Photo credit: US Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine
U.S. Senator Ron Johnson on a diplomatic trip to the Ukraine on Dec. 7, 2018.
With friends like Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, Ukraine doesn’t need any enemies.
Johnson’s name keeps coming up during the impeachment hearings as a witness to President Donald Trump’s internal discussions about using his presidency to pressure Ukraine into publicly announcing criminal investigations to benefit Trump’s reelection. Johnson has awkwardly attempted to portray himself in the media as a strong supporter of both Ukraine and Trump.
But the volatile Trump has never tolerated divided loyalties from those around him. Trump, who sometimes sacrilegiously refers to himself as “the Chosen One,” is like an angry Old Testament God demanding absolute allegiance from cowering congressional Republicans.
Johnson attended the inauguration of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and claims to have initially advocated for Trump to release nearly $400 million in congressionally approved military assistance to defend Ukraine against a continuing invasion from Russia.
But Johnson fell silent after Trump made his absolute contempt for Ukraine clear in private White House discussions, calling the struggling democracy “a phony country” that should really be part of Russia. (Golly, I wonder which world leader could have given Trump that idea.)
Trump’s Extortion Scheme
That led Trump to use Ukraine’s desperate need for U.S. military assistance to try to extort Zelensky into publicly announcing two Ukrainian criminal investigations—one into former Vice President Joe Biden, a possible Democratic opponent in the race to the presidency, and the other into whether corrupt Ukrainians conspired with Democrats to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and then framed innocent Russians and the Trump campaign for the dirty deed.
According to Gordon Sondland, Trump’s ambassador to the European Union, Trump didn’t care whether Ukraine actually conducted any investigations. All that mattered was that Zelensky announce them publicly. Then, Trump could smear Biden for being under criminal investigation and once again declare all the evidence collected by U.S. intelligence agencies proving Russia’s illegal 2016 interference to elect Trump was a Democratic hoax. According to Fiona Hill, the top Russia expert for the National Security Council, Trump’s claim that Ukraine, not Russia, disrupted the U.S. election was fraudulent propaganda spread by Russian military intelligence.
|
|
So, what did Johnson do for his Ukrainian friends when Trump withheld hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars from Ukraine, urging Zelensky to announce sham investigations vilifying Biden and blaming Ukrainians for Russia’s international crimes? Johnson told The Wall Street Journal he winced. That’s Johnson. A profile in courage unleashing a withering wince at Trump for unconstitutionally soliciting illegal foreign interference in yet another U.S. presidential election.
Since that devastating wince, Johnson has reestablished his enduring friendship with Trump. As chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, Johnson has repeatedly promoted U.S. investigations into whether bad Ukrainians (no friends of his) conspired in 2016 with the Democratic National Committee, the Clinton campaign or the Obama administration to produce dirt on the Trump campaign and sully the reputation of Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort, who is now serving time in federal prison for tax evasion, bank fraud and money laundering.
Debunking the Bunk?
Johnson freely acknowledges “certain elements” of the rumors about Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election have been debunked. But Johnson claims that, from “my own oversight work, there are all kinds of things that have not been debunked.” As long as there are still rumors about Ukraine planted by Russian intelligence on rightwing websites that haven’t been debunked yet, Johnson intends to keep demanding they be investigated.
Johnson is the perfect example of Republicans twisting themselves into pretzels to justify Trump’s constant pathological lying, personal corruption and secret alliances with malevolent world dictators. Johnson was elected to the U.S. Senate in the racist, Tea Party Obama backlash election of 2010. He had no political experience and no apparent political qualifications. Johnson’s only real political interest was continuing to slash taxes for millionaires like himself. Johnson didn’t come from great wealth but earned it the American way—by marrying into it. He rose quickly from accountant to CEO of an Oshkosh plastics company founded by his in-laws. Johnson was an initial opponent of the $1.5 trillion Republican tax cut in 2017, but not for any reasons of fiscal responsibility. He just wanted larger tax cuts for four businesses he and his wife owned. That also increased the tax cuts for Trump’s family businesses, so it was an easy win.
Johnson’s ideology has always been standard, rightwing, Republican anticommunism. He smears Democrats as Marxists for wanting to expand affordable health care or any other government benefits for Americans unless they’re millionaires.
Republicans may not really know why Trump keeps promoting ideas and policies originating with Russian President Vladimir Putin, American democracy’s greatest adversary. But surely, Johnson and other rightwing Republicans must have a few qualms about peddling fraudulent communist propaganda created by Russian military intelligence to justify refusing to remove their party’s politically embarrassing, financially corrupt and totally unqualified president from public office in order to hold onto power.
