Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland questioning whether Blue Star Strategies, a Democrat lobbying firm, filed incomplete and misleading information with the Department of Justice (DOJ).
On May 12, 2022, Blue Star Strategies’ top executives, Karen Tramontano and Sally Painter filed, under penalty of perjury, Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) forms with DOJ regarding the work they did on behalf of their foreign client, Burisma Holdings (Burisma) and the company’s corrupt Russia-aligned owner, Mykola Zlochevsky.
Based on the senators’ previous work examining the extent to which Blue Star Strategies met with Obama administration officials on behalf of Burisma and Mr. Zlochevsky, it appears that Blue Star Strategies’ FARA form lacked complete and accurate information. For example, on its FARA form Blue Star Strategies disclosed that it only had two meetings with Obama administration officials and that its work with respect to Mr. Zlochevsky and Burisma “began and ended in 2016.”
Blue Star Strategies’ description of its two meetings, disclosed on its FARA form is copied below:
The senators wrote that based on this filing “it appears the date of the meeting with Mr. Hochstein is inconsistent with our investigative records. Further, Blue Star Strategies’ FARA filing states that its activity with respect to Mr. Zlochevsky and Burisma ‘began and ended in 2016’; however, our records indicate that the activity began in 2015 and extended several years after 2016. Accordingly, it appears that Blue Star Strategies failed to disclose several other meetings it arranged with U.S. government officials on behalf of Burisma and Mr. Zlochevsky in its FARA filing.”
In fact, the senators noted that “Blue Star Strategies failed to disclose on the FARA form at least nine other meetings it had with U.S. government officials—including two meetings with sitting U.S. ambassadors to Ukraine—regarding Burisma and Mr. Zlochevsky.”
Original source can be found here
