personnel policies and practices. In the meantime, a separate department, United States Office of Special Counsel, with jurisdiction over personnel matters throughout the executive branch, is undertaking its own review of the situation in question. Ukraine controversy After Ukraine's newly elected President Volodymyr Zelensky was unable to convince President Donald Trump or Vice President Mike Pence to attend his inauguration, Zelensky attended a June 4, 2019 dinner hosted by the United States Ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland. They were joined by White House Advisor Jared Kushner and Ulrich Brechbuhl. Brechbuhl was identified in a 2019 whistleblower complaint as someone who listened in on Trump's July 25, 2019, phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. A "former White House official said it was extremely unusual for a State Department official to be on what was supposed to be a standard congratulatory call from the president to another world leader". Subsequently, a representative of the State Department denied that Brechbuhl was on the call. On October 2, 2019, Steve Linick, the State Department's inspector general, delivered a 40-page packet of apparent disinformation regarding former Vice President Joe Biden and former Ambassador to the Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, to Capitol Hill. Linick told congressional aides his office questioned Brechbuhl about the origins of the packet. Brechbuhl noted the packet came to him from Pompeo, who said it "came over," and Brechbuhl reportedly presumed it was from the White House. Later that day, President Trump's attorney, Rudy Giuliani, said he passed the packet regarding the Ukraine and attacks on Yovanovich to Pompeo. "They (the State Department) told me they would investigate it," Giuliani added. Also, according to the inspector general, George P. Kent, the deputy assistant secretary of state responsible for Ukraine, became alarmed about a campaign of disinformation being waged about Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, and alerted three state department officials, including Brechbuhl, described as a "a close confidant of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo." Philip Reeker, acting Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, also alerted Brechbuhl to the unfounded smear campaign surrounding Marie Yovanovitch. In an email to Ulrich Brechbuhl, Reeker described the smear as a "fake narrative" that was "really ... without merit or validation" and on other occasions forwarded to Brechbuhl information State Department officials gathered to counter the allegations. President Donald Trump nevertheless removed her prematurely from her post and referred to her