BARACK Obama reportedly blasted in private a Republican probe into Joe Biden and Ukraine — calling it a bid to boost “Russian disinformation”.
The former president strongly condemned a Senate committee’s request for records related to Ukraine and even dismissed the probe as “without precedent”.
The letter, addressed to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), which manages presidential records, was written in response to a request by Sen Chuck Grassley and Sen Ron Johnson for Obama administration records on Ukraine-related meetings.
Obtained by BuzzFeed, the ex-president agreed to release records from his administration to
But only “in the interest of countering the misinformation campaign underlying this request”.
In fact in his letter Obama slammed the senators’ request as improper use of the NARA’s release terms and a supposed effort “to shift the blame for Russian interference in the 2016 election to Ukraine”.
The letter reads: “The request for early release of presidential records in order to give credence to a Russian disinformation campaign — one that has already been thoroughly investigated by a bipartisan congressional committee — is without precedent.
“This use of the special access process serves no legitimate purpose, and does not outweigh or justify infringing confidentiality interests that all presidents have sought to protect.”
The letter goes on to cite testimony from former National Security aide Fiona Hill.
She had dubbed the idea of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election as a “fictional narrative that is being perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services”.
While Republicans have publicly argued their probe has nothing to do with Biden’s current presidential campaign, they have used their powers in the Senate to look into a series of matters that they believe could shine a negative light on the former vice president.
Trump and his allies have repeatedly made unfounded and false claims to allege that the Bidens acted corruptly in Ukraine.
The president was impeached by the House of Representatives in December 2019 after a sprawling three-month Democratic investigation into allegations he pressured Ukraine to investigate the former vice president while withholding US arms aids and a White House meeting.
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