Democrats wrote to the Ukrainian government in May 2018 urging it to continue investigations into President Donald Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia in the 2016 presidential campaign — collusion later found not to exist.
The demand, which came from U.S. Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Patrick Leahy (D-VT), resurfaced Wednesday in an opinion piece written by conservative Marc Thiessen in the Washington Post.
Ironically, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) declared Tuesday that the mere possibility that President Trump had asked Ukraine to continue an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden — even without a quid pro quo — was enough to trigger an impeachment inquiry. (Biden boasted in 2018 that he had forced Ukraine to remove its prosecutor by threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid; he did not tell his audience at the Council on Foreign Relations that the prosecutor was looking into a firm on whose board his son, Hunter Biden, was serving.)
Thiessen observed (original links):
Trump celebrates after UN climate committee moves away from its most extreme global warming scenario
Trump scores major Republican primary victory as Cassidy ousted in Louisiana
Maduro’s alleged ‘bag man’ Alex Saab arrested less than 3 years after Biden pardon: report
Massachusetts governor asks US Navy to help retrieve bodies, evidence from sunken fishing vessel
Trump shares stunning photos of Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool renovation, says project is ahead of schedule
Suspected drunk driver kills 2 pedestrians in violent chain-reaction crash on Manhattan’s Upper West Side
Breaking: US Makes ‘Intense Preparations’ for Impending Iran Attacks as Trump Sends Warning
US Attorney Pirro Lays Down Law: Parents Need to Stop ‘Teen Takeovers’ or Face Jail
We Were Right: 13 Heads Roll as DC Police’s Conspiracy to Deceive Public on Astronomical Crime Rates Exposed
Pope Leo does ‘6-7’ trend for children at the Vatican
Violent Repeat Offender Left Psych Ward Days Before Allegedly Shooting Up Busy Massachusetts Street
Second FDA executive departing organization in less than a week as top drug regulator claims she was fired
Largest children’s hospital in US to open ‘detransition clinic’ after $10M settlement with Trump DOJ, state
Major Thermos Product Recalled After Causing Vision Loss in Three People
ActBlue CEO faces June 10 grilling after fundraising powerhouse allegedly misled Congress on foreign donations
It got almost no attention, but in May [2018], CNN reported that Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) wrote a letter to Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, expressing concern at the closing of four investigations they said were critical to the Mueller probe. In the letter, they implied that their support for U.S. assistance to Ukraine was at stake. Describing themselves as “strong advocates for a robust and close relationship with Ukraine,” the Democratic senators declared, “We have supported [the] capacity-building process and are disappointed that some in Kyiv appear to have cast aside these [democratic] principles to avoid the ire of President Trump,” before demanding Lutsenko “reverse course and halt any efforts to impede cooperation with this important investigation.”
The Democrats’ letter is available online here. In it, Menendez, Durbin, and Leahy demanded that the Ukrainian government answer their questions about the Mueller probe, and issued an implied threat: “This reported refusal to cooperate with the Mueller probe also sends a worrying signal — to the Ukrainian people as well as the international community — about your government’s commitment more broadly to support justice and the rule of law.”
Story cited here.
