US Senate aide investigated over unofficial actions in Ukraine

WASHINGTON - A senior Capitol Hill staff member who is a long-time voice on Russia policy is under congressional investigation over his frequent trips to Ukraine’s war zones and providing what he said was US$30,000 (S$40,300) in sniper gear to its military, documents show.

The staff member, Mr Kyle Parker, is the senior Senate adviser for the US Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, known as the Helsinki Commission.

The commission is led by members of Congress and staffed by congressional aides. It is influential on matters of democracy and security and has been vocal in supporting Ukraine.

A confidential report by the commission’s director and general counsel, which The New York Times reviewed, said the equipment transfer could make Mr Parker an unregistered foreign agent.

It said Mr Parker had travelled Ukraine’s front line wearing camouflage and Ukrainian military insignia, and had hired a Ukrainian official for a US government fellowship over the objections of congressional ethics and security officials.

And it raised the possibility that he was “wittingly or unwittingly being targeted and exploited by a foreign intelligence service”, citing unspecified “counter intelligence issues” that should be referred to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

A representative for Mr Parker said he had done nothing wrong. He said Mr Parker was the target of a “campaign of retaliation” for making accusations of misconduct against the report’s authors.

The report so troubled the commission’s chair, Representative Joe Wilson, that he recommended Mr Parker be fired to protect national security, records show. He cited “serious alleged improper acts involving Ukrainian and other foreign individuals”.

“I urgently recommend you secure his immediate resignation or termination,” Mr Wilson, a supporter of Ukraine, wrote in a Nov 1 letter to the commission’s Democratic co-chair, Senator Benjamin Cardin of Maryland.

Mr Parker’s representative said he had not been asked to resign, and had no plans to.

Mr Parker remains on the commission pending what three US officials described as a broad investigation into staff conduct, including the accusations in the report and accusations from Mr Parker against the commission’s executive director, Mr Steven Schrage, and counsel, Mr Michael Geffroy, who wrote the report.

The investigation is being led by an outside law firm, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the continuing inquiry.

It is unclear whether Congress referred concerns to the FBI, as the report recommended.

The misconduct investigation has disrupted the Helsinki Commission at a perilous time for Ukraine and its relationship with Congress.

The country has suffered setbacks in its war with Russia and is desperate for more money and weapons. Republicans are threatening to

block US$60 billion in additional aid.

In his letter, Mr Wilson warned that scandal at the commission could jeopardise “future Ukraine aid”.

The Helsinki Commission is a key pro-Ukraine voice, both on Capitol Hill and in Europe.

Mr Parker is one of its longest-serving aides. He is known in foreign-policy circles as a driving force behind a 2012 human rights law, the Magnitsky Act, inspired by the death of Russian anti-corruption crusader Sergei Magnitsky.

The report raises the prospect that Mr Parker’s strident support for Ukraine crossed ethical or legal lines and that he, a US government employee, might have been functioning as an agent of Ukraine. Through his representative, Mr Parker denied that.

Representatives for Mr Cardin and Mr Wilson referred questions to the Office of the House Employment Counsel, which did not respond to messages.

Mr Parker is one of many Americans who poured into Ukraine after

Russia’s invasion in February 2022.

Some offered money and supplies or fought alongside Ukrainian soldiers. Others were dishonest, incompetent or preoccupied with internecine squabbles.

In lectures, podcasts and social media posts, Mr Parker said he had travelled to Ukraine at least seven times since the invasion began, including to combat zones, describing himself as “the most well-travelled American official in wartime Ukraine”.

Social media photographs from those trips show him wearing camouflage and the insignia of Ukrainian units.

In one picture, he wears a provincial military administration’s patch. In another, he wears camouflage and a Ukrainian drone unit patch. In another, he says he is “plotting the liberation” of Luhansk with a Ukrainian official.

One video obtained by the Times shows him cutting up a Russian hat and urinating on it.

“Mr Parker’s unofficial travel and media promoting himself as a foreign military interlocutor raise further legal and ethical concerns amid reported Ukrainian military corruption,” the report said.

Mr Parker’s representative provided written answers to questions on behalf of Mr Parker on the condition that he not be identified.

He said that “American and Ukrainian security experts” had advised Mr Parker to wear camouflage near the front and that Mr Parker had never worn the insignia of the military units that he was accompanying.

He said the urination was “a personal expression of rage and grief” after witnessing evidence of Russian brutality.

Mr Parker’s representative said these were not official trips. But Mr Parker has publicly spoken as if they were.

Some of those who travelled with him said they believed he was on government business. The commission published a photograph of him in the besieged city of Kherson.

In an April 2023 lecture at the University of Maine, Mr Parker said that, after the evacuation of the US Embassy in Kyiv, the capital, before Russia’s invasion, he was motivated to go to Ukraine to help advise US policymakers.

“We have almost no eyes on the ground, no presence,” he said, according to a recording by the Bangor Daily News, which covered the event and provided audio to the Times. “So, you know, I feel like that makes the travel even more important, to be able to say, ‘Hey, here’s what I’ve seen.’”

It is not illegal to visit Ukraine’s front line, despite State Department warnings against doing so.

“I don’t answer to the State Department,” Mr Parker added. “We’re an independent agency.” NYTIMES