Republicans on the House Oversight Committee launched an investigation on Wednesday to determine if the Biden administration misused taxpayer dollars to fly Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the U.S. to benefit Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign.
In letters to top Biden administration officials, committee chairman James Comer wrote that then-president Donald Trump faced similar accusations from Democrats in 2019 of trying to use Zelensky to benefit his campaign “despite a lack of any evidence of wrongdoing.”
“Now, the Biden-Harris Administration is flying the same foreign leader on an American-taxpayer-funded flight to Pennsylvania, a battleground state for Harris’s campaign,” Comer wrote.
Zelensky is in the U.S. for the United Nations General Assembly this week. On Sunday, he traveled to Pennsylvania, a top battleground state, on a Department of the Air Force aircraft courtesy of the Biden-Harris administration. During the visit he went to an ammunition plant in Scranton, Joe Biden’s hometown. He also met with the state’s Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, who was “until recently considered a promising candidate to further Democrats’ hopes to maintain control of the White House,” Comer wrote.
House Republicans are now demanding a “full investigation” into “the use of U.S. military assets and federal resources in relation to the visit.” They seek to determine “whether the Biden-Harris administration attempted to use a foreign leader to benefit Vice President Harris’s presidential campaign and, if so, necessarily committed an abuse of power.”
Comer also noted that ahead of the visit, Zelensky made comments to the New Yorker critical of Trump and his running mate, Ohio Senator J. D. Vance, including stating that Vance is “too radical” and expressing doubt that Trump could achieve peace in the region.
“This rhetoric coming from a foreign leader released in anticipation of a U.S.-taxpayer-funded visit about the current Administration’s political opponent is highly concerning,” Comer wrote in letters to Attorney General Merrick Garland, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and White House counsel Edward Siskel.
House Democrats approved articles of impeachment against Donald Trump in 2019, when they accused him of abuse of power and obstruction. They alleged that Trump forced Ukrainian investigations into the Biden family for his own political gain, causing Ukraine to meddle in the 2020 presidential election. Trump was acquitted in the Senate.
Zelensky spoke to the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, urging world leaders to force Russia to the negotiating table to end the war in his country. He was also scheduled to meet with Biden and Harris on the trip.
“I want to see what she thinks about this victory plan,” Zelensky said of Harris on Friday, adding that his plan to end the war “includes not only what is needed from Biden today. But it also includes the fact that we will have a different situation after November. That is, there will be a new president in the United States. And we need to talk to each of the candidates about their perception of this.”