The inspector general (IG) for the U.S. Department of State provided documents on Wednesday to congressional staffers and a Democrat congressman that supported accusations of Ukraine-linked wrongdoing from former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.
State Department IG Steve Linick provided the documents to the dismay of Democrats, who were expecting bombshell information in support of their impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump.
Rudy Giuliani, the president’s private lawyer, conceded to CNN that he had provided the information contained in the documents to the State Department in late March.
Seemingly angering Democrats, the papers appear to back allegations that Joe Biden bullied Ukraine into firing its top prosecutor. At the time, the investigator was looking into an individual affiliated with the former vice president’s son Hunter.
Consistent with the former vice president’s position, the liberal mainstream media maintain that there is no evidence of wrongdoing by either Joe Biden or his son.
Echoing other Democrats, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the only lawmaker who attended Wednesday’s briefing, was quick to dismiss the documents as “propaganda.”
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also lambasted the information provided by the State Department IG.
The documents contain “long-debunked theories and false statements about the former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine and one of President Trump’s political opponents,” he said in a statement issued soon after the briefing.
In a joint statement penned on Wednesday, the three Democrat chairmen of the House Committees on Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, and Oversight and Reform deemed the IG’s documents to be “disinformation.”
Reps. Eliot Engel (D-NY), Adam Schiff (D-CA), and Elijah Cummings (D-MD) stated, “The documents provided by the Inspector General included a package of disinformation, debunked conspiracy theories, and baseless allegations.”
The briefing contained “nothing relating to the president’s impeachable conduct,” Raskin complained to reporters after the briefing, according to The Week.
CNN acknowledged:
A Republican source said that Democrats appeared to be frustrated that the inspector general was injecting these accusations of wrongdoing from Biden and his son back into the bloodstream as the Democrats have sought to put the focus on the president’s handling of the Ukraine situation.
The State Department IG unveiled the so-called packet of information amid allegations by a CIA officer “whistleblower” that Trump used his position to urge Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son.
Currently, Joe Biden is Trump’s top political rival as the leading Democrat presidential candidate.
The “whistleblower” allegations have triggered an impeachment inquiry on Trump by House Democrats.
On Tuesday, Linick requested an “urgent” meeting with congressional staff from several House and Senate committees to discuss and provide Ukraine-linked documents obtained from the State Department’s acting legal adviser.
The request prompted some Democrat pundits to predict that “something big” in support of the impeachment inquiry of Trump was forthcoming.
Ultimately, the documents that originated with Giuliani ended up in the hands of Linick about four months ago, consistent with revelations made exclusively to Breitbart News by a Trump administration official speaking on condition of anonymity.
“They told me they were going to investigate it,” Giuliani told CNN.
During Wednesday’s briefing, Linick confirmed that he received the documents from the State Department’s Office of Legal Counsel in May.
Giuliani reportedly provided the documents to the White House, which in turn shared them with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
“Pompeo gave the documents to a subordinate, who provided them to the legal counsel at the State Department, [an unnamed] source said,” CNN noted. “The documents were ultimately given to the inspector general.”
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