How the Obama White House engaged Ukraine to give Russia collusion narrative an early boost.
As Donald Trump began his meteoric rise to the presidency, the Obama White House summoned Ukrainian authorities to Washington to coordinate ongoing anti-corruption efforts inside Russia’s most critical neighbor.
The Jan 2016 gathering, confirmed by multiple participants & contemporaneous memos, brought some of Ukraine’s top corruption prosecutors & investigators face to face with members of President Obama’s National Security Council (NSC), FBI, State Department & Dept of Justice (DOJ).
The agenda suggested the purpose was training and coordination. But Ukrainian participants said it didn’t take long — during the meetings and afterward — to realize the Americans’ objectives included two politically hot investigations:
one that touched Vice President Joe Biden’s family and one that involved a lobbying firm linked closely to then-candidate Trump.