‘Such allegations of corruption deserve due scrutiny, and the American people have a right to know when foreign forces attempt to undermine our democratic processes…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) As the impeachment probe into President Donald Trump deepens, one of the central questions will be whether he was justified in seeking to investigate a rival candidate’s potential criminality.
The House investigation launched by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., claims that Trump abused his power by asking Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy to help investigate former Vice President Joe Biden.
Now, with the discovery of new documents that may undermine Biden’s narrative, two leading GOP senators say they intend to redouble their efforts to root out the scandals that prompted Trump to investigate in the first place.
Foreign Influence
Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., said a recently discovered trove of records may help implicate Biden in one of several shady dealings between Ukraine and the Democrats that closely mirrored Trump’s situation.
Biden, one of the frontrunners in the Democratic primary to take on Trump next year, previously acknowledged on tape that he had coerced the country into firing a prosecutor who happened to be investigating allegations of corruption surrounding his son Hunter.
However, the elder Biden denied that Ukrainian prosecutor-general Viktor Shokin’s probe into energy company Burisma—which had Hunter Biden on the payroll, drawing a salary of $50,000 a month—had anything to do with his decision to withhold a billion-dollar loan guarantee unless Shokin was fired.
Grassley and Johnson also noted that a Ukrainian activist, Alexandra Chalupa, was on the payroll of the Democratic National Committee while working closely with the Ukrainian Embassy to dig up dirt and spread false narratives about Trump’s ties to Russia that would benefit his opponent, Hillary Clinton.
On Friday, the two powerful Senate committee chairs sent a letter to Attorney General William Barr asking for an update on the U.S. Justice Department’s probe into these matters.
“Ukrainian efforts, abetted by a U.S. political party, to interfere in the 2016 election should not be ignored,” the Senators wrote in the letter. “Such allegations of corruption deserve due scrutiny, and the American people have a right to know when foreign forces attempt to undermine our democratic processes.”
An Expanding Probe
The DOJ investigation is believed to be part of a wide-sweeping examination led by special prosecutor John Durham into the circumstances behind the now-debunked Russia hoax that led to the nearly two-year Mueller investigation.
The Biden disclosures that are now unfolding as part of Trump’s impeachment inquiry could raise the stakes even more.
“According to the Justice Department, U.S. Attorney John Durham is ‘exploring the extent to which … Ukraine, played a role in the counterintelligence investigation’ during the 2016 election,” wrote the senators.
“However, the Justice Department has yet to inform Congress and the public whether it has begun an investigation into links and coordination between the Ukrainian government and individuals associated with the campaign of Hillary Clinton or the Democratic National Committee,” they said.
Durham, who reportedly has spent a considerable amount of time on the job in Europe, is expected to report his findings next month.
Collateral Damage
Meanwhile, Democrats may sense deep trouble for Biden.
Some have speculated that left-wing leaders see his political career as collateral damage in their fight with Trump. But among those circling the wagons are Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., who is a rival of Biden’s in the presidential nominating contests; and “View” co-host Joy Behar.
Behar complained on Friday’s show that any scrutiny of Biden’s criminal conduct should be off-limits because of long-ago personal tragedies in his life.
“Don’t you think politically it’s dumb for the Republicans to go after Joe Biden’s son when he lost a son and daughter and wife?” she said. “I mean, people feel sorry for Joe!”
Behar followed up by misleading the viewing audience about the nature of Biden’s abuse of power, downplaying his Ukrainian extortion by focusing on Burisma’s hiring of Hunter Biden as the main offense, reported the Media Research Center.
“He didn’t do a thing,” Behar claimed. “Basically it boils down to nepotism and Trump’s got his whole family working in the White House! If you want to talk about nepotism!”