Andrii Telizhenko, who worked in the embassy as third secretary under Shulyar at the time, told Politico that she asked him to pass on to Chalupa any information he came across about connections between Trump, Manafort, and Russia. He claimed the embassy was coordinating with Chalupa and the Clinton campaign on investigating Manafort. In 2018, Telizhenko told the Ukrainian news site Strana.UA that Poroshenko worked with Chalupa to discredit Trump. He began repeating the story in 2019 to U.S. right-wing media, Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and House Intelligence Committee minority chair Devin Nunes. Ukrainian lawmaker Oleg Voloshyn also accused Poroshenko and Chaly of favoring the Clinton campaign and called for an investigation into the alleged cooperation between Chalupa and the Ukrainian Embassy. Both the embassy and Chalupa disputed the allegations. Ambassador Chaly denied any wrongdoing and called Telizhenko a liar. In a written statement to The Hill, Chaly admitted Chalupa had approached the embassy and tried to push the investigation of Manafort’s dealings in Ukraine, but Chaly claimed the embassy didn’t cooperate with her.
