Top Democrat warns FBI against giving GOP records from ex-DNC consultant
A top Democratic senator discouraged the Justice Department and FBI from complying with a Republican demand for information about a former Democratic National Committee contractor.
Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden warned that complying with the records request related to Alexandra Chalupa, who is alleged to have sought dirt from Ukraine to undermine then-candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 election, would have dangerous consequences. As Chalupa conducted research on Paul Manafort, who did lobbying work for a pro-Russia Ukrainian oligarchs and later became Trump's campaign manager, the Ukrainian American activist began receiving notifications from Yahoo security that claimed she was the victim of a "state-sponsored" cyberattack.
“The Senators’ request will have a chilling effect on the victims of nation state cyberattacks, and would discourage them from seeking law enforcement assistance, thereby jeopardizing our national security, limiting our ability to respond to sophisticated cyberattacks, and undermining the civil liberties of American citizens,” Wyden wrote in a letter to Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray on Thursday.
Chalupa said she developed a network of sources in Washington and Kyiv, and met with Ukrainian Embassy officials during the 2016 campaign about her research focused on the nexus between Manafort, Trump, and Russia, according to a 2017 Politico article. Chalupa has denied being an opposition researcher for the DNC, telling CNN in 2017 that "the DNC never asked me to go to the Ukrainian Embassy to collect information." Manafort, who is now serving a seven-year prison sentence for after federal convictions on bank and tax fraud, resigned as Trump's campaign chairman in August 2016, as reports emerged about his work on behalf of pro-Russia Ukrainian officials.
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