,
25 tweets,
4 min read
Read on Twitter
Ukrainian who meddled against Trump in 2016 is now under Russia-corruption cloud - thehill.com/opinion/white-…
The country’s chief corruption prosecutor on Thursday opened an investigation into “suspicions” that Serhiy Leshchenko, a crusading anti-corruption member of Ukraine’s parliament and former investigative journalist, accepted bribes in 2016 from a Russian source
Leshchenko previously has denied any wrongdoing. The 2016 purchase of his condo was investigated once before and he was cleared of criminality. Now, however, the allegation of foreign bribe money adds an element.
On Thursday, Leshchenko responded to the new investigation on Twitter, suggesting it was evidence that his anti-corruption crusade was “hurting” prosecutors, who he said were trying to keep their jobs as a new Ukrainian president takes office.
A Ukrainian court last December ruled that Leshchenko and the head of the country’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau — an agency modeled on America’s FBI — illegally meddled in the 2016 U.S. election by leaking financial documents that smeared then-Trump campaign mgr Paul Manafort
The documents, known as “the black ledger,” identified payments Manafort secretly received from a Russian-backed political party in Ukraine years earlier and led to Manafort’s abrupt resignation from the Trump campaign. He eventually pled guilty to lobbying and tax violations.
The court ruling against Leshchenko was an extraordinary admission of foreign government influence on America’s last presidential election. But it wasn’t Leshchenko’s only intrusion into American politics, apparently.
Sworn testimony released a few weeks ago by Congress revealed Leshchenko also was “a source” of Russian dirt on Trump that was fed to Hillary Clinton’s opposition research firm, Fusion GPS...
... the firm that created the so-called Steele dossier that led to a two-year Russia probe that recently cleared Donald Trump of colluding with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
So, a Ukrainian parliamentarian fed dirt to Clinton’s team and leaked to the media information that harmed the Republican candidate’s campaign? That seems like more collusion than was uncovered by special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
But the most tantalizing info about Leshchenko surfaced in an interview Thursday with Ukraine’s chief anti-corruption prosecutor, Nazar Kholodnytskyy, who revealed that alleged bribes to Leshchenko occurred around the time Manafort stepped down under pressure based on his leak
“Absolutely that is one of the things they are going to be investigating,” Kholodnytskyy told me when asked whether any of the Russian money could have been paid as an inducement or a reward for Leshchenko’s meddling in the U.S. election.
The special prosecutor said “credible” information obtained from news media reports, as well as classified information the government possesses, suggest Leshchenko was receiving money from a Russian businessman and was trying to buy a condo in August and September 2016.
“One of the major pieces of evidence in the case, looking at his tax returns and financial records, he (Leshchenko) does not appear to have the resources to buy an apartment of that value,” Kholodnytskyy said.
“According to information published in the mass media, a member of the parliament systematically received millions in bribes from an entrepreneur to lobby for the latter’s business interests,
specifically to influence officials of government agencies and law enforcement agencies and create the necessary public opinion in the media space,” the special anti-corruption prosecutor’s office led by Kholodnytskyy declared.
Ukrainian officials told me Thursday that the U.S. embassy during Barack Obama’s presidency applied pressure in recent years to steer investigations away from Leshchenko.
A source with direct knowledge said Leshchenko was one of the people the U.S. ambassador in Kiev asked Ukrainian prosecutors not to pursue in 2016.
And one of the ironies of Thursday’s announcement is that Leshchenko’s case now will be investigated by detectives from the same agency — NABU — that a court found in December had collaborated with him to influence the U.S. election improperly.
Whatever happens next in Ukraine, there’s growing evidence that Leshchenko and his activities during the 2016 election in America may deserve scrutiny on this side of the ocean, too.
And that alarm will sound all the more loudly if Ukrainian authorities find any evidence substantiating that Leshchenko received bribes or influence money from Russia in 2016.
In a related matter, Ukraine’s chief prosecutor gave an interview with Bloomberg News reiterating comments he first made in a Hill.TV interview broadcast April 1.
In that interview. Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko told me he was reopening parts of an investigation involving a Ukrainian natural gas company, Burisma Holdings, where then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, worked as a board member.
Lutsenko said he did not believe some $3 million in payments that Burisma made to Hunter Biden’s U.S. company violated Ukraine law but might be of interest to U.S. authorities.
Lutsenko told Bloomberg on Thursday that he’d like to offer evidence to U.S. Attorney General William Barr, so that American authorities can check whether Hunter Biden paid U.S. taxes.
