Although a few Republicans in the U.S. Senate have said that they find the Ukraine scandal troubling — including Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah and Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska — others have been rallying to President Donald Trump’s defense. And two GOP senators are responding to the scandal by calling for an investigation of Democratic actions in Ukraine during the 2016 presidential race.
Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, according to the Washington Times, are asking Attorney General William Barr and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate claims that Democrats, in 2016, colluded with the Ukrainian government to undermine Trump’s presidential campaign. And Grassley and Johnson are alleging that Democratic consultant Alexandra Chalupa worked with the Ukrainian government to obtain Trump-related opposition research.
In a letter to Barr, Grassley and Johnson wrote, “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 attempted to undermine our Democrat processes.”
Grassley and Johnson, in the letter, went on to say that Chalupa, in 2016, met with Ukrainian journalists to discuss Paul Manafort — who was Trump’s 2016 campaign manager before Kellyanne Conway joined the campaign. Manafort is presently serving time in federal prison for a long list of financial crimes.
“In May 2016,” Grassley and Johnson wrote, “Chalupa e-mailed a DNC official, stating that she met with 68 Ukrainian investigative journalists about Manafort — and there would be ‘a lot more coming down the pipe.’”
Chalupa, Grassley and Johnson are saying, should have been required to register a foreign lobbyist.
And the senators have asked Barr to respond to their letter by Monday, October 14.
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