Sanctions shred Senatorial sanctimony, but do voters care?
At first glance it's an open-and-shut Badger State case study in how not to hold public office, let alone run for re-election.
We're referencing Wisconsin's senior GOP US Senator, who faces a plunging approval record -
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| Trumpista Forever Ron Johnson |
- while weighing a third-term run which he promised he would not make.
And if poor polling and a broken promise wouldn't already have derailed an incumbent bent on re-election - especially one whose recent self-serving maneuvers shattered his earlier sanctimonious self-accounting - consider that Johnson is also deep into an expanding political minefield of his own creation:
* Begin here, with one Andril Derkach, a Ukrainian legislator who was just sanctioned by Ukraine:
Ukraine sanctions lawmaker accused of meddling in U.S. election
* This is the same person - designated by US officials as a "Russian agent" - whose associates and others were already sanctioned by the US Government during the Trump administration for interfering in American politics:
WASHINGTON – Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) took additional action against seven individuals and four entities that are part of a Russia-linked foreign influence network associated with Andrii Derkach.
Russian agent Derkach was designated on September 10, 2020, pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13848, for his attempt to influence the 2020 U.S. presidential election....
Since at least 2019, Derkach and his associates have leveraged U.S. media, U.S.-based social media platforms, and influential U.S. persons to spread misleading and unsubstantiated allegations that current and former U.S. officials engaged in corruption, money laundering, and unlawful political influence in Ukraine.
* Now here's why this might ring an alarm bell for Johnson, and Wisconsin voters:
State Dept. provides House Dems docs previously given to Ron Johnson's Biden probe
Democrats have raised concerns that material gathered by Derkach, who met in December with Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, has been laundered into Johnson’s material.
Johnson has strenuously denied the allegations, but Democrats sought the documents he obtained from the State Department to understand the direction his probe is taking.
POLITICO first reported that Derkach mailed information about the Bidens to Johnson, but Johnson’s office has denied receiving anything from Derkach.
Derkach has pushed many of the same claims against Biden that Johnson, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, is pursuing. Johnson’s probe centers on allegations that a Democratic public-affairs firm sought to leverage Hunter Biden’s position on the board of Burisma in order to influence the Obama-era State Department.
* Not to mention this report which ran in the Wisconsin State Journal Aug. 9, 2020:
A national intelligence document released Friday by the Trump administration revealed Russia is using pro-Russia Ukrainian officials to slander presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, undermining a key pillar of U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson’s ongoing investigation into the former vice president.
Johnson, who is chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, has drawn criticism from Democrats and foreign policy experts for what they see as an attempt to smear Biden as he challenges Republican President Donald Trump.
* As well as this related August, 2020 lengthy item, which includes Johnson's denial of any wrongdoing:
Earlier this month, Johnson defended himself on a local Wisconsin news station saying, “What have I published, what have I reported on, that is not true, that is any form of Russian disinformation? There has been nothing....”
We provide a roadmap for understanding this disinformation operation currently in progress, using U.S. elected officials as a vehicle.
You'd think all this would have led Johnson months ago to announce there'd be no third-term run, but maybe it's all too complicated for voters to digest.
And remember that he won two elections which plenty people said he wouldn't win, so maybe his Teflon is actually advanced, impenetrable Kevlar.
2 comments:
Ukrainski proverb say: "Malicious cow disturbs entire herd. A tale that begins with a beet will end with the devil."
Getting those documents from Derkach was a way RoJo and other conservatives like him could in effect launder the information. Apparently it never occurred to him that using foreign services of very dubious reliability and credibility would be an issue. And then when it becomes an issue, the disinformation itself is called into public scrutiny. It's a falling house of cards and he's holding the joker.
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