D21 Calls for Senate Ethics Committee Investigation Into Whether Russian Agents are Laundering Biden Disinformation Through Sens. Johnson and Grassley
Democracy 21 Calls for Senate Ethics Committee Investigation to Determine if Russian Agents are Laundering Biden Disinformation Campaign Through Senators Johnson and Grassley
Democracy 21 sent a letter to the Senate Ethics Committee today calling for an investigation by the Committee into whether Russian agents are laundering a disinformation campaign against Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden through Senators Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley and the Committees they chair.
According to the letter, “If Senators Johnson and Grassley know or should know that they are facilitating Russia’s use of the Senate to intervene in the presidential election to undermine Vice President Biden’s campaign, that would constitute their participation in a direct attack on the integrity and security of the Senate and the 2020 presidential election.”
“The Senate Ethics Committee must move immediately to determine if Russian agents are using Senators Johnson and Grassley and their committees to disseminate a Russian disinformation campaign to damage Joe Biden’s presidential campaign,” Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer said.
“If the Russians are manipulating Senators Johnson and Grassley to have the United States Senate facilitate Russia’s disinformation campaign to harm Joe Biden and help elect President Trump, this would do incalculable damage to the Senate and our democracy, and must be shut down immediately,” Wertheimer said.
The letter stated:
William R. Evanina, the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said last week that Russian agents are actively seeking “to undermine former vice president [Joe] Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party.”
According to Evanina, “We assess that Russia is using a range of measures to primarily denigrate former vice president Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia ‘establishment.’”
The letter noted:
The statements by Mr. Evanina confirming Russian efforts to damage Vice President Biden and influence the 2020 election, as well as separate published reports indicating that the Homeland Security Committee is one avenue for these efforts, raise serious questions that warrant an immediate investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee.
The letter stated:
According to a report in The New York Times, Mr. Evanina’s statement “called out Andriy Derkach, a pro-Russia member of Ukraine’s Parliament who has been involved in releasing information about Mr. Biden. Intelligence officials said he had ties to Russian intelligence.” According to a report in Politico, Evanina “specifically accused Andrii Derkach, a Kremlin-linked Ukrainian lawmaker, of ‘spreading claims about corruption—including through leaked phone calls—to undermine’” Vice President Biden.
The letter also quoted an earlier New York Times report saying that in its ongoing investigation of former Vice President Biden’s involvement with Ukraine, the Homeland Security Committee has “relied extensively on a former Ukrainian official, Andrii Telizhenko.”
The letter stated:
But, according to the previous Times report, FBI officials “warned lawmakers in a briefing that it had concerns that Mr. Telizhenko was a conduit for Russian disinformation about the Bidens and claims that Ukraine conspired to help Democrats in the 2016 election.”
According to the letter:
In a recent letter, Senators Johnson and Grassley acknowledged that they had received information from Telizhenko but denied receiving information from Derkach. This contradicts Derkach’s statement that he has provided information to the Johnson and Grassley committees. The Senate Ethics Committee must promptly get to the bottom of this discrepancy.
It is possible that Senators Johnson and Grassley, and their committees, may have received Derkach’s disinformation materials through an intermediary, such as Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s attorney, who reportedly has had dealings with Derkach.
The letter continued:
The Ethics Committee has an obligation to determine as soon as possible — and certainly before the November 3 election — if Senator Johnson and Senator Grassley and the Committees they lead are being used by agents of the Russian government to launder disinformation as part of Russia’s active attempt to influence the 2020 presidential election.
This is without doubt a matter of utmost national importance. The potential misuse of the Senate by a hostile foreign power to influence our presidential election is a direct attack on the Senate and on its integrity and competence. It is also a direct attack on our democracy and our system of representative government.
According to the letter:
If Senators Johnson and Grassley are failing to safeguard the Committee investigative process from active efforts by Russian agents to conduct a Russian disinformation campaign to affect the presidential election, the harmful impact on the institutional integrity of the Senate would be enormous. If Russian agents were to be successful in manipulating a Senate committee to disseminate disinformation to affect U.S. elections, there would be incalculable damage done to the Senate as an institution and more broadly to American democracy.
The letter concluded:
Democracy 21 calls on the Ethics Committee to undertake an immediate investigation into Senators Johnson and Grassley and the Committees they lead. The Committee must determine whether they are involved in activities that “reflect unfavorably” on and bring “discredit” to the Senate by failing to protect against Russia or its agents using the Senate Homeland Security Committee to distribute disinformation intended to damage the presidential campaign of Vice President Biden and help re-elect President Trump
If the Senate Ethics Committee determines that Senators Johnson and Grassley are involved in these activities, the Committee must immediately take all steps necessary to stop Senators Johnson and Grassley from enabling Russian agents to use the Senate committee process to influence the 2020 election and undermine our democracy.
Read the full letter here.
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