by Miceál O’Hurley
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Speaker of the United State House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, continued the pattern of Republican lawmakers and their standard bearer Presidential Candidate, Donald J. Trump, in attacking Ukraine in advance of the November elections. The White House and balance of power in both the United States Senate and House of Representatives are at stake in this November’s elections. Yesterday, Johnson penned a terse letter to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy the first line of which read, “I demand that you immediately fire Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova”.
The letter marks further deterioration of the rapport between certain Republican lawmakers and the United States’ ally, Ukraine, following Trump and his Vice Presidential running-mate J.D. Vance suggesting Ukraine should capitulate to Moscow’s demands to cede territory to Russia which they claim will bring an end to the war in Ukraine. Neither Ukraine nor other European powers believe such a move would placate Russia which has used armed aggression to occupy and perpetuate violence in Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Aside from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threats to topple neighbouring countries in the Baltics or unleash unclear weapons against Europe and the United States if they continue to aid in Ukraine’s defense, there is no indication from Russia that ceding the now temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine would satiate their wider geopolitical goals.
In his 25 September letter, Johnson complained that Markarova organised an event at an American manufacturing site earlier this week in which Zelenskiy toured an defense production facility in Scranton Pennsylvania claiming it was tantamount to political interference by Ukraine in American politics. Chief amongst Johnson’s grievances was that tour of the arms production facility was staffed by “a top political surrogate for Kamala Harris and failed to include a single Republican”, thereby rendering it a “partisan campaign event designed to help democrats”.
Johnson’s criticism that the even was partisan, political because Zelenskiy was accompanied by Pennsylvania politicians Governor Josh Shapiro, Senator Bob Casey and Representative Matt Cartwright is outright political slight-of-hand and disingenuous. While all three are admittedly Democrats, and Shapiro and Casey are candidates in upcoming November election, it is long-standing protocol that representatives of the State and District where VIP tours take place are formed by a delegation of national, statewide and local elected representatives. If the Republicans protest that Scranton and Pennsylvania have Democratic party leaders that accompanied Zelenskiy on the tour their complaint is genuinely a reflection of Republican failures to win office at all three levels of government. Johnson’s diatribe against Ambassador Markarova is grotesquely misplaced.
Anti-Ukraine campaigner, Russian apologist and Texas Congressman Lance Gooden echoed Johnson’s complaint by separately demanding an immediate investigation into serious misuse of taxpayer funds and potential violations of U.S. law during Zelenskiy’s visit to the Scranton facility. Gooden was joined in the request by fellow Congressmen Ralph Norman (R-SC); Mary Miller (R-IL); Clay Higgins (R-LA); Michael Cloud (R-TX); Harriet Hageman (R-MT); Andy Biggs (R-AZ); Dan Bishop (R-NC); Eric Burlison (R-MO). All have voting records of opposing aid for Ukraine. All are aware that it is customary for the United States to provide transportation and security for foreign dignitaries at the taxpayer’s expense during such visits and that Ambassador Markarova’s duty as Ambassador Plenipotentiary and Extraordinary was to assist in the coordination of the visit between allied nations.
Republican motivation to denigrate Ukraine is based not only in partisan politics but populist appeal. This week their standard bearer accused Zelenskiy and the Biden-Harris administration of conspiring to send American military personnel to fight Russia. No such proposal has been made and Trump is well aware of this. Trump’s claims, as with so many other of his disinformation juggernaut, has everything to do with polling which indicates 62% of American Democrats support aid for Ukraine while 63% of Republican voters do not. Overall, Americans are divided on the issue with 49% supporting U.S. efforts in Ukraine and 48% not in favour. The recent Republican attacks on Ukraine are an attempt by Trump and his party to increase likely votes in an election cycle in which Trump’s once commanding lead against President Joe Biden now shows him trailing slightly against now Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.
If tax-payer expenditure integrity was important it should be noted that these same Republican lawmakers have refused to ask for an investigation to Trump’s seeming admission during a debate that he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin after leaving office. In last month’s debate with now Democratic candidate Vice President Harris, Trump said, “That war would have never happened and, in fact, when I saw Putin after I left—unfortunately left—because our country has gone to hell. But after I left, when I saw him building up soldiers, he did it after I left, I said, ‘Oh, he must be negotiating. It must be a good, strong point of negotiation”. If Trump indeed met with Putin after leaving office as he seems to have admitted, it would have constituted a violation of the Logan Act which criminalises the negotiation of a dispute between the United States and a foreign power without the authorisation of the serving President. Trump’s campaign spokesperson has claimed critics, “don’t know what they are talking about”, yet hasn’t denied that Trump met privately with Putin after leaving office.
If any American taxpayer funds that are designated for administration, travel and security for former Presidents were in fact used for transportation and security by Trump for a meeting between himself and Putin, a foreign leader sanctioned by the United States and wanted for arrest in The Hague, it may constitute a crime. Notwithstanding, Republicans who control the House Oversight Committee have refused to request an investigation into the incident. The lack of request for an oversight investigation by these same Republicans lays bare the political foundation of their complaint about Zelenskiy’s visit to Scranton organised by Markarova.
Approximately 1-month before the election the seeming outrage expressed by these Republicans can only be ascribed to political showmanship.
Other Republicans and anti-Ukraine commentators who have often sided with Russia and encouraged Ukraine to capitulate to demands to cede territory to Russia joined in the Republican chorus of complainers. They assert that the Ukrainian President was flown into the hotly contested state of Pennsylvania aboard a USAF C-17 aircraft. This indeed occurred and is public knowledge. Such complaints are simple attempts at misdirection as it is customary for the United States to provide security and transportation for foreign leaders while they are on American soil. The cost of those operations are routinely born by the American taxpayer.
Johnson and his complaining colleagues have omitted to decry a similar situation in which the Republicans used a visit of a United States Army General visit to a defense facility for partisan, political purposes earlier this year. In March 2024, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, General C.Q. Brown, visited a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) production line in Camden, Arkansas. The tour excluded Democrats and featured the General being flanked by Republican party officials and office hopefuls in multiple Republican party media releases.
Republican Arkansas Senator John Boozman and Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma joined General Brown for a tour of Lockheed Martin’s HIMARS production line in Camden, Arkansas. The GOP heavy group toured the arms production facility’s production line for the M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System along with HIMARS tube components. Both systems have been indispensable to Ukraine’s defensive capabilities. America has long observed the prohibition of military officers becoming involved, directly or indirectly, in partisan, political activity making the visit ethically questionable and expenditures for it possibly prohibited.
The greatest take-away from Johnson’s letter demanding Markarova’s resignation is the ripe hypocrisy of Republicans decrying what they claim was the politicisation of Zelenskyi’s visit to a Scranton arms factory while themselves politicising the visit of a serving Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s tour of an arms facility for Republican party gain.
The politicisation of the American military for party, political gain is an incredibly serious issue. It far outweighs the visit of a foreign ally at-war to an American arms production facility and strikes at the heart of America’s founders being meticulous at ensuring the military did not become a political creature.
Johnson is also well-aware of the long-established protocols to have locally elected officials form part of the delegation of foreign dignitaries specifically so they do not become fodder for political manipulation. That the delegation accompanying Zelenskiy were all Democrats is a reflection of the will of the American people at the ballot box and in no way a scheme by the Democratic party. To the contrary, the inclusion of a Oklahoma Republican Senator in a delegation visiting an arms factory tour in Arkansas earlier this years stands in egregious contrast to standard protocol of restricting the escort party to locally elected officials.
The presence of foreign leaders on American soil during election cycles has always been fraught with difficulties for American politicians. In 1942, Britain had been at war for over 2-years while the American war effort was less than 6-months old. A strong isolationist movement, fostered by the Republican party, was still pervasive across America, lingering for years, even after the attack on Pearl Harbour the previous December. Albeit facing significant opposition by Republicans to widening the war with Roosevelt’s commitment to the Lend-Lease Act, and with American troops preparing for action in North Africa, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill “slipped into Washington” for a meeting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt that summer.
During the visit news that Tobruk had fallen to Nazi forces under the command of General Erwin Rommel, the ‘Desert Fox’ unsettled Churchill. Skeptical of America’s readiness to quickly contribute to the war effort with un-tested ground forces, Churchill was taken to Fort Jackson, South Carolina for a similar tour. While there, Churchill toured defense facilities and witnessed an airborne drop of America’s newly formed paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division. Republicans were incensed that Roosevelt had excluded them from the trip, accusing him of exploiting Churchill’s visit to Fort Jackson as a publicity stunt to bolster confidence in the Democratic administration and party.
Years later, Republican Vice President Richard Nixon would be accused by Democrats of similar behaviour when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev visited the United States in 1959. Facing the 1960 Presidential election, one which would see Nixon lose to then Senator John F. Kennedy, Nixon was anxious to follow-on his “Kitchen Debate” (Kukhonnye debaty) with Khruschev, this time in front of an American audience. Nixon would ultimate lose to Kennedy, based largely on the American public’s perception that Kennedy would be more effective in challenging what was perceived as a “missile gap” with Russia that developed with Nixon served as Dwight Eisenhower’s Vice President.
Given the ever-lengthening duration of American election cycles that literally see candidates file papers the day after the last election, it is likely that more complaints of this nature may arise. The public should be under no illusion that complaints the likes of Johnson’s are, almost always, the fruit of American politicians politicising foreign leaders and diplomats as a way of vying for political gain – even at the expense of damaging a sworn American ally – in this case Ukraine.
While Johnson may be correct in worrying about the optics of the Democrats possibly getting a “bump” from Zelenskyi’s visit to an arms factory in Scranton, Pennsylvania, a state critical to either party’s path to the White House in November, his protest is self-serving and a poor substitute for political leadership, diplomacy and policy.
Republicans routinely exploit opportunities to gain party, political advantage from events. When Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff visited Arkansas it was an exclusively elected Republican delegation that accompanied him and it was blatantly used for political purposes. Where was the Republican outrage then? When Iran hacked Trump’s emails and sent them to the Harris campaign and Trump cried foul (there was no evidence the emails were ever opened, read or exploited), Republicans joined in with their usual false sense of outrage. It seems Republicans conveniently forgot Trump publicly begging Russia to hack into Democratic Presidential candidate Hilary Clinton’s emails and share them with him, despite the risk of him being manipulated by a foreign power. Johnson and his Republican colleague’s outrage is disingenuous and only serves to injure Ukraine for Russia’s benefit.
Trump himself has become unusually vocal in his contempt for Zelenskiy and Ukraine in recent weeks. Having jumped on the Johnson bandwagon of calling for an investigation of Zelenskiy’s tour of the Scranton arms facility because of its political abuses will only serve to remind the American public of his own abuses of dignitaries for political gain.
In June 2020, President Trump led his senior staff into Lafayette Square across from the White House for a staged photo-op coordinated by the White House Press Office. Trump used the presence of then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley to imply an endorsement by him and the United States Armed Forces for Trump’s desire to forcefully suppress of civilian protests and curtail free speech activity. General Milley later decried the process by which his presence was procured for Trump’s foray into Lafayette Square saying, “My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics“.
It is a meticulous practice that one cannot complain at the bar with “unclean hands”. Johnson’s demand that Ukrainian Ambassador Markarova be immediately fired is a manipulation of facts and runs contrary to standing protocols about elected officials escorting foreign dignitaries. Johnson’s implied threat that Markarova’s performance of her duties risked bringing an end to bipartisan cooperation to support Ukraine is not only a breach of political and diplomatic etiquette, but a self-serving exercise in exploiting an ally-at-war fighting for survival and democracy. Johnson is Speaker of the House of Representatives – not speaker for the Republican party. His appeal to populism in the name of party, political gain disfigures the integrity of that office which is third in the line of succession of the presidency.
Johnson might be better served if his aides were to remind him of history, even recent history, and encourage him to avoid such spats to avoiding having to come clean on the Republican party’s own exploitation of such events. Protocol as well as standing transportation and security arrangements that are universally applied for all such foreign dignitaries applied to this event, just as they did for events that took place with foreign delegations during the Trump administration. Johnson should take care before so bombastically crying foul. As Peter discovered in the well-known fable, you can only cry wolf so many times before your credibility evaporates and you find yourself in real trouble.
