Sen. Ron Johnson faces a new round of old attacks on him and suspects Democrats want to quash his investigation into Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy firm that previously employed Joe Biden’s son Hunter.
NBC News resurrected a previously litigated story that accused the Wisconsin senator and chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee of financially profiting off of his public office.
“As I have said from the beginning, I am simply attempting to find the truth. National Democrats and the Biden campaign have now escalated their rhetoric in what appears to be an attempt to silence our investigation,” Johnson said in a statement to the Washington Examiner about the presidential campaign of the presumptive Democratic nominee. “These attacks will not deter me, but serve to only increase my curiosity. What are Democrats afraid I might find?”
Democratic leaders, early last week, asked the FBI to provide a “defensive counterintelligence briefing to all Members of the House of Representatives and the Senate regarding foreign efforts to interfere in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.” Democratic lawmakers contend foreign actors are spreading disinformation through the probe of Burisma by Johnson’s committee, NBC News reported last Friday.
That included resurrecting past political attacks against Johnson, first elected to the Senate in 2010 after a long career as a businessman in Wisconsin.
NBC News, brought back the March story of senators who offloaded stock before the coronavirus devastated the stock market, and after senators received a briefing by then-Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr of North Carolina on the severity of the pandemic.
The outlet based its story on allegations by a new Democratic-backed nonprofit group called the Congressional Integrity Project.
Two of Johnson’s Republican colleagues, Burr and Sen. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, faced accusations of selling stock after the coronavirus briefing. The Justice Department in May cleared Loeffler of any wrongdoing. But Burr stepped away from his top post on the Intelligence Committee and is currently under investigation by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Johnson, who is not a member of the Intelligence Committee, was listed as one of the senators who sold off millions in securities of Pacur LLC, a Wisconsin-based privately held plastics company he ran prior to taking office. Johnson sold between $5 million and $25 million in the company on March 2.
A spokesperson for Johnson said at the time the transaction was not related to the coronavirus, and while the senator’s liberal critics initially attacked him for the sell-off, after further examination, retracted their initial condemnation.
“I criticized WI Sen. Ron Johnson after reports tonight of his large stock sale were lumped is with reports of other senators selling in dubious circumstances. But the details of Johnson’s sale are different from those of the others. I withdraw the criticism; it’s unfair to him,” John Nichols of the Nation wrote on Twitter.
Georgetown professor Don Moynihan agreed, saying in a tweet, “Same — it sounds like it was a private equity firm that invested in Johnson’s company which is not a deal that can be put together quickly.”
Other news outlets noted that Johnson’s transaction, which came under scrutiny, was not anything worthy to be investigated, ultimately, calling it a “vanilla private equity deal that was negotiated before almost anyone had heard of coronavirus,” an Axios reporter wrote. And a Raw Story writer pointed out Johnson’s sale was announced Feb. 11 and had been in the works for months — long before anyone knew what the coronavirus even was.
Johnson has not been involved in the management of Pacur since he was elected to the Senate.
The Wisconsin Republican’s support of the 2017 GOP-enacted tax cut law was also scrutinized by NBC, particularly for including a lower tax rate for pass-through businesses, which constitute about 95% of businesses in the country.
Johnson called for the provision for pass-through businesses, arguing that in the original bill, between 75% and 85% of the tax benefit would have only gone to C corporations, which are only 4% of American businesses.
In a statement to the Washington Examiner, Congressional Integrity Project Senior Adviser Michael Czin wrote, “It’s clear that Johnson is using his position to enrich himself and help his political allies. Johnson could have avoided this scrutiny if he had just made true on his promise to put his millions in a blind trust. He didn’t keep that promise and has used his time in office to advance policies that benefit him and his family financially.”
This article has been updated with a statement from Congressional Integrity Project Senior Adviser Michael Czin.
