Ukrainian Election Interference

[nsacpi]

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have been investigating whether several Ukrainian officials helped orchestrate a wide-ranging plan to meddle in the 2020 presidential campaign, including using Rudolph W. Giuliani to spread their misleading claims about President Biden and tilt the election in Donald J. Trump’s favor, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The criminal investigation, which began during the final months of the Trump administration and has not been previously reported, underscores the federal government’s increasingly aggressive approach toward rooting out foreign interference in American electoral politics. Much of that effort is focused on Russian intelligence, which has suspected ties to at least one of the Ukrainians now under investigation.

The investigation is unfolding separately from a long-running federal inquiry in Manhattan that is aimed at Mr. Giuliani. While the two investigations have a similar cast of characters and overlap in some ways, Mr. Giuliani is not a subject of the Brooklyn investigation, the people said.

Instead, the Brooklyn prosecutors, along with the F.B.I., are focused on current and former Ukrainian officials suspected of trying to influence the election by spreading unsubstantiated claims of corruption about Mr. Biden through a number of channels, including Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer at the time. It is unclear whether the Brooklyn prosecutors will ultimately charge any of the Ukrainians.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/27/...idential-election.html?searchResultPosition=1

 

[nsacpi]

At one point in the investigation, the authorities examined a trip Mr. Giuliani took to Europe in December 2019, when he met with several Ukrainians, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing inquiry.

At least one of the current and former officials Mr. Giuliani met, a Ukrainian member of parliament named Andriy Derkach, is now a focus of the Brooklyn investigation, the people said.

The trip was the culmination of a yearlong effort by Mr. Giuliani, with support from Mr. Trump, to undermine Mr. Biden’s presidential campaign. The effort proceeded primarily on two parallel tracks: collecting information from Ukraine to attack Mr. Biden’s diplomatic efforts there as vice president, and pressing Ukraine to announce investigations into Mr. Biden and other Trump critics.

The effort ultimately backfired, leading to Mr. Trump’s first impeachment.

Amid the impeachment proceedings, U.S. intelligence officials warned Mr. Trump that Mr. Derkach was seeking to use Mr. Giuliani to spread disinformation. Mr. Giuliani, who has said he did not receive a similar warning at the time, continued to vouch for the authenticity of information he received, even after Mr. Trump’s Treasury Department imposed sanctions against Mr. Derkach for election interference, and accused him of being “an active Russian agent.”

In an interview last year, Mr. Giuliani said there was nothing to dissuade him from meeting with Mr. Derkach, who was not under sanctions at the time. “I have no reason to believe he is a Russian agent,” Mr. Giuliani said.

 

[nsacpi]

The investigation into Mr. Giuliani in Manhattan — which entered an aggressive new phase last month when F.B.I. agents executed search warrants at his home and office — centers on whether he lobbied the Trump administration to remove the U.S. ambassador to Kyiv on behalf of Ukrainian officials who wanted her gone. It is a violation of federal law to lobby the U.S. government on behalf of foreign officials without registering with the Justice Department, and Mr. Giuliani never registered.

It is unclear why the Manhattan prosecutors are not also handling the investigation into the Ukrainians, though Mr. Trump’s Justice Department regularly clashed with that office and steered some cases involving Ukraine to the Brooklyn office instead.

 

[striker42]

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have been investigating whether several Ukrainian officials helped orchestrate a wide-ranging plan to meddle in the 2020 presidential campaign, including using Rudolph W. Giuliani to spread their misleading claims about President Biden and tilt the election in Donald J. Trump’s favor, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The criminal investigation, which began during the final months of the Trump administration and has not been previously reported, underscores the federal government’s increasingly aggressive approach toward rooting out foreign interference in American electoral politics. Much of that effort is focused on Russian intelligence, which has suspected ties to at least one of the Ukrainians now under investigation.

The investigation is unfolding separately from a long-running federal inquiry in Manhattan that is aimed at Mr. Giuliani. While the two investigations have a similar cast of characters and overlap in some ways, Mr. Giuliani is not a subject of the Brooklyn investigation, the people said.

Instead, the Brooklyn prosecutors, along with the F.B.I., are focused on current and former Ukrainian officials suspected of trying to influence the election by spreading unsubstantiated claims of corruption about Mr. Biden through a number of channels, including Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer at the time. It is unclear whether the Brooklyn prosecutors will ultimately charge any of the Ukrainians.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/27/...idential-election.html?searchResultPosition=1

I'm not sure they could be charged with spreading unsubstantiated claims of corruption. You can't criminalize spreading lies. You'd need to cross a line like filing a false police report or something like that.

 

[nsacpi]

I'm guessing they are looking at who paid for the deza and whether that constitutes an illegal campaign contribution.

There is this fellow Firtash who has been trying to get an indictment dropped by buying influence with the DoJ.