NEW: The White House was alerted as early as mid-May that a budding pressure campaign by Rudy Giuliani and one of President Trump's ambassadors was rattling new Ukrainian president, 2 people with knowledge of the matter tell NBCNews.
The White House meeting also offers some of the first indications of what led Hill to conclude that Giuliani and Sondland were part of a squad running a"shadow Ukraine policy," as she later would testify to Congress.
The early involvement by Giuliani, Sondland and their associates in exerting influence over the new Ukrainian leader illustrates how political goals and potential profits have blended together in the extraordinary chain of events being detailed in the impeachment proceedings. House investigators are probing allegations Trump abused his power by pressing Ukraine to pursue investigations for his personal political gain.
Central to Giuliani's scheme were efforts to get Zelenskiy to announce an investigation into a different Ukrainian energy company: Burisma Holdings, the natural gas firm whose board Biden's son Hunter joined years earlier. Sondland and Energy Secretary Rick Perry also backed an effort to change the membership of Naftogaz's supervisory board, NBC News previously reported. The board includes four international members and three Ukrainian nationals. A person close to Sondland said he and Perry merely wanted changes to the governance and structure of Naftogaz's board needed to secure Western investment in Ukraine's energy industry.
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