A senior Capitol Hill employees member who’s a longtime voice on Russia coverage is below congressional investigation over his frequent journeys to Ukraine’s battle zones and offering what he stated was $30,000 in sniper gear to its navy, paperwork present.
The employees member, Kyle Parker, is the senior Senate adviser for the U.S. Fee on Safety and Cooperation in Europe, referred to as the Helsinki Fee. The fee is led by members of Congress and staffed by congressional aides. It’s influential on issues of democracy and safety and has been vocal in supporting Ukraine.
A confidential report by the fee’s director and normal counsel, which The New York Occasions reviewed, stated that the tools switch might make Mr. Parker an unregistered overseas agent. It stated that Mr. Parker had traveled Ukraine’s entrance strains sporting camouflage and Ukrainian navy insignia and had employed a Ukrainian official for a U.S. authorities fellowship over the objections of congressional ethics and safety officers.
And it raised the chance that he was “wittingly or unwittingly being focused and exploited by a overseas intelligence service,” citing unspecified “counterintelligence points” that ought to be referred to the F.B.I.
A consultant for Mr. Parker stated he had carried out nothing fallacious. He stated Mr. Parker was the goal of a “marketing campaign of retaliation” for making accusations of misconduct in opposition to the report’s authors.
The report so troubled the fee’s chairman, Consultant Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina, that he really helpful Mr. Parker be fired to guard nationwide safety, data present. He cited “critical alleged improper acts involving Ukrainian and different overseas people.”
“I urgently suggest you safe his quick resignation or termination,” Mr. Wilson, a supporter of Ukraine, wrote in a Nov. 1 letter to the fee’s Democratic co-chairman, Senator Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland. Mr. Parker’s consultant stated he had not been requested to resign, and had no plans to.
Mr. Parker stays on the fee pending what three U.S. officers described as a broad investigation into employees conduct, together with the accusations within the report and accusations from Mr. Parker in opposition to the fee’s government director, Steven Schrage, and counsel, Michael Geffroy, who wrote the report.
The investigation is being led by an out of doors legislation agency, stated the officers, who spoke on the situation of anonymity to explain the persevering with inquiry. It’s unclear whether or not Congress referred issues to the F.B.I., because the report really helpful.
The misconduct investigation has disrupted the Helsinki Fee at a deadly time for Ukraine and its relationship with Congress. The nation has suffered setbacks in its battle with Russia and is determined for extra money and weapons. Republicans are threatening to dam $60 billion in extra assist.
In his letter, Mr. Wilson warned that scandal on the fee might jeopardize “future Ukraine assist.”
The Helsinki Fee is a key pro-Ukraine voice, each on Capitol Hill and in Europe. Mr. Parker is one in every of its longest-serving aides. He’s recognized in foreign-policy circles as a driving drive behind a 2012 human rights legislation, the Magnitsky Act, impressed by the dying of the Russian anticorruption crusader Sergei L. Magnitsky.
The report raises the prospect that Mr. Parker’s strident help for Ukraine crossed moral or authorized strains and that he, a U.S. authorities worker, may need been functioning as an agent of Ukraine. Via his consultant, Mr. Parker denied that.
Representatives for Mr. Cardin and Mr. Wilson referred inquiries to the Workplace of the Home Employment Counsel, which didn’t reply to messages.
Mr. Parker is one in every of many Individuals who poured into Ukraine after Russia’s 2022 invasion. Some provided cash and provides or fought alongside Ukrainian troopers. Others have been dishonest, incompetent or preoccupied with internecine squabbles.
In lectures, podcasts and social media posts, Mr. Parker stated he had traveled to Ukraine not less than seven occasions because the invasion started in February 2022, together with to fight zones, describing himself as “probably the most well-traveled American official in wartime Ukraine.”
Social media pictures from these journeys present him sporting camouflage and the insignia of Ukrainian items. In one image, he wears a provincial navy administration’s patch. In one other, he wears camouflage and a Ukrainian drone unit patch. In one other, he says he’s “plotting the liberation” of Luhansk with a Ukrainian official.
One video obtained by The Occasions exhibits him reducing up a Russian hat and urinating on it.
“Mr. Parker’s unofficial journey and media selling himself as a overseas navy interlocutor elevate additional authorized and moral issues amid reported Ukrainian navy corruption,” the report stated.
Mr. Parker’s consultant offered written solutions to questions on behalf of Mr. Parker on the situation that he not be recognized. He stated that “American and Ukrainian safety consultants” had suggested Mr. Parker to put on camouflage close to the entrance and that he had by no means worn the insignia of the navy items that he was accompanying.
He stated the urination was “a private expression of rage and grief” after witnessing proof of Russian brutality.
Mr. Parker’s consultant stated these weren’t official journeys. However Mr. Parker has publicly spoken as in the event that they have been. A few of those that traveled with him stated they believed that he was on authorities enterprise. The fee printed {a photograph} of him within the besieged metropolis of Kherson.
In an April 2023 lecture on the College of Maine, Mr. Parker stated that, after the evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv earlier than Russia’s invasion, he was motivated to go to Ukraine to assist advise American policymakers.
“We have now nearly no eyes on the bottom, no presence,” he stated, in response to a recording by The Bangor Each day Information, which lined the occasion and offered audio to The Occasions. “So, you understand, I really feel like that makes the journey much more necessary, to have the ability to say, ‘Hey, right here’s what I’ve seen.’”
It’s not unlawful to go to Ukraine’s entrance strains, regardless of State Division warnings in opposition to doing so.
“I don’t reply to the State Division,” he added. “We’re an unbiased company.”
He advised congressional officers that least a few of his travels have been to influence household he has in Ukraine to depart, in response to two U.S. officers with direct information of the inquiry. Mr. Parker’s consultant stated he had helped household evacuate.
Mr. Parker has stated he drove to the entrance strains. American officers hardly ever go to the entrance, and solely with heavy safety.
William B. Taylor Jr., a former prime U.S. envoy in Ukraine, stated such expeditions have been notably dangerous. “Should you’re within the authorities or have some propaganda worth to the Russians,” he stated, “the advantages must be very, very excessive.”
As employees director when the battle broke out in 2022, Mr. Parker stated the fee was on “battle footing” and now not needed to comply with guidelines about reporting journey or contacting overseas officers, the report stated. Mr. Parker’s consultant denied this.
The report stated Mr. Parker employed a Ukrainian Parliament aide as a fee fellow, regardless of “employees safety, ethics and authorized objections.”
The report didn’t title the aide. The Occasions recognized him as Andrii Bondarenko, who stated in messages that he had held an unpaid place for a couple of month in late 2022..
“The concept was to know how Congress works,” he stated. Mr. Bondarenko stated he at present served within the Ukrainian navy.
Mr. Parker’s lecture in Maine raised alarm on the fee.
The report relied on public accounts of the occasion, throughout which Mr. Parker described acquiring tools for Ukrainian snipers.
Within the recording, he stated a relative in Ukraine had given him $30,000 raised by veterans and volunteers, which he had used to purchase vary finders from Amazon and ballistic wind gauges from a Philadelphia-area producer.
He stated he delivered them to Kharkiv on Easter weekend 2022 to “guys who’re going to take it up with the snipers within the entrance.” Vary fingers are specialised binoculars or monoculars. Wind gauges assist calculate climate variables to line up photographs.
Exporting such tools isn’t essentially restricted, although delivering refined fashions might be. Mr. Parker stated he adopted export legal guidelines.
“You by no means go into wartime Ukraine with an empty suitcase,” he stated.
Aishvarya Kavi and Rebecca Davis O’Brien contributed reporting.
