House Speaker Mike Johnson sharply called on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to recall the Ukrainian ambassador to the US. letter made public on Wednesday.
I call on you to immediately dismiss Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova.
As you said, Ukrainians have tried not to be “united by American domestic politics” and “influence the decisions of the American people” ahead of the November elections. That goal was apparently abandoned this week when Ambassador Markarova organized an event where you toured an American manufacturing facility.
The facility was located in a politically contested swing state, was run by a high-ranking political surrogate for Kamala Harris, and did not include a single Republican because – intentionally – no Republicans were invited. The tour was clearly a partisan campaign event designed to aid Democrats and clearly constitutes election interference. This short-sighted and intentionally political move has caused Republicans to lose confidence in Ambassador Markarova’s ability to serve this country fairly and effectively as a diplomat. She should be removed from her post immediately.
In addition, all other countries should avoid expressing their opinions or interfering in American domestic politics, as I have said clearly in the past. Support for ending Russia’s war on Ukraine remains bipartisan, but our relations are needlessly tested and tarnished when top Republican candidates are attacked in the media by officials from your administration.
Such incidents must not be repeated. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. I trust that you will take prompt action.
The incident that Speaker Johnson is referring to was a visit to a U.S. ammunition factory in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The factory produces 155mm artillery ammunition used by the Ukrainian army. Zelensky used the opportunity not only to thank the workers for their tough work and recognize their significant work, but also to criticize Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance’s statements on how to end the war in Ukraine (while the criticism was justified, the reasoning behind the statement was definitely not optimal). The aura that Zelensky was campaigning for Kamala Harris on American soil was further enhanced by the following facts:
- Pennsylvania is a crucial state for Trump, and a must-win state for Harris, but she seems helpless there; see “Game On: Big warning signs for Kamala’s Pennsylvania headquarters after new Susquehanna poll is released.”
- Zelensky’s host was Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, who came second in the beauty contest for the position of vice president to replace Kamala.
- Democratic Senator Bob Casey and Representative Matt Cartwright were invited, but no Pennsylvania Republicans were on the list. To be fair, Scranton is in Cartwright’s district, but the Democrat-only vibe was unsettling.
The media tried to cover the visit with a good portion of “both.” Thus, “Selenskyj’s visit to Pennsylvania reflects a Trip to Utah in Julywhere he met with Republican Governor Spencer Cox and signed a memorandum of understanding with the heads of state. In both cases, the heads of state expressed their support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia.”
I don’t want to belabor the obvious, but Utah is not a swing state, the governor is not Trump’s surrogate, and the visit did not take place 40 days before a presidential election.
The immediate impact of the uproar is that neither former President Trump nor Speaker Johnson plan to meet with Zelensky while he is in the US (Republicans follow Trump’s example and take out Zelensky | CNN Politics). The chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Republican James Comer of Kentucky, has issued a Investigation into the whole issue; see “Republicans would like some answers about the legality of Zelensky’s visit to Pennsylvania – RedState.”
“In 2019, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives impeached President Donald J. Trump for abuse of power, suggesting that Trump attempted to use a foreign head of state – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – for his 2020 presidential campaign, despite the lack of evidence of any wrongdoing by President Trump. The Biden-Harris administration recently flew the same foreign head of state – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – on a taxpayer-funded flight to Pennsylvania, a swing state in the upcoming 2024 presidential election that has been described as ‘the most difficult battleground for Vice President Kamala Harris.’ The Committee seeks to determine whether the Biden-Harris administration attempted to use a foreign head of state for Vice President Harris’ presidential campaign and, if so, necessarily committed an abuse of power,” Chairman Comer wrote.
I’m not a huge Comer fan, but this is definitely a good-favoring-evil moment; see What the Biden-Harris administration just did to Ukrainian President Zelensky should be impeached – RedState. If Trump could be impeached for trying to protect Ukrainian prosecutors investigating the Biden Crime Family’s corruption in Ukraine, Harris should receive the same treatment for using a foreign state to interfere in a US election.
Legendary French diplomat Charles Talleyrand is said to have said: “It’s worse than a crime, it’s a mistake.“It was worse than a crime. It was a mistake.
This is certainly the case here.
For the past two years, a large portion of the English-speaking (though not necessarily American) pro-Ukraine crowd on social media has fought to turn support for Ukraine, which has fairly broad bipartisan support in Congress and the public, into a partisan issue that casts Democrats as supporters of Ukraine. So much so that when this war ends, I plan to block 99.9% of the sources I use for Ukraine news on “X,” formerly Twitter. It’s tough to imagine a more stupid and stubborn position, unless it’s the supposed conservatives who keep claiming Russia’s invasion was justified, a view that is completely at odds with reality and implausible to anyone who isn’t six sigmas left of the center of an IQ bell curve. Somehow Zelenskyy has either been persuaded to come up with a “great idea” or he has internalized the left-wing view that Ukraine’s independence is a democratic issue.
As the war enters a critical phase next year and Trump is almost certainly back in the White House, Zelensky has effectively burned crucial bridges that he will need at the negotiating table and on the battlefield.
Speaker Johnson is right. The Ukrainian ambassador has, knowingly or unwittingly, embroiled his president’s and her country’s struggle for self-determination in a US presidential election campaign on the side of the likely loser. Zelensky should take the blame, fire his ambassador, apologize, and get Hillary Clinton to give him a giant red button that says “RESET.”
