S. President Donald Trump's political opponents. This included looking for evidence for a narrative to counter Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation and information on former Vice President Joe Biden. He pleaded guilty to an unrelated campaign finance law violation in September 2021 and was sentenced to a one-year prison term in January 2022.
Lev Parnas is a Soviet-born American businessman and former associate of Rudy Giuliani. Parnas,Giuliani,Igor Fruman,John Solomon,Yuriy Lutsenko,Dmytro Firtash and his allies,Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova,were involved in creating the false Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory,which is part of the Trump–Ukraine scandal's efforts to damage Joe Biden. As president,Donald Trump said he did not know Parnas or what he was involved in;Parnas insisted Trump "knew exactly what was going on".
Catherine M. Croft is a United States Department of State official who has served as a special advisor for Ukraine both in the State Department and on the United States National Security Council. Croft testified in closed-door hearings before the House Intelligence,Oversight and Foreign Affairs committees in October 2019.
David Holmes is an American diplomat who served as a counselor for political affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine circa 2019-2020. He is at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service as Senior State Department Fellow,as of 2022.
The Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory is a series of false allegations that Joe Biden,while he was vice president of the United States,improperly withheld a loan guarantee and took a bribe to pressure Ukraine into firing prosecutor general Viktor Shokin to prevent a corruption investigation of Ukrainian gas company Burisma and to protect his son,Hunter Biden,who was on the Burisma board. As part of efforts by Donald Trump and his campaign in the Trump–Ukraine scandal,which led to Trump's first impeachment,these falsehoods were spread in an attempt to damage Joe Biden's reputation and chances during the 2020 presidential campaign,and later in an effort to impeach him.
Suriya Evans-Pritchard Jayanti is a British-American energy entrepreneur and energy policy expert,journalist,and lawyer. She is a regular contributor to TIME Magazine and other print and television media outlets on energy issues and Ukraine topics. She is the co-founder and managing director of Eney LLC,a U.S.-Ukrainian diversified clean energy company,along with former long-time CEO of Naftogaz of Ukraine Andriy Kobolyev. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank. She came into the public eye during the first impeachment of President Donald J. Trump after being subpoenaed to testify in her capacity as a U.S. diplomat at the U.S. Department of State who served as the Energy Unit Chief at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv,Ukraine. She did not ultimately testify. With the February 24,2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia,she became a regular commentator on Ukrainian and energy affairs,known for her pro-Ukrainian viewpoint.
This is a timeline of major events in second half of 2019 related to the investigations into the myriad links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies that are suspected of being inappropriate,relating to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It follows the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections before and after July 2016 up until election day November 8,and the transition,the first and second halves of 2017,the first and second halves of 2018,and the first half of 2019,but precedes that of 2020 and 2021.
