As Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin uses his committee to burrow into a hole of Russian disinformation to the political benefit of Donald Trump, he's simultaneously accusing Democrats of doing the Kremlin's dirty work.
Johnson has now subpoenaed the FBI in a probe of Joe Biden's diplomacy in Ukraine as vice president that just happens to match exactly the investigation Trump tried to force Ukraine into doing until a whistleblower uncovered his scheme. The subpoena relates to the origins of the FBI's Russia probe (which has been reviewed ad nauseam), asking for “all documents related to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation,” according to Politico.
The subpoena is a clear sign that Johnson and his colleague Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa have decided to ignore a warning by the director of national intelligence Friday that Russia is specifically working to "denigrate" Biden to “boost” Trump’s reelection bid. The statement also noted the Kremlin's efforts to use pro-Russian Ukrainians to spread "claims about corruption" in order to undermine Biden's candidacy and named Ukrainian lawmaker Andrii Derkach as a part of that effort. Derkach, the son of a former KGB officer who was educated at the Higher School of the KGB in Moscow, told the Washington Post he has shared information with Johnson's investigators on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
Democrats have similarly been sounding the alarm bells that Johnson's probe is merely an effort to launder Russian disinformation about Biden under the auspices of a U.S. Senate investigation.
It's against that backdrop that Johnson pressed forward with a subpoena to the FBI and issued a lengthy defense of his probe Monday that accused Democrats of initiating a "coordinated disinformation campaign and effort to personally attack” both him and Sen. Grassley.
Johnson's frothy 11-page defense of his probe begins with an effort to legitimize his effort by—you can't make this stuff up—citing his committee's scrutinization of Hillary Clinton's emails! But Johnson was perhaps most chaffed by a Friday op-ed penned by Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut noting that the CIA is so suspicious of Johnson's probe that the agency has declined to brief him.
"Think of it," Blumenthal wrote, "Congress may become a forum for debunked conspiracy theories peddled by Kremlin proxies."
Johnson has denied receiving any materials from Andrii Derkach and, in his letter, countered, “Instead, it is Democrats and the media that have been doing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s work for him."
Just to be clear, it's not the Democrats who are reviving a Trump-initiated investigation so bogus that Ukrainian officials themselves declined to launch it at the risk of losing $400 million in U.S. aid. It's not the Democrats who the CIA has refused to brief. It's Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson who holds that distinction.
And if Trump and Sens. Johnson and Grassley have nothing to hide, then they should declassify the information relating to Russia’s ongoing efforts to attack the 2020 elections. That’s what Democrats are asking for, since, at Johnson’s request, Trump has recently declassified documents related to the FBI’s investigation of links between Russia and the Trump campaign in 2016. But Johnson and Grassley clearly aren’t interested in revealing Russia’s efforts to attack the upcoming elections—they’re too busy chasing Trump’s dream probe of Biden that Ukraine refused to do.
