U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz has asked the FBI to look into potential attempts by the Ukrainian government to interfere with her election, as well as threats made against her.
In a press release earlier this week, Spartz included a picture of a billboard in a region of the Ukraine with her official portrait and the following statement: “Our president has to purge Russian FSB (Federal Security Bureau) agents in any kind of office.”
“I don’t want to be on a billboard in the Ukraine,” Spartz said Friday during an interview with The Herald Bulletin. “The Ukraine is full of Russian agents and they don’t want us to question their accountability.
“We want to make sure the U.S. money and supplies are going to the right people in the Ukraine,” she added. “We don’t want our money to be stolen.”
Spartz said the American government has to do a better job of oversight when it comes to U.S. financial and military aid.
“I don’t trust all the people in the Ukraine,” she said. “Our president (Joe Biden) has to be accountable to the Congress. The American people expect us to have accountability. We don’t want Russia to take advantage of the situation.”
Earlier this year, Spartz sent a letter to Biden requesting more detailed briefings, oversight and accountability to Congress and the American people on financial and security assistance to Ukraine for the sake of the Ukrainian people and the U.S. strategic interest.
Spartz said some progress has been made.
“These letters have also prompted vicious personal attacks and baseless allegations from some members of the Ukrainian government, including through the almost fully government-controlled Ukrainian media,” she wrote to FBI Director Christopher Wray.
“I would like to bring to your attention a potential attempt to interfere in my election and threats against a U.S. government official in the course of performing my official duties overseas,” Spartz’s letter stated. ” I formally request an investigation into whether these actions were conspired and directed by members of the Office of the President of Ukraine or some other foreign actors in Ukraine.”
Spartz said her observations while touring the Ukraine during the invasion by Russia showed a lack of evidence that U.S. support was getting to the most critically affected areas in the Ukraine.
She said the attacks in the Ukrainian media portray her as a Russian collaborator.
“They threatened anyone who met with me or would want to meet with me with criminal charges through their fully controlled judicial and prosecutorial systems and allegedly directed their secret police to use intimidation techniques during my official visits to Ukraine this fall,” Spartz wrote.
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