Are Kulyk, Lutsenko, and Shokin the Three Ukrainians that Show Bill Barr Is Part of the Conspiracy?

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As part of DOJ’s extensive efforts to obstruct any investigation into Trump’s role in the Ukrainian conspiracy, they have made narrow denials that Bill Barr had an active role in the investigation in the wake of the July 25 call, while admitting that three Ukrainians volunteered information to John Durham.

“A Department of Justice team led by U.S. Attorney John Durham is separately exploring the extent to which a number of countries, including Ukraine, played a role in the counterintelligence investigation directed at the Trump campaign during the 2016 election,” DOJ spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said Wednesday. “While the Attorney General has yet to contact Ukraine in connection with this investigation, certain Ukrainians who are not members of the government have volunteered information to Mr. Durham, which he is evaluating.”

DOJ made that statement on September 25. Yet no reporter has yet obtained the names of the three Ukrainians who offered information to John Durham.

There’s a possible clue in the Impeachment Report released by HPSCI today. It describes three Ukrainians — Yuriy Lutsenko, Viktor Shokin, and Konstantin Kulyk — retaining Victoria Toensing back in April.

Beginning in mid-April, Ms. Toensing signed retainer agreements between diGenova & Toensing LLP and Mr. Lutsenko, Mr. Kulyk, and Mr. Shokin—all of whom feature in Mr. Solomon’s opinion pieces.81 In these retainer agreements, the firm agreed to represent Mr. Lutsenko and Mr. Kulyk in meetings with U.S. officials regarding alleged “evidence” of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections, and to represent Mr. Shokin “for the purpose of collecting evidence regarding his March 2016 firing as Prosecutor General of Ukraine and the role of Vice President Biden in such firing, and presenting such evidence to U.S. and foreign authorities.”82 On July 25, President Trump would personally press President Zelensky to investigate these very same matters.

While Kulyk is (or was) technically still part of the Ukrainian government at this time — he is reportedly being fired in Volodymyr Zelensky’s efforts to clean up Ukraine’s prosecutors office — Rudy always cites three people to support his conspiracy theories about Ukraine.

If these three men already have shared information with Durham, it would be proof that the investigation is about collecting disinformation, not evidence.

Which is probably part of the reason Barr is claiming to doubt the outcome of the IG investigation. Because without any predicate for an investigation into the origin of the investigation into Trump, it becomes clear that it’s nothing but the use of DOJ resources to further a conspiracy to help Donald Trump get reelected.

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26 replies
  1. MattyG says:

    What Barr won’t do to help bring the imperial “presidency” into being. His MO – facilitating Russian propaganda and covert operations, to promote a president king, is as shocking as it is expected given his credo.

  2. Vince says:

    “Which is probably part of the reason Barr is claiming to doubt the outcome of the IG investigation.”

    Pooh Barr can “doubt” the IG conclusions all he wants, but it don’t mean spit unless he has actual EVIDENCE to the contrary, which he does not. BTW, if the MSM were doing their jobs, every time Pooh Barr tries to pooh-pooh the report, they need to be asking him, where’s your evidence to the contrary?

    • MattyG says:

      Yes, Barr having “doubts” about the IG report is like DT having “doubts” about Russian interference. Window dressing hoping to slide by and even build upon if gotten away with. Just like DT knows what he has going with the Rooskies, Barr knows what garbage is out there, but since that garbage suits his purpose he won’t push it, and will advance it if possible.

      By letting such expressions of sham skepicism go unchallenged – by not ferreting out the more plausible motivation for this type of offical pronoucement – the press is actually abetting the crooks here.

  3. Mitch Neher says:

    So . . . if I’m reading you correctly . . . P.G. FUBarr has no intention of ever entering the Ukrainian fabrications into evidence in a United States Court???

    It’s all just about ratfucking the 2020 election by means of . . . What’s the word for this? Misprision of Justice? That doesn’t sound quite right. There has to be a name for it. Sabotage?

    What does the CIA call it?

    • Vicks says:

      I believe it falls under the umbrella of “conspiring with a foreign country to firehose an election”
      The one thing you can say for team maga is they learn fast, and with Putin solidly in place as puppet-master they are learning from the best.

        • Mitch Neher says:

          Yes, but . . . FUBarr and Durham are an agency of The United States. They’re not concealing something from an agency of The United States for the purpose of interfering with the legitimate function of that agency. They’re procuring fabrications for use in a US election as though that were the legitimate function of The Justice Department–an agency of The United States.

          Maybe we should just call it Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition.

  4. Yogarhythms says:

    Ew,
    Ty. Shout out JBTFD paper towel smack down.Lol. Barr’s crush on golden chosen one is planetary. Who knew deep in Ukrainian forest, hidden evidence, would unleash paradigm shifting Maga cataclysmic growth supporting sovereign presidency over Dem articles of impeachment.

  5. Ruthie says:

    Like with Congressional Republicans, who can’t really believe the bullshit they’re spreading, Barr’s “concerns” are nothing but a pretense for public consumption – or, to be more specific, a certain segment of it.

    Trump’s base have already proven to be either credulous idiots or cynical enough not to care whether there’s one iota of truth to their claims. The real objective is to get the MSM to provide a veneer of respectability to them, but so far there haven’t been many takers.

  6. North Jersey John says:

    There seems to have been a lot of conspiring coincidences in late March and April. Mueller investigation ended (early?). Mueller submits report in Mid-March, Barr begins pre-buttal spin with misleading 4 pager. Meanwhile, Rudy and the mooks are engineering the Ukrainian dis-info. And, according to today’s HPSCI impeachment docs, actively coordinating that Ukrainian campaign with Nunes, his staff, and others?

    Given the timing, and the long delay until the final Mueller release in late April, should Rudy’s Ukrainian exploits be viewed as a piece of and part of the timeline of Mueller misdirection and obfuscation? Is Rudy’s interference coincidentally related or more deeply coordinated?

    • Mitch Neher says:

      I strongly suspect that Manafort was behind most of what Giuliani did in The Ukraine from at least 2018 onward. (It could’ve started before that.)

    • Mitch Neher says:

      Excerpted from the article linked above:

      July 25, 2017 – President Trump issues a public call for an investigation of the 2016 Manafort revelations in Ukraine

      Trump tweets a reference to what he calls “Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump campaign — `quietly working to boost Clinton.’ So where is the investigation A.G.,” he writes, referencing then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions and tagging Fox News host Sean Hannity. The tweet was referenced in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on possible obstruction of justice by the U.S. president to block the investigation into Trump campaign collusion with Russia’s 2016 election interference. It also is cited in the September 2019 joint U.S. House committee letter (see below) on the investigation into Trump and Giuliani’s pressure campaign against Ukraine.

  7. Savage Librarian says:

    Barr Code: Et (Article)Tu

    Bumptious Bill, the bilious shill,
    failed to stop Fiona Hill.
    She had the gall and twice the will
    of a cad who peeped by a windowsill.

    In a grill that would make some ill,
    she nailed the Bolt on. What a thrill.
    It propelled the truth they tried to kill,
    Some said “Cool” and others, “Chill.”

    The cad divulged he’d be damned
    to follow laws and be programmed.
    He wasn’t here to be all jammed
    up a House that some “yes-ma’am”ed.

    He took his fist and with it slammed
    the TV news that double-whammed
    the propaganda he flimflammed.
    Sharpies showed it, diagrammed.

    Maybe we’ll move beyond our tears
    in hopes that news, where it appears,
    is beyond a brand for a house of mirrors
    and not a home for narcissistic careers.

    The Sondland of music to our ears,
    canary in a coal mine notes our fears.
    If ever Zelensky’s fog of war clears,
    let’s try to expel our own King Lears.

  8. Zinsky says:

    Great sleuthing as usual, Marcy! Helps join the Ukraine narrative to the Durham/Trump fluff job.

    Totally off topic: Remember that weird, brief news item a while back, about a Russian oligarch co-signing or being a guarantor on a loan Trump got from Deutsche Bank? Does today’s appellate court ruling provide more insight into this nugget? How long will it take to unearth this information, do you think?

    • Areader2019 says:

      I was thinking about the Deutsche Bank connection. I did some HNW finance stuff at one point. I’m thinking: no.

      You will never find any evidence of a ‘co-signer’.

      Here how they do it:

      1. Putin connected Oligarch walks into his private banker’s office and says ‘I’d like to put an additional billion with you’. Private banker scurries to write up the paperwork.

      2. A month later, Oligarch goes to lunch with banker, mentions that he is investing in Trump tower Budapest.

      3. Then, Trump has his people call up the same banker, and ask who to talk with about a loan. They hint: ‘you were highly recommended by oligarch, I heard he placed a billion with you’.

      4. Trump gets his loan. No one writes up any paper work connecting the two deals. But the banker knows that the oligarch will withdraw his billion if he does not get the favor he hinted about.

      4.

    • Sonso says:

      Her rather incoherent description of Trump being a ‘fun’ brief leads me to somehow share the lack of confidence in our ‘intelligence’ gathering agencies. State Dept. and NGOs often have much better data and insight than our grand-chessboard types.

  11. peter says:

    kulyk was dismissed last week. shokin resides in vienna and yuriy doesn’t have much of his liver left. none of these jokers have credibility in kyiv, only w/ durham, vogel and stern from wapo

  14. Cathy says:

    Lol. Eric Swalwell (D – CA) asked this morning what he thinks should happen to Devin Nunes going forward, he shrugs and says Nunes “is so insignificant.”

    Poor Speed Bump.

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