Thiessen observed (original links):

It got almost no attention, but in May [2018], CNN reported that Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) wrote a letter to Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, expressing concern at the closing of four investigations they said were critical to the Mueller probe. In the letter, they implied that their support for U.S. assistance to Ukraine was at stake. Describing themselves as “strong advocates for a robust and close relationship with Ukraine,” the Democratic senators declared, “We have supported [the] capacity-building process and are disappointed that some in Kyiv appear to have cast aside these [democratic] principles to avoid the ire of President Trump,” before demanding Lutsenko “reverse course and halt any efforts to impede cooperation with this important investigation.”

The Democrats’ letter is available online here. In it, Menendez, Durbin, and Leahy demanded that the Ukrainian government answer their questions about the Mueller probe, and issued an implied threat: “This reported refusal to cooperate with the Mueller probe also sends a worrying signal — to the Ukrainian people as well as the international community — about your government’s commitment more broadly to support justice and the rule of law.”

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak

There were no “walls of separation” in the 3,500 square feet of office space in Knoxville, Tennessee that in 2017 and 2018 housed two political action committees (PACs), two private consulting firms, and at least 12 congressional campaigns committees, all controlled or run by Saikat Chakrabarti, who now serves as freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) chief of staff.

A source familiar with the building told Breitbart News that Brand New Campaign LLC, a private company formed in Delaware on February 13, 2017 that was apparently controlled by Chakrabarti, leased the second and third floors of the building located at 714 S. Gay Street in downtown Knoxville from the spring of 2017 until March 2018.

The second floor “is entirely open space, with no walls at all,” while the third floor is “mostly open space with a few enclosed offices,” a source in Knoxville, Tennessee, who is familiar with the space told Breitbart News.

The other entities controlled or run by Chakrabarti at the time that were housed at 714 S. Gay St. during the period of occupancy of Brand New Campaign LLC included:

• Brand New Congress, a PAC
• Justice Democrats, a PAC
• Brand New Congress, LLC, a private consulting firm apparently controlled by Chakrabarti
• The Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez campaign, which filed its statement of organizationwith the FEC that listed the building as its offices on May 17, 2017 and listed its email as “admin@brandnewcongress.org,” the email address of Brand New Congress, the PAC.
• Six congressional campaigns which filed their original statements of organization with the FEC in May 2017 that listed the building as its office and listed its email as “admin@brandnewcongress.org,” the email address of Brand New Congress, the PAC: Robert Ryerse 2018,  Letitia Plummer 2018,  Adrienne Bell 2018, Sarah Smith 2018,  Chardo Richardson for Congress, and the Anthony Clark campaign
• Five additional congressional campaigns that filed amended statements of organization with the FEC in July  2017 that listed  714 S. Gay St. Knoxville as their headquarters, and an email address of the Brand New Congress PAC (admin@brandnewcongress.org) as their campaign email address: Cori Bush 2018,  Paula Swearengin 2018,  Committee to Elect Ryan Stone, Hector Morales for Congress, and the Perry for Pennsylvania campaign

Some of the congressional campaigns subsequently filed amendments to their statement of organization listing different addresses for their offices.

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, however, did not file an amended statement of organization with the FEC changing the address of her campaign headquarters from 714 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, Tennessee to a location in New York until November 20, 2018, two weeks after she won the general election to represent New York’s 14th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, and more than six months after the Brand New Campaign LLC lease of the Knoxville office space ended.

All told, at least 16 different organizations, all controlled or managed by Chakrabarti and, in the case of two of those organizations–her own campaign beginning in May 2017 and Justice Democrats beginning in February 2018, by Rep. Ocasio-Cortez– listed the 714. S. Gay Street location as their headquarters during the 2017 to 2018 time frame of Brand New Campaign LLC’s occupancy of the office space there.

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