Sen. Johnson, ally of Trump and Ukraine, surfaces in crucial episodes in the saga
Source: Washington Post
Sen. Ron Johnson met in July with a former Ukrainian diplomat who has circulated unproven claims that Ukrainian officials assisted Hillary Clintons 2016 presidential campaign, a previously unreported contact that underscores the GOP senators involvement in the unfolding narrative that triggered the impeachment inquiry of President Trump. In an interview this week, Andrii Telizhenko said he met with Johnson (Wis.) for at least 30 minutes on Capitol Hill and with Senate staff for five additional hours. He said discussions focused in part on the DNC issue a reference to his unsubstantiated claim that the Democratic National Committee worked with the Ukrainian government in 2016 to gather incriminating information about then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
Telizhenko said he could not recall the date of the meeting, but a review of his Facebook page revealed a photo of him and Johnson posted on July 11. I was in Washington, and Sen. Johnson found out I was in D.C., and staff called me and wanted to do a meeting with me. So I reached out back and said, Sure, Ill come down the Hill and talk to you, Telizhenko told The Washington Post on Wednesday. An individual close to Johnson confirmed that staff for one of his committees met with Telizhenko as part of an ongoing investigation into the FBI and its probes of the 2016 election, but declined to say whether the senator was involved.
The meeting points to Johnsons emerging role as the member of Congress most heavily involved in the Ukraine saga that has engulfed the White House and has threatened Trump with impeachment. The senators committee assignments place him at the center of U.S.-Ukraine policymaking: Johnson is chairman of the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation and vice chair of the Senate Ukraine Caucus, a bipartisan group formed in 2015 to boost ties between Washington and Kyiv. He is also chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, a panel with investigative powers.
More significantly, testimony from two blockbuster witnesses in the impeachment probe place Johnson at episodes that will be critical in assessing whether Trump was withholding nearly $400 million in congressionally appropriated military aid to Ukraine in exchange for political favors. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky faced pressure to announce investigations into the Bidens and the debunked conspiracy theory that a hacked DNC server was taken to Ukraine in 2016 to hide evidence that it was that country, not Russia, that interfered in the presidential election. Johnsons knowledge of key events could make him a person of interest to House impeachment investigators, as well as complicate his role as a juror in a trial by the Senate, if one occurs. There are no rules forcing senators with possible conflicts of interest to recuse themselves during impeachment proceedings, and Johnson, through a spokesman, declined to comment on what he would do.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sen-johnson-ally-of-trump-and-ukraine-surfaces-in-crucial-episodes-in-the-saga/2019/10/28/40b9e44c-f684-11e9-8cf0-4cc99f74d127_story.html
The whole party is rotten to the core. A true example of racketeering.
mwb970
(11,367 posts)LakeArenal
(28,855 posts)Johnson has been s Kochsucker, a Wankerlicker and now a Trumphumper.
He has aspirations of a presidency.
cstanleytech
(26,326 posts)UpInArms
(51,285 posts)The term seems to apply to Johnson.
PatSeg
(47,625 posts)and it didn't happen overnight. They've been rotten for a long time, a party just waiting for a tyrant like Trump to bring all their deceit and corruption to the surface for all to see. In a rather bizarre sense, perhaps Trump unwittingly is doing the country a favor. We can't move forward without cleaning up the decades of filth and corporate influence in government.
2naSalit
(86,821 posts)brat that I beat up in grade school... I'm female. Always getting in my face and when he stole a piece of candy right out of my hand and put it in his mouth and laughed at me... I decked him. He went running home to his mom. I think we were five or six.
BumRushDaShow
(129,608 posts)You go girl!!!
2naSalit
(86,821 posts)I have a brother, 1.5 years older, and he started being oppressive at an early age so I had to learn to defend myself by the time I was walking. My mom tells me I started walking months earlier than normal kids because of him.
I don't take any guff from anyone. And I mean anyone.
BumRushDaShow
(129,608 posts)OAITW r.2.0
(24,645 posts)This is beyond stupid. Why would anyone move a freakin server to a foreign country to hide the info? How does that make the server more secure? Why not simply destroy it in the USA?
You betcha it's racketeering. The GOP has morphed into the OCP. The Organized Crime Party.
BumRushDaShow
(129,608 posts)Could have been Miller.
OAITW r.2.0
(24,645 posts)And I doubt that was done on purpose by the GOP, though they are now laboring to comply with the demands of their blackmailers.
But to insinuate that a political party would actively decide to move a server to another country is laughable. Outsource to a 3rd Party friendly political entity in the US? Sure....the GOP already did that in the Bush Administration. The ".gop" domain name was not "owned" by the GOP, IIRC. Millions of party communication emails were never recovered or accounted for. They "privitized' their communications platform.
But 30,000 Hillary emails....total bullshit.
BumRushDaShow
(129,608 posts)were neatly packaged into individualized folders of "kompromat" on each of these douchebags that you see out there shilling for Drumpf.
The GOP has been privatizing even as far back as 2004 and Ken Blackwell's RNC server that got voting results in OH diverted through it, so there is motherlode of stuff on the GOP ripe for extorting.
OAITW r.2.0
(24,645 posts)Organized Crime Party.
How would organized crime act any differently than the GOP when it comes to internal communications? It's like they are trying to hide their real agenda from public scrutiny.
BumRushDaShow
(129,608 posts)would be helpful here. And apparently some of that is already in motion (probably jammed up in the courts since this article was written but still in play) - https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-trump-probe-looks-a-lot-like-a-rico-investigation
ffr
(22,672 posts)Asking for a friend.
BumRushDaShow
(129,608 posts)NewJeffCT
(56,829 posts)It's OK If You're A Republican
PatrickforO
(14,593 posts)All of them?
Botany
(70,593 posts)Russ Feingold was @ >90% chance of winning his senate race in Wisconsin as was Hillary Clinton
too.
https://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/story/news/2017/01/23/russians-suspected-hacking-local-dems/96965824/
Glad Im not the only one paying attention. Never forget the Fourth of July he celebrated in Moscow in 2018.
Botany
(70,593 posts)voters who were purged from the voter rolls prior to the election. And where were these voters
from? Dane and Milwaukee counties. Russia going through the data of registered voters in WI
let them and people like Brad Parscale know how many votes would needed to be flipped and or
how many people needed to be deleted from the voter rolls.
BTW I'll never believe that Scott Walker "won" his recall vote and his later re-election.
I'm a nerd but I watched Wisconsin prior to Walker's recall race and very red counties in
N.W. Wisconsin had more people signing recall petitions then who voted for him in the prior
governor's race.
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)in Waukasuah County where the Clerk did a number crunching thing and 10k votes suddenly switched columns. BTW,this Clerk was tied to Walker so how.
Botany
(70,593 posts)a demo was going to win a state supreme court seat she "found" 10 or 20 thousand votes in her own
lap top that just hadn't been added into the state totals. I think it was the raw vote for the 2nd biggest
city in the county, Brookfield.
Right wing hate talk radio, Fox news, and their pastors have poisoned the minds of millions of Americans
where they are now OK with cheating and even if Russia does it because that stops "the liberal agenda."
BTW How about them Buckeyes?
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)One of our DUers from the East Side of Wisconny brought that to our attention as I recall now. Waukasuah County was always a outlier back in the Fifties and Sixties.
Loved the story of the Tabulators laying in a pile on the floor with all the Seals Purged. Then later thrown in the Dumpster at the back of the building.
usaf-vet
(6,215 posts)If it weren't for his wife's family money he would be a nobody.
BlueWI
(1,736 posts)Hard to be found in Wisconsin since he took office.
This paid-off non-statesman sorely needs to be sent home in 2022.
scipan
(2,361 posts)That's already been determined, WaPo.