Start with this, as part of an appearance on AM 620 in Milwaukee.
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson to @WTMJSteve today on Ukraine call: "He's a New York business guy, he's different than a Wisconsinite. When he says it's a beautiful phone call, I take a look at that, that it's a pretty gracious phone call."
— Molly Beck (@MollyBeck) September 30, 2019
Yeah, asking foreign leaders to help rig an election for you is just "New York business", Ron. That didn't really fly with anyone, but Johnson doubled down on the excuses when having a meeting at the
Johnson said, "Democrats and most of the media are putting the worst possible construction" on the president's phone call to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky...Ron says he didn't know that aid was being withheld from Ukraine? Let's put that in a file for the time being.
Johnson has said he did not believe that military aid to Ukraine was withheld by the president to pressure that country to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden.
Johnson has met face-to-face with Zelensky and said, "At no point in time did Zelensky ever mention any case that he's feeling pressure."
Then on Thursday, we found out that Ronnie was on the same side as Joe Biden in 2016 when it came to dealing with Ukraine, unlike what he was claiming this week.
CNN's KFile found a February 2016 bipartisan letter signed by several Republican senators that urged then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to "press ahead with urgent reforms to the Prosecutor General's office and judiciary."Ronnie's response? "What letter?"
The letter shows that addressing corruption in Ukraine's Prosecutor General's office had bipartisan support in the US and further undercuts a baseless attack made by President Donald Trump and his allies that Biden pressured the Ukrainian government to fire then Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin to stop investigations into a Ukrainian natural gas company that his son, Hunter Biden, sat on the board of. There is no evidence of wrongdoing by either Joe or Hunter Biden, nor is it clear whether Hunter was under investigation at all.
The 2016 letter, sent by members of the Senate Ukraine Caucus, was signed by Republican Sens. Rob Portman, Mark Kirk and Ron Johnson, as well as Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin, Jeanne Shaheen, Chris Murphy, Sherrod Brown, and Richard Blumenthal and focused on longstanding issues of corruption in Ukraine and urged reforms of the government.
"Succeeding in these reforms will show Russian President Vladimir Putin that an independent, transparent and democratic Ukraine can and will succeed," the letter reads. "It also offers a stark alternative to the authoritarianism and oligarchic cronyism prevalent in Russia. As such, we respectfully ask that you address the serious concerns raised by Minister Abromavičius. We similarly urge you to press ahead with urgent reforms to the Prosecutor General's Office and judiciary. The unanimous adoption by the Cabinet of Ministers of the Basic Principles and Action Plan is a good step."
"I send out all kinds of oversight letters ... I don't know which 2016 oversight letter you're referring to so I will look at that and then we'll issue a press release, statement, or something — but I don't engage in hypocrisy. I'm looking at getting the truth,” Johnson said when asked about the letter.Sure, Ron's about the truth and doesn't engage in hypocrisy, which is why the Homeland Security Chair has actively looked into the business dealings of the Trump kids in Saudi Arabia, China, and other countries, right?
Apparently that dodge didn't work, because by Thursday afternoon, Johnson's memory had been refreshed when talking to Icki McKenna on the Koch Propaganda show. And RoJo followed with a statement that said "I was tricked!"
In the letter, a bipartisan group of eight senators advocated for former Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko “to press ahead with urgent reforms” to the country’s prosecutor general’s office, led at the time by Shokin. That mirrors former Vice President Joe Biden’s calls from that time to remove Shokin from power.By that time, Ronnie had made more negative headlines after blindly backing Trump after the President publicly called for the Chinese to help drag down Biden.
But in a statement Thursday night after reviewing the 2016 letter, Johnson pointed to a recent letter he and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, sent to U.S. AG Bill Barr inquiring about the existence of documents that ran counter to Biden’s claim that actions in Ukraine “had nothing to do” with his son Hunter sitting on the board of Burisma, a natural gas company Shokin was investigating.
One such document the letter says may exist is a note claiming the legal team of Burisma apologized to Shokin’s replacement for “dissemination of false information by U.S. representatives and public figures” about Shokin investigation into Burisma’s owner.
If that document is accurate, Johnson said, “Congress would have been subjected to the same misinformation campaign against the Ukrainian prosecutor general, perpetrated by representatives of the U.S. government.”
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson said Thursday there's nothing improper about President Donald Trump's call on Chinese officials to investigate his top political rival in his 2020 re-election bid.Apparently Johnson was told by others that it was quite improper, because by Friday his story had changed again. Now, (mo)Ron wasn't so keen on Trump working with foreign governments to dig for dirt.
Trump extended the invitation Thursday to the foreign country as he faces impeachment over a similar request of the president of Ukraine and just months after Trump's 2016 campaign was investigated over its ties to Russia officials.
Johnson told reporters Thursday it's appropriate for Trump to seek help from other nations to determine whether criminal acts have been committed.
"I want to find out what happened during 2016," he said after visiting a meeting of the Middleton Chamber of Commerce. "If there's potential criminal activity, the president of the United States is our chief law enforcement officer. We have proper agreements with countries to investigate potential crimes so I don't think there's anything improper about doing that."
NEWS: GOP Sen. Ron Johnson tells WSJ that the U.S. ambassador to the EU told him in August that the status of aid to Ukraine was tied to Trump’s interest in having Kiev investigate certain matters. Johnson confronted Trump, who denied it. w/@siobhanehughes https://t.co/GPLBKsc9rm
— Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) October 4, 2019
Johnson's response on Friday also filled in other details he and Trump probably didn't want people to know.
.@SenRonJohnson knew about the allegation that Trump was withholding aid until Ukraine investigated his political rival in August. The public saw the transcript last week.
— Molly Beck (@MollyBeck) October 4, 2019
Now let's go back to that story from Wednesday in Pewaukee.
Johnson has said he did not believe that military aid to Ukraine was withheld by the president to pressure that country to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden.Now Johnson is saying he knew back IN AUGUST that he suspected there was funny business going on. Oops.
Johnson has met face-to-face with Zelensky and said, "At no point in time did Zelensky ever mention any case that he's feeling pressure."
So what's Johnson's excuse? That he took Trump at his word, and figured the claims in August weren't true. That makes Ron Johnson today's contestant on the popular game show "GOP - LYING OR STUPID???"
But this isn't the first time Ron Johnson has withheld information from Wisconsin voters about foreign countries trying to help Donald Trump. That's going to be in part 2, and it ties back to Russia and Ron Johnson's electoral allies.
And Ronnie's brutal week concludes with an embarrassing performance on "meet the Press". When Chuck ("It's not My Job to Tell the Facts")Todd is calling you out for evasiveness and deception, you know it's gone bad.
ReplyDeleteAnd if RoJo is lying and throwing out these already-debunked conspiracy theories about the "deep state", it also means he's GUILTY AS HELL.