Yovanovitch previously called Burisma and Hunter Biden not “a front burner issue” during her time as ambassador.
Photos deleted from the now-defunct Burisma Holdings website show former U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch met with Vadim Pozharskyi—the Burisma official who worked closely with Hunter Biden—at two separate events after she had been told the Ukrainian energy company was considered corrupt by the State Department.
The photos are likely to raise fresh questions about parts of Yovanovitch’s testimony to Congress during former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment. It also raises the question of why the U.S. embassy in Ukraine engaged with company representatives in a public relations campaign with the U.S. government at the same time that internal embassy communications focused on the company’s corruption.
Photos obtained from the now-deleted Burisma website and the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council (USUBC) show that Yovanovitch attended two meetings hosted by the USUBC in Kyiv with Vadim Pozharskyi, the Burisma executive who met with then-Vice President Joe Biden and appears frequently in Hunter Biden’s emails.