Republicans Would Kindly Like Some Answers About the Legality of Zelensky's Visit to PA

Quote:House Republicans are demanding answers from the Biden/Harris DOD and DOJ over the legality of Volodymyr Zelensky's visit to Pennsylvania earlier this week. The Ukrainian president made a stop in the one state that will likely determine the outcome of the presidential election and appeared to be doing some electioneering on behalf of one of the candidates: Kamala Harris.

It was Zelensky's stop at an ammunition factory that first caught the attention of GOP lawmakers, who noticed that only one political party, the Democrats, had representatives on hand. The diminutive leader was accompanied by Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA), Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA), and Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-PA), with nary a Republican in sight. This brought up the question of whether there was "any direct or indirect coordination” between Zelensky’s visit and the Harris/Walz campaign.

To make matters worse, the optics suggest that taxpayer money may have been used to fly in Zelenksy on government planes and provide him protection by federal agencies for the duration of his visit, for what likely was, to all intents and purposes, a campaign stop designed to benefit Kamala Harris.

If true, that could be a major violation of the Hatch Act, something the House GOP recognized:

The letter specifically requests a full accounting of the use of military aircraft and Secret Service resources, including an explanation of the justification for those resources and how it “aligns with U.S. national interests.” Additionally, the lawmakers have requested an accounting of all other uses of taxpayer funds in connection with Zelensky’s visit.

Here's the worst part: At the same time Zelenksky was possibly campaigning in PA, a story dropped in The New Yorker in which he said Donald Trump “doesn’t really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how” and slammed Trump's running mate, JD Vance, as “too radical."

“I don’t take Vance’s words seriously, because, if this were a plan, then America is headed for global conflict,” Zelensky said. “It would imply that whoever asserts control over territory — not the rightful owner but whoever came in a month or a week ago, with a machine gun in hand — is the one who’s in charge. We’ll end up in a world where might is right. And it will be a completely different world, a global showdown.”

Republican Lance Gooden (R-TX), one of those demanding accountability from the Biden/Harris administration, remarked:

“Utilizing taxpayer dollars to parade a foreign leader around, who then attacks a major party ticket days before a presidential election, is textbook election interference and a clear violation of the Hatch Act. This is not only a gross misuse of public funds; it’s an outrageous manipulation of our democratic processes.”

RedState's Bonchie had this to say about the incident:

"Is Zelensky going after Trump and Vance because Democrats have prodded him to do so in exchange for taxpayer-funded support? Short of someone spilling the beans on what has been said behind the scenes, we may never know, but it sure seems like it. The appearance of impropriety is extensive, and the practical aspects of using government resources to have Zelensky come essentially campaign for Democrats six weeks before a major election is highly inappropriate."

It's very unlikely that the House Republicans will be getting answers to their questions any time soon. And, certainly, the media won't be pressing the matter if it in any way comprises the Harris/Walz ticket. American taxpayers, however, should push for answers as to why there aren't enough federal resources to keep former president Trump safe, but there's plenty in the coffer to roll out the red carpet for the guy who's already taken billions of their hard-earned money.

So it's okay for Biden and Kamala to fly Zelenskyy in on American taxpayer money to help them try to keep the White House, but it's not okay for Trump to ask him to look into any wrongdoing Biden may have done to his country (Ukraine, of course) on Hunter's behalf while Biden was Vice-President by potentially using his position as VP. Got it.

The mask has come off and they don't even care to hide the bullcrap anymore.

Quote:BREAKING: Speaker Johnson is demanding that Ukrainian President Zelenskyy immediately fire Ukraine's Ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova after she "organized an event in which [Zelenskyy] toured an American Manufacturing site."

Johnson states that Zelenskyy's visit meddled in America's domestic politics by visiting a battleground state in a visit led by top Kamala surrogate and purposely "failed to include a single Republican."

Speaker Johnson is 100% correct. This was foreign election interference!

But let's go further and demand not another red cent of American taxpayer money be spent on Ukraine's war with Russia—especially as our border remains wide open, as 100,000 Americans die from fentanyl every year, and especially while we run multi-trillion $$ deficits.

Waiting for the TDS folks to step in and defend this. Nothing but silence so far.

They’re waiting till they’re told what to say.

After Zelensky Trashed Trump In Pennsylvania, McConnell Rewarded Him With Photo-Op

Quote:Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., gave Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky a photo-op at the nation’s Capitol on Wednesday, just days after the foreign leader used U.S. military assets to campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris in Pennsylvania.

The day before his trip to Pennsylvania, where Zelensky met with prominent Harris surrogates in a critical swing state, The New Yorker published an interview with the Ukrainian head-of-state in which he trashed both former President Donald Trump and Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, the Republican nominees for president and vice president.

“What absolutely infuriates me is that you have policymakers from both parties enabling this and normalizing this type of behavior. It is absolutely inappropriate to enable a foreign leader, in the middle of a hotly contested election, to come the United States and effectively campaign against one of the major party candidates,” Dan Caldwell, public policy advisor at Defense Priorities, told The Federalist in an interview.

“I don’t blame Zelensky for trying to manipulate our politics. I don’t think it’s right, I don’t think that the United States should be continuing to almost unconditionally support Zelensky, but at the same time, the United States is the biggest single funder of the war in Ukraine, and so I don’t blame him for trying to achieve a political outcome that in his mind will benefit his country.”

While there was backlash from some Republicans — which included the House Oversight Committee opening investigations into the Biden administration’s use of military assets for apparent campaign activities and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., calling for the removal of Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States — McConnell decided to meet with Zelensky alongside House Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

Johnson noted in his call for the ambassador’s resignation that “the facility was in a politically contested battleground state, was led by a top political surrogate for Kamala Harris, and failed to include a single Republican because — on purpose — no Republicans were invited.”

“The tour was clearly a partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats and is clearly election interference,” he added.

Republicans on Capitol Hill have succumbed to giving away billions of dollars to the Eastern European country, at least $1 billion of which U.S. officials failed to trace. Zelensky visited legislators this week after attending the United Nations General Assembly in New York City to ask for more F-16 fighter jets and long-range missiles, promising to bring Russia to the negotiating table and saying it will save the United States from having to shovel more cash into the war in the future.

On Wednesday, some Senate Republicans vying to replace McConnell as leader criticized Zelensky’s Pennsylvania campaign stop, with Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., telling the foreign leader to “stay out of American politics,” and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, calling it a “monumental blunder for Zelensky to get involved in American politics.” However, after meeting with Zelensky on Thursday, Cornyn, a top advisor to McConnell, doubled down on support for funding the Ukraine war.

“The message is that the longer that we slow-walk the weapons and put restrictions on their ability to use them against Russian stockpiles, energy resources and the like, the longer this war will go on,” Cornyn continued. “If we were to give them the authorities to use the weapons the way they want and deliver them on a timely basis, I think President Zelensky believes this war has a better chance of being resolved at the negotiating table.”

The cognitive dissonance among Republicans, with some skeptical of Ukraine funding and others fully embracing the foreign war, is a window into a bygone era, where some Republicans are trapped in a Cold War mindset, Caldwell explained.

“It’s representative of the larger divide within the conservative movement on foreign policy. There are still far too many Republicans who think it is 1983 and think that Russia is still the Soviet Union, and that therefore anybody who is fighting Russia is somebody that we need to effectively support unconditionally,” he said. “Their brains are stuck in an era that has long passed us by, and I think that is driving a lot of the behavior you are seeing from some Republicans who still want to hold up Zelensky as the savior of Western democracy.”

“This is a guy who’s become more authoritarian, he’s effectively ruling through martial law, he’s outlawed political parties, shut down certain media outlets,” Caldwell added. “They’re engaging in mass conscription, literally grabbing young men off the streets and sending them to the front to fight. Just like any society that is in war for [an] extended period of time, Ukraine is becoming more illiberal.”

McConnell’s office did not respond to a request for comment from The Federalist.