Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin are demanding information from the FBI related to former Democratic National Committee (DNC) contractor Alexandra Chalupa and her efforts to seek dirt on the Trump campaign from Ukraine.
Politico reported that in 2016, Chalupa met with an official from the Ukrainian embassy for information that could undermine the Trump campaign.
According to Yahoo News, Chalupa was also the target of a cyberattack during her time at the DNC, prompting FBI investigators to interview her and take digital forensic images of her laptop and smartphone.
“If this reporting is accurate, it appears that the DOJ and FBI have in their possession material relevant to our Committees’ ongoing investigation into collusive actions Chalupa and the DNC took to use foreign government sources to undermine the Trump campaign during the 2016 election,” Grassley and Johnson wrote in a letter to Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
The demands for the FBI’s relevant records on Chalupa come in the midst of a House impeachment inquiry centered on President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine. Democrats have alleged Trump conspired with his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate political opponents at home in exchange for military aid in an apparent quid pro quo.
A July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky kicked off the impeachment proceedings. An unredacted transcript of the phone call, which has now been declassified and released to the public, shows that the president in reality urged Zelensky to weed out corruption in his own country and investigate the origins of Ukraine’s involvement in peddling the Russia collusion hoax that did irreparable damage to the United States.
As part of their latest efforts to undo the 2016 election through impeachment, Democrats have argued that Ukraine’s involvement in promoting the Russian collusion conspiracy theory are unfounded and are serving as a distraction to the president’s ulterior motives: leveraging the power of the Oval Office to dig up dirt on the Biden family.
Ukraine’s involvement in pushing the false Russian collusion narrative is well-documented, however, and Grassley and Johnson’s request for records is likely to shed further light on Ukraine’s election meddling.
The Republican senators have given the Justice Department a deadline of Dec. 9 to meet their demands.
