President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, has been working with a Ukraine lawmaker who today was sanctioned by the U.S. government for interfering in the 2020 election in an effort to undermine the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
The U.S. Treasury Dept. says Andrii Derkach has been “an active Russian agent for over a decade,” and has added him “to its ‘Specially Designated Nationals’ list for alleged efforts to interfere in the U.S. presidential election, including by promoting ‘false and unsubstantiated’ allegations targeting Joe Biden,” Axios reports.
CNN’s Marshall Cohen sums up by saying, “The US government announced today that Ukrainian lawmaker Andrii Derkach is an ‘active Russian agent.’ That means Rudy Giuliani and [far right media outlet] OANN collaborated with an ‘active Russian agent’ to hurt Biden’s campaign.”
Derkach, a “controversial Ukrainian lawmaker,” according to CNN, “was already singled out earlier this summer by the US intelligence community for helping Moscow’s ongoing efforts to weaken Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden.”
“Derkach has worked closely with Giuliani to peddle anti-Biden material, which has also been embraced by Republican lawmakers and right-wing outlets like OANN,” CNN adds.
The former lead counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry notes Republican U.S. Senator Ron Johnson’s involvement. Johnson serves as the Chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee:
In a statement Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) says “Russia uses a variety of proxies to attempt to sow discord between political parties and drive internal divisions to influence voters as part of Moscow’s broader efforts to undermine democratic countries and institutions.”
Derkach has maintained “close connections with the Russian Intelligence Services,” Treasury says, and “has directly or indirectly engaged in, sponsored, concealed, or otherwise been complicit in foreign interference in an attempt to undermine the upcoming 2020 U.S. presidential election.”
“From at least late 2019 through mid-2020, Derkach waged a covert influence campaign centered on cultivating false and unsubstantiated narratives concerning U.S. officials in the upcoming 2020 Presidential Election, spurring corruption investigations in both Ukraine and the United States designed to culminate prior to election day.”