OSHKOSH — Wisconsin reporters today asked Senator Johnson for his reaction to a news report about a letter he signed on to in 2016 related to corruption in Ukraine. Since the senator sends many oversight letters himself and signs on to many more, he asked for a chance to reacquaint himself with the letter so he could provide accurate information.

After rereading the 2016 letter, Senator Johnson said this:

“In response to CNN’s accusation of hypocrisy based on a 2016 letter by the Senate Ukraine Caucus, I would point out that if the file memorandum we highlighted in our Sept. 27, 2019, oversight letter is accurate, Congress would have been subjected to the same misinformation campaign against the Ukrainian prosecutor general, perpetrated by representatives of the U.S. government. The Senate Ukraine Caucus’ 2016 letter was encouraging the Ukrainian government to vigorously pursue an anti-corruption agenda generally.”

The 2016 Senate Ukraine Caucus letter is attached (here), and so is the Sept. 27, 2019 oversight letter from Senators Johnson and Grassley (here). The file memorandum is highlighted in the oversight letter in this passage:

In addition, information has surfaced that raises new questions.  A recent report described a note purporting to memorialize a meeting in Kiev between the Ukrainian Acting Prosecutor General, Yuriy Sevruk, and Burisma’s American legal team.   Yuriy Sevruk was the temporary replacement for the Prosecutor General that Vice President Biden demanded be fired, Victor Shokin.  The note, reportedly written by Sevruk, states that “[t]he purpose of their visit was an apology for dissemination of false information by U.S. representatives and public figures on the activities of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine [Shokin] in regards to the investigation of criminal activities of Zlochevshy [Oligarch owner of Burisma Holdings].”

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