July 21, 2020

Remember when Ron Johnson and seven other Republican senators spent July 4th in... Russia? I'm not saying there's a connection with this story -- but it would be irresponsible not to speculate!

Via Politico:

Democratic leaders are asking the FBI for an urgent briefing arising out of concern that members of Congress are being targeted by a foreign operation intended to influence the 2020 presidential election, according to a letter they released publicly on Monday.

Among the Democrats’ concerns is that a Senate investigation being led by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) has become a vehicle for “laundering” a foreign influence campaign to damage Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, according to two people familiar with the demand.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer demanded the all-Congress briefing Monday, citing “specific” intelligence that a foreign influence operation targeted lawmakers to “launder and amplify disinformation in order to influence congressional activity.”

Though the letter did not mention the Johnson investigation, it included a classified addendum that the two sources say identified the probe as one of the sources of their concern.

You might find this hard to believe, but RonJohn is working to resurrect the discredited Burisma story:

The probe centers on claims that a Democratic public-relations firm sought to leverage Hunter Biden’s role on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, to influence the State Department under the Obama administration. Johnson has asked several former State Department officials to testify, and he is eyeing subpoenas as soon as this week if they do not agree to appear for depositions voluntarily.

Johnson renewed his demand for transcribed interviews and documents from the former officials days after a Ukrainian lawmaker — Andriy Derkach, who has met with Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to discuss investigating the Biden family — used a news conference to accuse the Bidens and Amos Hochstein, a former special envoy for international energy affairs at the State Department, of an elaborate conspiracy to steal hundreds of millions of dollars from Ukraine.

Grifters gotta grift. Seems like Ron is maybe a little too friendly with Russians, but soon he will lose his chairmanship and we may get some semblance of normality back.

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