Quote:A top Democratic senator discouraged the Justice Department and FBI from complying with a Republican demand for information about a former Democratic National Committee contractor.

Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden warned that complying with the records request related to Alexandra Chalupa, who is alleged to have sought dirt from Ukraine to undermine then-candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 election, would have dangerous consequences. As Chalupa conducted research on Paul Manafort, who did lobbying work for a pro-Russia Ukrainian oligarchs and later became Trump's campaign manager, the Ukrainian American activist began receiving notifications from Yahoo security that claimed she was the victim of a "state-sponsored" cyberattack.

“The Senators’ request will have a chilling effect on the victims of nation state cyberattacks, and would discourage them from seeking law enforcement assistance, thereby jeopardizing our national security, limiting our ability to respond to sophisticated cyberattacks, and undermining the civil liberties of American citizens,” Wyden wrote in a letter to Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray on Thursday.

Chalupa said she developed a network of sources in Washington and Kyiv, and met with Ukrainian Embassy officials during the 2016 campaign about her research focused on the nexus between Manafort, Trump, and Russia, according to a 2017 Politico article. Chalupa has denied being an opposition researcher for the DNC, telling CNN in 2017 that "the DNC never asked me to go to the Ukrainian Embassy to collect information." Manafort, who is now serving a seven-year prison sentence for after federal convictions on bank and tax fraud, resigned as Trump's campaign chairman in August 2016, as reports emerged about his work on behalf of pro-Russia Ukrainian officials.

Beginning in the spring on 2016, a Yahoo report said Chalupa suspected that she had potentially been the victim of a “state sponsored" cyberattack, after which the FBI interviewed her and took computer forensic images of her laptop and smartphone.

Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin cited these reports in a November letter to Barr and Wray, requesting interview notes and material related to the forensic images of Chalupa’s devices.

“If this reporting is accurate, it appears that the DOJ and FBI have in their possession material relevant to our Committees’ ongoing investigation into collusive actions Chalupa and the DNC took to use foreign government sources to undermine the Trump campaign during the 2016 election,” Grassley and Johnson wrote. The Senate Republicans also sought interviews with Chalupa and others connected to the alleged collusion effort.

Wyden, who is the top Democrat on the Finance Committee and a member of the intelligence panel, called the request for imaging records of Chalupa's devices "outrageous," raising privacy issues and criticizing the reports about her cited by Grassley and Johnson in their letter. This included a piece by former Hill opinion contributor John Solomon, whose articles are under review by the outlet after witnesses in impeachment proceedings focused on Trump's Ukraine pressure campaign raised doubts about his work.

"Ms. Chalupa voluntarily came forward and provided personal private information to the FBI in order to assist in the investigation of Russian hacking and interference in the 2016 election," Wyden wrote. "To use her voluntary cooperation in order to weaponize her personal information against her in furtherance of a political attack based on unsupported claims and potential Russian propaganda would compromise public trust in our law enforcement, undermine Americans' rights, and damage our national security interests."

"Ms. Chalupa already had her privacy violated once as the result of a cyber-attack by a foreign government. Her privacy should not be violated a second time by her own government. I expect the Justice Department and FBI to take appropriate steps to safeguard Ms. Chalupa's private personal records from improper use," Wyden concluded.

An aide to Grassley, who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, accused Wyden of ignoring "legitimate questions" about election security in a statement to the Daily Beast.

"Wyden’s letter conflates Russian propaganda efforts with unrelated reports of potential election interference that have yet to be fully investigated," the aide said. "In fact, Senators Grassley, Johnson and [Lindsey] Graham clearly state that their inquiry is ‘unrelated to an uncorroborated theory that Ukraine was also behind the hack of DNC servers.’ Despite his complaints, Wyden neglected to mention that subjects of the inquiry have already voluntarily provided Congress with records Wyden argues should not be sought. With another election less than 10 months away, it’s a shame that the Democrats would choose to interfere with an ongoing investigation into potential election vulnerabilities instead of joining it.”

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So Trumps tax records for the past 10 years are fair game, without evidence of any crimes being committed.

Yet, given the multiple questions of DNC hacking, missing servers, destroyed evidence, Chinese spies working for decades, asking for records is somehow wrong?