Democrat lobbying firm linked to Hunter Biden and Burisma offered Ukrainian prosecutor ‘access’ to the Clinton campaign in 2016, Obama State Department official email shows
- Former Ukrainian prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko said he had been approached by Blue Star Strategies in 2016 to help with trip to Washington D.C.
- The firm was working for the energy company Burisma at the time
Former Ukrainian prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko said he had been pitched by a lobbying firm linked to Hunter Biden and the energy company Burisma, offering him ‘high levels’ of access to members of the Clinton campaign ahead of the 2016 election, according to newly released emails.
They raise fresh questions about the work of Blue Star Strategies after it emerged that the Justice Department was investigating its work.
And it demonstrates that while probes of foreign lobbying efforts have concentrated on former President Trump and his allies, there may be legal jeopardy for firms linked to the Democratic Party.
An email obtained by Citizens United under a Freedom of Information request shows how former deputy assistant secretary of state George Kent wrote to Obama administration officials about meeting with Lutsenko in September 2016.
Lutsenko, Kent reported, was lining up a trip to Washington DC
‘He confirmed he had been pitched by Blue Star, not sought them out,’ wrote Kent.
‘He said he honestly didn’t know how Blue Star was to get paid – he didn’t have funds…’
Ukrainian prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko (right) said he had been pitched by Blue Star Strategies to help organize a visit to Washington D.C., according to an email written by a State Department official. The lobbying firm worked for energy company Burisma, which included Hunter Biden (left) on its board at the time.
Details of the connections were revealed in an email written by deputy assistant secretary of state George Kent in 2016, detailing a conversation with Lutsenko over a Thai meal
Kent, a key witness in the first impeachment trial of Trump, said they discussed his plans over a Thai meal.
‘Blue Star CEO Tramontano’s pitch was that she could gain him access to high levels of the Clinton campaign (GPK note: she was Podesta’s deputy as deputy COS the last year of Bill Clinton’s tenure), and that was appealing – to meet the possible next President chief of staff,’ continued his message, referring to John Podesta.
But Kent said he had gently discouraged Lutsenko from making the trip so close to an election when key players would not be availabale.
He went on to highlight the attention in the media about Ukraine and lobbyists, and Blue Star’s representation of Burisma.
‘And he got the drift. Not ideal timing, little receptive audience, and wrong facilitator,’ wrote Kent.
Blue Star began working for Burisma in 2015 while Joe Biden’s son was on its board. The company was battling a corruption probe and the company’s founder was under investigation.
The Obama administration sought the removal of the prosecutor in charge of the case Viktor Shokin.
Vice President Biden was Obama’s point man on the region and Republicans have claimed that Shokin’s removal was a way to protect his son.
However, Biden and his allies say Shokin was not pursuing corruption aggressively enough and was protecting the country’s political elite.
Meanwhile, federal investigators are pursuing a range of cases as they scale up their scrutiny of foreign lobbying efforts.
New York prosecutors seized information from Lutsenko’s email account recently as part of their investigation into whether Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani failed to declare work for a foreign government.
Sources familiar with the Blue Star investigation said one focus was whether it had failed to disclose requirements under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, according to Politico which first reported the existence of the probe.