In response to media requests for a comment on letters to Ukraine and to U.S. Attorney General Bob Barr, Senator Ron Johnson released the letters in question Thursday.
Johnson also answered CNN’s inquiry by pointing out the 2016 letter to Ukraine was about that government’s effort to fight corruption generally and was not about firing Ukraine’s Prosecutor General.
“In response to CNN’s accusation of hypocrisy based on a 2016 letter by the Senate Ukraine Caucus, I would point out that if the file memorandum we highlighted in our Sept. 27, 2019, oversight letter is accurate, Congress would have been subjected to the same misinformation campaign against the Ukrainian prosecutor general, perpetrated by representatives of the U.S. government,” Johnson said in a statement Thursday. “The Senate Ukraine Caucus’ 2016 letter was encouraging the Ukrainian government to vigorously pursue an anti-corruption agenda generally.”
Johnson originally told the media that he needed time to review the letters before he could comment on them.
The 2016 letter to Ukraine said that the reforms were necessary to “show Russian President Vladimir that an independent, transparent, and democratic Ukraine can and will succeed.”
The 2019 letter to Barr was an inquiry into the Department of Justice’s investigation of Ukraine’s possible influence on the 2016 presidential election as well as former Vice President Joe Biden’s role in the firing of a prosecutor investigating the Ukrainian bank where Biden’s son was a board member.
