Ukrainian officials cast a shadow on the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump was impeached for trying to get the Ukrainian government to help him win his re-election by finding dirt about his opponent, Joe Biden.
The Senate acquitted Trump of all charges but the story hasn’t ended there.
Eight Ukrainians were sanctioned for trying to interfere in the elections, although none have been charged. Some American officials are also suspected of illegal activity while working for Trump in Ukraine during the election. At the moment, the U.S. authorities are conducting multiple investigations linked to Ukraine.
The Kyiv Post explains what these investigations are and what role Ukraine has played.
How many investigations linked to Ukraine are there?
There are two Ukraine-related investigations open in the United States right now.
One concerns Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani’s alleged illegal lobbying on Ukraine’s behalf. The other involves possible U.S. election meddling by Ukrainian officials, currently being looked into by the FBI.
The full scope of these investigations is unclear because most details haven’t been disclosed by American prosecutors.
Giuliani’s lobbying
According to Giuliani’s lawyer, Robert Costello, authorities allege that Giuliani failed to register as a foreign agent while lobbying the U.S. government on behalf of Ukraine.
The Foreign Agents Registration Act requires Americans to notify the Justice Department if they have been hired to lobby in the U.S. on behalf of foreign political entities.
Though Giuliani denied helping anyone but Trump during his work in Ukraine, some believe the lawyer also served the interests of Ukraine’s former prosecutor general Yuriy Lutsenko.
If Giuliani did so, he was required to disclose it.
Ukrainian meddling
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn are investigating whether some Ukrainian officials helped create a plan to meddle in the U.S. 2020 presidential race, according to a leak published by the New York times on May 27, 2021.
The investigation began during the final months of the Trump administration and has not been previously reported, the NYT said.
Ukrainian officials may have used Giuliani to spread misleading claims about Biden to tilt the presidential election in Trump’s favor.
One of the Ukrainian politicians under suspicion is Kremlin-linked lawmaker Andriy Derkach. He has already been sanctioned by the U.S. government for being a Russian agent and interfering in the 2020 election by spreading misinformation.
It is unknown who else, besides Derkach, is being investigated by American authorities.
Potential targets could include lawmaker Oleksandr Dubinsky, ex-lawmaker Oleksandr Onyshchenko, former diplomat Andriy Telizhenko, former prosecutor Kostyantyn Kulyk and three of Derkach’s allies: Dmytro Kovalchuk, Anton Simonenko and Petro Zhuravel.
All seven were sanctioned by the U.S. government for their coordinated attempt to interfere in the 2020 election by spreading conspiracy theories about Biden.
Read more: US cracks down on Russian-linked friends of Rudy Giuliani
While these two investigations have some overlapping characters, Giuliani is not a subject of the Brooklyn investigation into Ukrainian election interference.
Who was Giuliani allegedly helping in Ukraine?
Lutsenko, who served as Ukraine’s prosecutor general from 2016 to 2019, had a key role in Giuliani’s work in Ukraine.
In numerous interviews, Lutsenko said he asked Giuliani to help him arrange a meeting with U.S. Attorney General William Barr.
Lutsenko said he wanted Barr to help him investigate an allegedly corrupt transfer of over $8 billion from Ukraine to American hedge fund, Franklin Templeton.
In return, Lutsenko showed Giuliani some bank records. Lutsenko believed these bank records proved that Ukrainian gas company Burisma paid Hunter Biden, a member of Burisma’s board of directors and Biden’s son, to lobby his father on the company’s behalf.
Later, however, Lutsenko told Bloomberg News that there wasn’t enough evidence that Hunter Biden committed any wrongdoing. Claims that Joe Biden acted to help Burisma have never been proven.
In the end, Lutsenko never secured a meeting with Barr.
Lutsenko also spoke with Giuliani about the former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch — Lutsenko believed she interfered with his work. Yovanovitch was soon removed from her post by the Trump administration.
Giuliani denies the accusations of lobbying the U.S. government for Ukraine.
Did Ukraine’s meddle in the U.S. elections?
According to the U.S. government, a Russian-linked group of Ukrainians led by Derkach tried to influence the 2020 presidential election.
Derkach and his associates have leveraged U.S. media, social media platforms and influential Americans to spread misleading and unsubstantiated allegations that current and former U.S. officials engaged in corruption, money laundering, and unlawful political influence in Ukraine, the U.S. treasury said in statement.
The group actively spread debunked allegations that Biden pressured Ukraine to fire former Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin to stop his investigation into Burisma, where Hunter Biden worked.
In reality, Shokin never investigated Hunter Biden and was, in fact, obstructing an investigation into Burisma’s alleged violations.
Read more: Trump whistleblower scandal, explained from Ukraine
So far, no Ukrainians have faced criminal charges in the U.S. for election meddling.
Has Ukraine launched its own investigation?
Yes, Ukraine is currently investigating possible meddling in American elections by Ukrainian politicians.
According to Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation opened a criminal case and authorities were directed to do everything possible to punish any wrongdoers.
“Our position here is fundamental… We are categorically opposed to interfering in the affairs of any state,” Yermak said on Feb. 28, 2021.
At Zelensky’s direction, authorities will do everything they can to punish everyone involved in foreign interference, he added.
No Ukrainians have been indicted in Ukraine so far.
Is Russia involved?
People who are being investigated by American and Ukrainian authorities have been repeatedly linked to Russia.
Derkach has been “an active Russian agent for over a decade, maintaining close connections with the Russian Intelligence Services,” according to the U.S. Department of Treasury.
The other seven Ukrainian political figures under U.S. sanctions are all part of a “Russia-linked foreign influence network,” according to the U.S. Treasury.
“Russian disinformation campaigns targeting American citizens are a threat to our democracy,” said former Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin.
What’s happening with investigations right now?
In April, U.S. authorities searched Giuliani’s office and private apartment, seizing his electronic devices.
Later in May, U.S. media reported that investigators got hold of an email account that appeared to belong to Lutsenko. The former general prosecutor denies communicating with Giuliani by phone or by email.
The statuses of the investigations in the U.S. and Ukraine are unclear. Authorities in both countries haven’t officially released any details about the cases.
