When the Republican effort to malign President Biden over alleged corruption in Ukraine hit a fever pitch last summer, Washington District 3 Republican candidate Joe Kent unambiguously declared on his campaign’s social media outlets that “Biden took bribe money & leveraged his position as VP to change US policy in a nation we are now sending billions to & risking WW3 for. This is the most egregious & dangerous high crime in US history. Biden & his entire cabinet, Garland, Wray etc all must be impeached now.”
Ten days later on July 31, 2023, Mr. Kent reiterated his assertions by writing, “Joe Biden took millions from Ukrainian oligarchs as VP in exchange for leveraging US aid to support Hunter’s business interests. Now, with Biden as POTUS we are sending billions to the Ukrainian gov that knows the dirt on Biden & risking WW3. Impeach Biden now.”
Over the ensuing months, an objective assessment of Mr. Kent’s rhetoric on the subject shows he has consistently and conspicuously advocated that U.S. civilian and military aid should not be extended to Ukraine, effectively concluding that Russia’s illegal war be met with indifference and appeasement. Indeed, when former President Trump recently signaled our nation’s treaties and allies are expendable, and that Russia can do “whatever the hell they want” to our NATO partners, Joe Kent responded with nothing but deafening silence.
Of course, we now know the Russian FBI informant who was the source of the Republican Party’s claims against the Bidens was recently arrested after being federally indicted for fabricating his serious allegations out of whole cloth. That’s right folks, it was all a disinformation campaign that came straight out of Vladimir Putin’s dog-eared KGB playbook. But don’t hold your breath waiting for the GOP to display a shred of apologetic contrition. Case in point, on March 4, the Pacific County Republican Party endorsed Mr. Kent’s candidacy, which the Lewis County Republican Party had already done last summer. Now all seven neo-Confederate groups masquerading as the county Republican parties of the Third District are unified ignominiously.
Dishonorably, Mr. Kent never recanted the litany of lies he promulgated about the veracity of the 2020 election after they were proven false, and he refers to Trump’s Jan. 6 coup participants as “political prisoners.” Will he now retract his outrageous and libelous defamation about President Biden and our sworn ally from the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, or will he continue to be a mouthpiece for Vladimir Putin’s propaganda? Say it ain’t so, Joe.
Thomas Samuels
Longview
