Ron Johnson to the Washington Post

The Federalist’s Christopher Bedford has a great column on the FBI’s set-up of Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson for the all-important hit the Post delivered to Rudy Giuliani and Johnson via the May 1 Washington Post story by Ellen Nakashima, Shane Harris, and Tom Hamburger. Bedford’s Federalist column is “FBI’s Failed Ron Johnson Set-Up A Case Study In How Agencies Use Corrupt Reporters To Peddle Lies, Hurt Their American Enemies.”

Bedford includes the full text of Johnson’s statement to the Post. I am including Senator Johnson’s statement below the break.

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Because of my position as chairman of the Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation, I have always been aware of Russian disinformation and the need to be careful believing and using any information coming from sources from that region. In fact, during all my investigations we have viewed every piece of information and evidence with skepticism and rigorously worked to verify everything. Our report on Hunter Biden proves the meticulousness of our methods. That is why we asked for and received a briefing on Andrii Telizhenko, and received assurances from the FBI that there was no reason that the Committees should not continue their investigation (see report page 59). We made that clear in the report last September.

I never received a defensive briefing on my and Senator [Chuck] Grassley’s oversight of the Biden family’s foreign business ventures. Regarding reports that I received an FBI briefing warning me that I was a target of Russian disinformation, I can confirm I received such a briefing in August of 2020. I asked the briefers what specific evidence they had regarding this warning, and they could not provide me anything other than the generalized warning. Without specific information, I felt the briefing was completely useless and unnecessary (since I was fully aware of the dangers of Russian disinformation). Because there was no substance to the briefing, and because it followed the production and leaking of a false intelligence product by Democrat leaders, I suspected that the briefing was being given to be used at some future date for the purpose that it is now being used: to offer the biased media an opportunity to falsely accuse me of being a tool of Russia despite warnings. A similar hit piece had been published the day Senator Peters disapproved of my subpoena request for Andrii Telizhenko.

Based on this suspicion, I asked the briefers for the name of who directed them to provide me this briefing. Other than to say it was a product of an inter-agency process, they refused to give me any names. To this day, I have not been told who ordered the completely unnecessary — but politically useful to my opponents — briefing. If you proceed to write this hit piece, you should know that you are being used as a tool and are acting with actual malice.

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Senator Johnson posted the text of the report he cites above here (via the press released posted here).

Bedford calls it all “a case study.” Indeed it is.

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