Newly obtained emails by Fox News reveal that in the weeks leading up to the 2016 presidential election, Former Ukrainian Prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko told an Obama State Department Official he was pitched by a lobbying firm linked to Hunter Biden and Burisma access to the highest levels of the Clinton campaign. The lobbying firm is Blue Star Strategies, which is reportedly under federal investigation for potentially illegal lobbying.
The email was released to Citizens United as part of a Freedom of Information Act filing. It had the subject line “Lutsenko now likely not to go to DC with Blue Star, other Ukr issue comments,” and was sent by George Kent to the former assistant secretary for fossil energy Christopher Smith, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, and former Kiev embassy chief political officer Alan Purcell.
Both Kent and Yovanovitch testified as part of the 2019 Trump impeachment.Â
As Fox News reports:
In the email, dated Sept. 4, 2016, Kent writes that he met with Lutsenko “one on one after I’d SMSed him regarding stories that he was using a third party lobbyist to pull together a planned trip to DC turned into a chat over Thai food at the DCR.” Kent, a key witness in the first impeachment proceedings against former President Trump in 2019, said the two discussed options of a trip Lutsenko had been planning to the U.S., and “confirmed he has been pitched by Blue Star, not sought them out.”
“He said he honestly didn’t know how Blue Star was to get paid — he didn’t have funds — and that some BPP MP that we probably didn’t know ‘and that’s good’ (Truhubenko??) had introduced them to him,” Kent wrote. It is unclear who “Truhubenko” is.Â
“Blue Star CEO [Karen] Tramantano’s pitch was that she could gain him access to high levels of the Clinton campaign (GPK note: she was Podesta’s deputy as deputy COS the last year of Bill Clinton’s tenure), and that was appealing—to meet the possible next Presidential Chief of Staff,” Kent wrote.Â
“But I pointed out that wasn’t too likely 6 weeks before the election, and that the embassies could arrange meetings at DOJ and State, and the Ukr embassy on the Hill,” he continued. “As for the Hill, not many members would be around 6 weeks before an election when Congress would be in recess, and the attention of the chattering think tank class would be on UNGA. Not the best timing, apart from DOJ and State.”
Kent went on to say that in his conversation with Lutsenko, he mentioned “the various money flows from Ukraine to lobbyists that had been prominently in the news this past month, whether Manafort/Klueyev via Brussels to Podesta Group and Weber/Mercury, Yanu’s Justice Minister Lavrynovych to Skaden/arps-and Greg Caid—and Pinchuk to Clinton Foundation, and the media attention being paid at present to the Kyiv/ Washington lobbyist gravy train… And he got the drift. Not ideal timing, little receptive audience, and wrong facilitator”
Kent concluded:  “He said he’d figure out a better time when there would be more traction/ better audience.”
Don’t miss The Dan Bongino Show
