Democrats Pressured Ukraine to Investigate Trump in 2018, Report Reveals
Dems wrote letter to Ukrainian Government in May '18, demanding investigation
© press
In 2018, Democrats wrote a letter to the Ukraine Government, demanding Ukrainian officials continue investigating US President Donald Trump, a bombshell report has revealed.
Democratic Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) urged Ukraine to investigate President Trump for claims of alleged collusion with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign — collusion later proved to be non-existent.
The demand from top Democrats resurfaced in a Wednesday opinion piece in the Washington Post written by conservative author Marc Thiessen.
The news follows the Tuesday announcement from Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that Democrats are pursuing an official impeachment inquiry against the president.
While announcing the proceedings, Speaker Pelosi cited Trump's alleged phone call with Ukrainian officials as being the trigger for the inquiry into the president.
Ironically, Pelosi declared that even the slightest possibility that Trump had spoken with Ukrainian officials, regarding an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden — even without a quid pro quo — was reason enough to proceed with the impeachment push.
© press
According to Breitbart, Biden boasted in 2018 that he had forced Ukraine to remove its prosecutor by threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid.
What he wasn't boasting about to audience at the Council on Foreign Relations, however, was the fact that the prosecutor was looking into a firm on whose board his son, Hunter Biden, was serving.
Thiessen observed (original links):
It got almost no attention, but in May [2018], CNN reported that Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) wrote a letter to Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, expressing concern at the closing of four investigations they said were critical to the Mueller probe.
In the letter, they implied that their support for U.S. assistance to Ukraine was at stake.
Describing themselves as “strong advocates for a robust and close relationship with Ukraine,” the Democratic senators declared, “We have supported [the] capacity-building process and are disappointed that some in Kyiv appear to have cast aside these [democratic] principles to avoid the ire of President Trump,” before demanding Lutsenko “reverse course and halt any efforts to impede cooperation with this important investigation.”
© press
The Democrats’ letter is available online here.
In it, Menendez, Durbin, and Leahy demanded that the Ukrainian government answer their questions about the Mueller probe, and issued an implied threat:
“This reported refusal to cooperate with the Mueller probe also sends a worrying signal — to the Ukrainian people as well as the international community — about your government’s commitment more broadly to support justice and the rule of law.”
On Sunday, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), called on the Justice Department to investigate business dealings between the Biden family and Ukraine.
"Joe Biden said everybody's looked at this and found nothing -- who is everybody?" Senator Graham asked.
"Nobody has looked at the Ukraine and the Bidens.
"Nobody's looked at the role the Ukraine played in the 2016 election.
"So here is what I'm calling for: I'm calling for somebody in the Justice Department to look at all things Ukraine."
