In its most detailed account yet, the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington
says a Democratic National Committee (DNC) insider during the 2016
election solicited dirt on Donald Trump’s campaign chairman and even
tried to enlist the country's president to help.
In written answers to questions, Ambassador Valeriy Chaly's office
says DNC contractor Alexandra Chalupa sought information from the
Ukrainian government on Paul Manafort’s dealings inside the country, in hopes of forcing the issue before Congress.
Chalupa
later tried to arrange for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to
comment on Manafort’s Russian ties on a U.S. visit during the 2016
campaign, the ambassador said.
Chaly says that, at the time of the contacts in 2016, the embassy
knew Chalupa primarily as a Ukrainian-American activist and learned only
later of her ties to the DNC. He says the embassy considered her
requests an inappropriate solicitation of interference in the U.S.
election. ...
Reached by phone last week, Chalupa said she was too busy to talk.
She did not respond to email and phone messages seeking subsequent
comment. ...
Andrii Telizhenko, a former political officer who worked under Chaly
from December 2015 through June 2016, told me he was instructed by the
ambassador and his top deputy to meet with Chalupa in March 2016 and to
gather whatever dirt Ukraine had in its government files about Trump and
Manafort. ...
“She said the DNC wanted to collect evidence that Trump, his
organization and Manafort were Russian assets, working to hurt the U.S.
and working with Putin against the U.S. interests. She indicated if we
could find the evidence they would introduce it in Congress in September
and try to build a case that Trump should be removed from the ballot,
from the election,” he recalled. ...
Though Chaly and Telizhenko disagree on what Ukraine did after it got
Chalupa’s request, they confirm that a paid contractor of the DNC
solicited their government’s help to find dirt on Trump that could sway
the 2016 election.