While Democrats move forward on their impeachment inquiry against President Trump, Republicans charge that the president is actually the victim here.
In a letter intended for Attorney General William Barr, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ron Johnson (R-TX) ask for a renewed investigation into the “brazen efforts by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign to use the government of Ukraine for the express purpose of finding negative information on Trump."
As Grassley and Johnson recall, the DNC reportedly hired a Ukrainian-American operative named Alexandra Chalupa to investigate the Trump campaign's ties to Ukraine. They first asked the DOJ to investigate back in July 2017, including allegations that Chalupa was looking into Paul Manafort's relationship to Ukrainian officials. On Friday, they sent AG Barr a friendly reminder.
According to the Justice Department, U.S. Attorney John Durham is "exploring the extent to which ... Ukraine, played a role in the counterintelligence investigation" during the 2016 election. 14 However, the Justice Department has yet to inform Congress and the public whether it has begun an investigation into links and coordination between the Ukrainian government and individuals associated with the campaign of Hillary Clinton or the Democratic National Committee. Ukrainian efforts, abetted by a U.S. political party, to interfere in the 2016 election should not be ignored. Such allegations of corruption deserve due scrutiny, and the American people have a right to know when foreign forces attempt to undermine our democratic processes.
The revelations about Biden and his son's role on the board of a Ukrainian gas company that was under investigation comes with a whole new set of questions, Grassley added.
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The article also reports that Ukrainian prosecutors have unsuccessfully been trying to get information to Justice Department officials since the summer of 2018, possibly including "[h]undreds of pages of never-released memos and documents ... [that] conflict with Biden's narrative" 17 that his actions in Ukraine had nothing to do with his son's connections to Burisma. In light of this reporting, has the Justice Department obtained or been offered documents from Ukrainian officials related to these matters? If so, what were those documents?
The senators want an answer by October 14.
A whistleblower complaint last week suggested that Trump asked Ukrainian President Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden and interfere in U.S. elections. The Democrats used it to launch an impeachment inquiry against Trump.
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