CNN’s Congressional reporter Manu Raju cornered Mitt Romney and got the story that Mitt may stab President Trump in the back yet again.
Manu wrote: “Mitt Romney, a member of Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, told me of Chairman Ron Johnson’s Burisma probe: “There’s no question but the appearance of looking at Burisma appears political. And I think people are tired of these kind of political investigations”
Romney: “I would hope that there’s something of significance that needs to be evaluated that would be done perhaps the FBI or some other agency, although it’s not as political as perhaps a committee of our of our body.”
“We also have a lot of work to do on matters that are not related to Burisma. We probably ought to focus on those things,” Romney added.
Romney stated that he would talk to Johnson about whether to support a subpoena to a consultant tied to Burisma.
As recently reported, Romney’s vote is crucial because if he votes against it, it would scuttle subpoena. Vote is planned next Wednesday.
The Hill reported that Johnson sent a letter to members of his committee saying that it is his “intention to schedule a business meeting to consider a committee subpoena” of a former consultant for Blue Star Strategies, which Johnson noted worked as a U.S. representative for Burisma.
“As part of the committee’s ongoing investigation, it has received U.S. government records indicating that Blue Star sought to leverage Hunter Biden’s role as a board member of Burisma to gain access to, and potentially influence matters at, the State Department,” Johnson wrote in the letter to committee members.
Sen. Gary Peters, the top Democrat on the committee, notified Johnson that he objects to issuing the subpoena over concerns that it could bolster Russian disinformation efforts. Without Peters’s support, Johnson will need a simple majority of the GOP-controlled panel to vote to issue the subpoena.
If Johnson is successful, it would mark the first subpoena to come out of the long Republican investigation into Burisma and Hunter Biden, who previously served on the Ukrainian company’s board. It would also escalate what has been a probe that, so far, has largely been limited to letters and some document production.
Johnson wants to subpoena the former consultant for Blue Star, Andrii Telizhenko. Telizhenko, according to Johnson, said that he wants to “cooperate fully” with the investigation but is limited by a nondisclosure agreement.
