The Treasury Department sanctioned a Ukrainian lawmaker who met with Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, in Kiev last year, accusing the congressman of interfering in the 2020 presidential election.
Thursday’s order accused Andrii Derkach of being an “active Russian agent for more than a decade, with ties to Russian intelligence services. “
Derkach began releasing audio recordings in May that he said had captured Vice President Joe Biden, keeping calls with heads of state in 2016, that is, with the then president of Ukraine. The tapes were highly edited, but are part of a multi-year crusade that Derkach had led in which he accused Biden and the Democrats of “international corruption. “
Earlier, in December, Derkach met in Kiev with Giuliani, handing over a large number of documents to the former mayor of New York while Giuliani tried to dig up the dirt that would result in long-demystified conspiracy theories surrounding Biden’s handling of U. S. foreign policy toward Ukraine. .
These conspiracy theories were in the middle of President Trump’s political trial last year, in which the president held Ukraine’s army to force Kiev to manufacture Biden.
The Derkach gangs, which lack something to incriminate from a distance, must be part of this exchange in the Ukrainian part.
The Treasury said Derkach is conducting a “secret influence campaign” aimed at disseminating incorrect information about U. S. officials from 2019 to mid-2020, an era that appears to come with Giuliani’s assembly in December 2019 with Derkach.
It also refers to accusations that Derkach was spreading – the same accusations that President Trump had led Kiev to investigate last year – as “unfounded” and published “with the aim of discrediting U. S. officials. “
Republican lawmakers continue to advance investigations into the same allegations. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) said a report on the factor could be published next week.
Johnson took data from another Ukrainian: Andrii Telizhenko, a former staff member of the Ukrainian embassy in Washington who alleged without evidence that Kiev conspired to harm Trump in 2016.
After receiving a copy of the Treasury announcement and wondering about his relationship with Derkach, given that Telizhenko and the alleged Russian spy made accusations, Telzhenko sent several Facebook messages to the TPM denying any connection.
“I say what I saw personally in my paintings at the Ukrainian Embassy and Blue Star, he’s doing anything else,” Telizhenko told the TPM.
“From my point of view having it, there was nothing positive,” Telizhenko added. “I am a former official and normal representative of the Ukrainian government who has witnessed things that were bad for Ukraine. “
Representative Devin Nunes (R-CA) did not respond to questions from other lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee in July about whether he had taken data from Derkach, after a postal receipt from Nunes de Derkach was handed over to the offices of the House Democrats. .