>>49002523as part of the E4 she probably talks to the Gym Leaders, and Giovanni is the 8th Gym Leader that’s also conveniently not at the Gym for a while; you can chock that up to Team Rocket, but can also assume the E4 won’t just let a Gym Leader not do their job, so there was probably a business meeting to discuss an excuse—because surely Giovanni doesn’t want his public reception ruined by being tied to the leader of a crime syndicate. She wasn’t a good person in the earlier manga either
