Ukraine Mystery: Schiff Staffer Made August Visit for Think Tank Backed by Hunter Biden’s Old Employer

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A staffer for Rep. Adam Schiff’s House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence took a trip to Ukraine last month sponsored and organized by the Atlantic Council think tank.

The Atlantic Council is funded by and routinely works in partnership with Burisma, the natural gas company at the center of allegations regarding Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.



The Schiff staffer, Thomas Eager, is also currently one of 19 fellows at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Congressional Fellowship, a bipartisan program that says it “educates congressional staff on current events in the Eurasia region.”

Eager’s trip to Ukraine last month was part of the fellowship program and included nine other House employees. The bi-partisan visit, from August 24 to August 31, was billed as a “Ukraine Study Trip,” and culminated in a meeting with former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

The dates of the pre-planned trip are instructive. Eager’s visit to Ukraine sponsored by the Burisma-funded Atlantic Council began 12 days after the so-called whistleblower officially filed his August 12 complaint about President Donald Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Schiff’s House Intelligence Committee reportedly reached a tentative agreement in recent days for the so-called whistleblower to testify.

The complaint surrounds Trump’s request for Ukrainian assistance in investigating possible corruption related to the Burisma company and Joe and Hunter Biden.

Also mentioned by Trump during the phone call with Zelensky are questions about CrowdStrike, the outside firm utilized to conclude that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee’s servers since the DNC would not allow the U.S. government to inspect the servers.

CrowdStrike founder Dmitri Alperovitch is a nonresident senior fellow of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council.

Eager did not immediately return Breitbart phone and email requests for comment.

The email request inquired whether Eager, during his trip sponsored by the Atlantic Council, personally held any meetings in Ukraine related to the whistle blower complaint filed about two weeks before the visit.

Besides funding from Burisma, the Atlantic Council is also financed by Google Capital, billionaire activist George Soros’s Open Society Foundations as well as the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inc. and the U.S. State Department.

As Breitbart News reported last week, Google, Soros’s Open Society Foundations, the Rockefeller Fund and an agency of the State Department each also finance a self-described investigative journalism organization repeatedly referenced as a source of information in the so-called whistleblower’s complaint alleging Trump was “using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country” in the 2020 presidential race.

Schiff signed form

Schiff’s signature appears on the required post-travel disclosure form filed with the House Committee on Ethics documenting the visit to Ukraine. The form signed by Schiff says that Eager’s trip to Ukraine was paid for by the “Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.”

The form bearing Schiff’s signature (above) describes the visit thusly:

Series of meetings and visits with gov’t officials, party officials, civil society and private sector reps in Ukraine to learn about ongoing political and military issues, including conflict in the East.

The costs for Eager’s visit listed on the form are $2202.91 for transportation, $985.50 for lodging, and $630.15 for meal expenses.

Geysha Gonzalez is the Atlantic Council officer listed on the form. She is deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Speaking to Breitbart News, Gonzalez confirmed that Eager started his one year fellowship with the organization in January and that Eager is still a fellow.

Gonzalez said the pre-planned trip was part of the fellowship program, which also includes a full year of round tables and other educational events. She said it was not within her portfolio to comment on issues of funding from Burisma or other donors.

The itinerary of the trip shows a meeting with Poroshenko as well as discussions with local activists, politicians and residents.

Besides Eager, nine other Congressional staffers were listed as participating in the visit. Republicans were represented by Laura Detter, legislative assistant to Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), Zachery Laven, legislative assistant to Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ), Michael McCabe, legislative assistant to Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and Sarah Miller, legislative assistant to Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL).

McCain adviser and dossier 

The Atlantic Council’s Gonzalez is also one of eleven members of the rapid response team for the Ukrainian Election Task Force, which says it is working to expose “foreign interference in Ukraine’s democracy.”

Another member of the team is David J. Kramer, a long-time adviser to late Senator John McCain who served at the McCain Institute for International Leadership as senior director for human rights and democracy.

Kramer revealed in testimony that he held a meeting about the anti-Trump dossier with a reporter from BuzzFeed News who he says snapped photos of the controversial document without Kramer’s permission when he left the room to go to the bathroom. That meeting was held at the McCain Institute office in Washington, Kramer stated.

BuzzFeed infamously published the Christopher Steele dossier on January 10, 2017 setting off a firestorm of news media coverage about the document.

The Washington Post reported last February that Kramer received the dossier directly from Fusion GPS after McCain expressed interest in it.

In a deposition taken on Dec. 13, 2017 and posted online earlier this year, Kramer revealed that he met with two Obama administration officials to inquire about whether the anti-Trump dossier was being taken seriously.

In one case, Kramer said that he personally provided a copy of the dossier to Obama National Security Council official Celeste Wallander.

In the deposition, Kramer said that McCain specifically asked him in early December 2016 to meet about the dossier with Wallander and Victoria Nuland, a senior official in John Kerry’s State Department.

Burisma and Atlantic Council 

Besides funding the Atlantic Council, Burisma also routinely partners with the think tank.

Only four months ago, the company co-hosted the Council’s second Annual Kharkiv Security Conference.

Burisma further co-hosted a U.S.-Ukraine Business Council event with the Council last year in Washington, DC.  David Kramer of the dossier episode is a senior adviser to the Business Council.

Busirma and the Atlantic Council also signed a cooperative agreement to develop transatlantic programs with Burisma’s financial support reportedly to focus “on European and international energy security.”

Burisma advertises that it committed itself to “15 key principles of rule of law and economic policy in Ukraine developed by the Atlantic Council.”

Common Funding Themes

There are common threads that run through an organization repeatedly relied upon in the so-called whistleblower’s complaint about Trump and CrowdStrike.

One of several themes is financing tied to Google, whose Google Capital led a $100 million funding drive that financed Crowdstrike. Google Capital, which now goes by the name of CapitalG, is an arm of Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company. Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Alphabet, has been a staunch and active supporter of Hillary Clinton and is a longtime donor to the Democratic Party.

CrowdStrike was mentioned by Trump in his call with Zelensky. Perkins Coie, the law firm that represented the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s campaign, reportedly helped draft CrowdStrike to aid with the DNC’s allegedly hacked server.

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