Posted on 03/03/2020 2:14:53 AM PST by Libloather
The top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security Committee is seeking to subpoena a witness tied to the investigation of Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian energy firm where Hunter Biden, son of Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden, sat on its board, according to a letter obtained by CBS News.
Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin sent a letter to committee members Sunday informing them of his intent to schedule a meeting during which they would consider a subpoena to Andrii Telizhenko, a former consultant for the U.S.-based government affairs firm Blue Star, for documents related to his work there. Blue Star "was a U.S. representative" for Burisma, Johnson said.
Telizhenko is a former Ukrainian diplomat at the center of claims Ukraine interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
According to the letter, Telizhenko "expressed his willingness to 'cooperate fully'" with the Senate panel's investigation into the Bidens and Ukraine, but is subject to a nondisclosure agreement.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
A "Senate panel investigation." Biden and his criminal family must be shaking in their boots.
So Johnson INTENDS to schedule a MEETING during which they would CONSIDER a subpoena.
Had enough BS yet?
I thought Lindsey Graham was on this? How many committee hearings are there?
Wait isn’t this double work because Lindseed Graham is on top of this...../s
You really think there is a chance of Hunter Biden appearing any time soon? They can subpoena all they want but the court challenges will take months before they appear.
Ex-Biden aide forms Unite the Country super PAC
Larry Rasky, who worked on Biden’s two previous presidential campaigns, is the super PAC’s treasurer.
Rasky worked as a subcontractor to Blue Star Strategies, DC lobby shop run by two veterans of the Clinton admin.
By THEODORIC MEYER and MAGGIE SEVERNS
10/29/2019
A former Joe Biden aide has filed paperwork to form a super PAC, called Unite the Country, that is set to boost the former vice president with millions of dollars in spending in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.
Larry Rasky, who worked on two of Biden’s previous presidential bids, is listed as the treasurer for the new pro-Biden group. Several other high-profile Biden supporters — including Florida operative Steve Schale, a Barack Obama campaign alumnus who was involved in efforts to draft Biden into the 2016 presidential race; Mark Riddle, a Democratic operative; and Julianna Smoot, Obama’s former national finance director — have also been in talks to lead the super PAC.
Rasky previously helped Biden raise money for his campaign, asking donors to send checks made out to “Biden for President” to the Boston offices of his lobbying and public affairs firm, Rasky Partners. In past fundraising appeals, Rasky had touted Biden’s personal opposition to accepting super PAC support — a stance Biden has since reversed.
“Because Joe will not work with a Super PAC or take PAC money for his campaign, everyone is limited to $2,800 as a maximum gift,” Rasky wrote in fundraising email sent in April and obtained by POLITICO. “That will require a lot of work and a lot of checks to finance a presidential campaign effort.”
The same super PAC previously went by a different name, For the People PAC, but it existed only briefly in April, shortly before Biden launched his run for president. At the time, Matt Tompkins, a Democratic fundraiser, told The Hill: “You won’t win in 2020 by unilaterally disarming.”
But Biden senior adviser Kate Bedingfield shut down For the People PAC’s buzz when she replied to a tweet about the group with a brief statement: “.@JoeBiden does not welcome support from super PACs.” For the People PAC went quiet shortly afterward and never reported raising or spending money.
The filing for Unite the Country, which was first reported by Bloomberg News, marks the official beginning of an outside effort to boost the former vice president, a move that could raise and spend unlimited sums of money and give the cash-strapped Biden campaign a boost.
The group of operatives have hustled to form the PAC since Biden shifted his stance on super PACs and opened the door to their help last week. In past months, donors have been probed by Biden allies to see whether they’d be open to giving more money beyond their initial campaign checks. Several have told POLITICO they would.
Rasky isn’t a registered lobbyist, although others at his firm lobby for a handful of federal clients, including Raytheon, the Massachusetts-based defense contractor. Rasky owns an 87.2 percent stake in the firm, according to a Justice Department disclosure filing.
Rasky registered as a foreign agent earlier this year to advise Azerbaijan’s government on strategic communications on a contract worth $15,000 a month. But he stopped working for Azerbaijan in August, he wrote in an email to POLITICO, supplying a copy of a letter his lawyer sent to the Justice Department on Aug. 27. The firm no longer represents foreign clients, he said.
BLUR STAR CONNECTION
Rasky’s firm also represented a Bangladeshi political party last year, reaching out to reporters at The New York Times, The Washington Post, POLITICO and other outlets on the party’s behalf, according to a disclosure filing. The firm worked for the party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, as a subcontractor to Blue Star Strategies, a Washington lobbying shop run by two veterans of the Clinton administration.
Blue Star has another connection to the Bidens: The firm advised the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings while Hunter Biden served on its board, according to The Times.
Karen Tramontano, Blue Star’s chief executive, said in an interview that she didn’t know Rasky. She hired his firm because Anne Tyrrell, a senior vice president in Rasky Partners’ Washington office, had come recommended to her. Tyrrell has since left Rasky Partners. Tramontano declined to comment on her firm’s work for Burisma.
President Donald Trump has attacked Hunter Biden’s work for Burisma, accusing Joe Biden of pressing Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor while he was vice president in an effort to help the company. But Ukraine’s top prosecutor at the time, Viktor Shokin, was widely seen as corrupt and there’s no evidence Joe Biden acted improperly. Trump faced impeachment for urging Ukraine’s president to investigate the Bidens.
investigate
Rasky never registered to work for the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, and his firm stopped working for the party in January, according to a disclosure filing.
“I know nothing about Blue Star,” Rasky wrote in an email to POLITICO. “I never worked on the account.”
You Republicans are SO DAMN SLOW! SPEED UP!
It was sarcasm.
Popcorn, anyone?
I’ll have the tall, buttered one. Its for a friend . . .
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