First Chamber Member Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., Strikes back at a Washington Post riot by Senator Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Claims he never received documents regarding Joe Biden’s family and the CIA did not deny him to inform about the matter.
In a long thread on Twitter, Johnson denied Blumenthal’s claims that he had obtained documents regarding the activities of Joe Biden and his son in Ukraine from the son of a former Soviet intelligence agent and blown the Connecticut Democrat out for his “twist of classified briefings and repetition of fake news reports.”
“[Blumenthal’s] “Twisting classified briefings and repeating false news stories is out of the question,” Johnson tweeted. ‘It’s a flat lie that I got the documents from Ukrainians detaining Democrats. And they know it. It is unthinkable that Democrats and the press will continue to report it. ”
Johnson’s Twitter screed continued: “It’s a flat-out lie that I asked the CIA to inform our commission and that they refused. We have been repeatedly informed about these issues, Democrats just do not like what they heard. ”
In his op-ed on Friday, Blumenthal suggested that Johnson, the chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, could use Russian disinformation to move forward with his investigation into Biden’s family. Blumenthal quoted a report last week as saying that Johnson had received applications from Andrii Derkach, a Ukrainian lawmaker whose father was a KGB agent.
Derkach has been active in leveling alleged allegations of corruption against Biden and his son Hunter, who once sat on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas company. That attempt has led to the publication of leaked phone calls.
“Johnson’s actions are of such importance to the CIA, according to news reports, that the agency refused to letter him,” Blumenthal wrote. “Note: Congress could become a forum for debunked conspiracy theories peddled by Kremlin proxies.”
MARIE YOVANOVITCH, FREQUENCY UKRAINIAN AMBASSADOR ACTED AT TRUMP, IS IN COURT OF STATE DEPARTMENT
He added: “There is no excuse for the restart of Russian disinformation in the US Senate, just as there is no excuse for unleashing the American public to learn more about the real foreign threats ahead of the elections in November: The Trump administration does not seem to take the danger seriously, and does not adequately prepare. “
The senatorial spate comes just days after the U.S. counter-intelligence spokeswoman said officials believe Russia is using a variety of measures to denigrate Biden for the November election and that individuals affiliated with the Kremlin are boosting Trump’s re-election bid.
William Evanina’s statement Friday is thought to be the most pointed statement by the U.S. intelligence community linking the Kremlin to efforts to re-select Trump – a sensitive topic for a president who has rejected intelligence bureau assessments that Russia has in 2016 tried to help. It also links Moscow’s rejection of Biden to his role as vice president in shaping Obama’s administration policies that support Ukraine, a key US ally, and oppose Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Asked about the intelligence assessment Friday night in Bedminster, New Jersey, Trump appeared to oppose the idea that Russia disparate Biden. “I think the last person Russia wants to see in office is Donald Trump, because no one is smarter about Russia than I am – ever,” he said.
Concerns about election interference are particularly acute after a wide variety of Russians intervened in the 2016 election on behalf of Trump through both the hacking of Democratic emails and a secret campaign on social media aimed at discord among To sow American voters. Trump has routinely opposed the idea of the Kremlin favoring him in 2016, but the intelligence assessment released Friday shows that unnamed Kremlin-linked actors are working again to boost his candidacy on social media and Russian television.
CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP
The White House responded to Friday’s news with a statement saying “the United States will not tolerate foreign interference in our electoral process and will respond to vicious foreign threats directed at our democratic institutions.”
Tony Blinken, a senior adviser to Biden’s campaign, responded that Trump had “publicly and repeatedly invited, emboldened and even tried to force foreign interference in US elections. … Joe Biden, on the other hand, has been leading the fight against foreign interference for years. “
Democrats in Congress who have attended recent classified briefings on election interference have raised alarm over what they have heard. They have urged the US intelligence community to make some of their concerns public to prevent a repeat of 2016, when Obama administration officials were seen as slow and over-conscious in their public discussion of active Russian measures in that year’s elections.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
