The Republican VP candidate would not take Kiev’s calls about F-16s, according to texts
Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, whom Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump picked as his running mate, refused to take calls from Ukraine about F-16 deliveries, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
The claim was based on text messages Vance has exchanged with Charles Johnson, described by the Post as a blogger “who has zealously promoted right-wing conspiracy theories” as well as a federal informant. Johnson provided some of those messages to the Post.
“Dude I won’t even take calls from Ukraine,” Vance messaged Johnson last October. “Two very senior guys reached out to me. The head of their intel. The head of the Air Force. Bitching about F16s.”
Another message, which the Post did not quote, allegedly ridiculed “the mental state of a pro-Ukraine activist,” while another suggested that the US intelligence community was engineering media support for Ukraine by telling Johnson the spies should “up the doses of Xanax among the rank and file.”
Xanax is a tranquilizer usually prescribed for panic and anxiety disorders.
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