“Compromised” Congressional Commission Is Undermining Trump’s Ukraine Peace Efforts, Says Whistleblower
Former senior official who reported criminal violations by Helsinki Committee, chaired by Senate Armed Services Commitee Chairman Roger Wicker, urges investigation by Trump administration
Few in Washington, D.C. have been stronger supporters of expanding U.S. support for Ukraine in its war with Russia than Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS), who is the Chairman of the powerful Senate Armed Services Commitee. Last November, he dismissed the Trump administration’s efforts as a “so-called peace plan.” In recent weeks, Wicker has insisted that ”Ukraine should not be forced to give up the sovereign territory it deserves and it currently controls” and repeatedly compared Putin to Hitler. And Wicker said the US must commit to protecting Ukraine “on a permanent basis,” including by giving it “long-range strike capabilities.”
Those positions put Wicker at odds with many experts, the Trump administration, and the Republican Party’s base. Most experts believe any peace agreement will require that Ukraine give up land, and that giving Ukraine longer-range weapons will push the US and Russia closer to nuclear conflict.
Wicker exercises his power as the chairman of a little-known government agency, the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, commonly known as “the Helsinki Commission.” His Armed Services Chairmanship is one of the most powerful roles in Washington, overseeing top defense nominees and record U.S. military spending, expected to exceed $1 trillion next year.
Steven Schrage, a longtime Republican foreign policy expert, was, along with the Helsinki Commission’s General Counsel, tasked with leading an official investigation of the Commission that began in the Spring of 2023 and ended in March 2024. Schrage says Wicker and his Helsinki Commission have been “compromised” by foreign actors working to undermine Trump Administration officials and trigger a wider U.S. war with Russia.
Schrage said he decided to speak out now because he fears Congress will increase the Commission’s funding when the House passes its major appropriations bill today, allowing the Commission to operate outside administration oversight after the 2026 midterm elections.
Schrage has provided whistleblower documents (below) related to the investigation to U.S. officials and has urged the Trump administration to immediately open independent investigations by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), federal counterintelligence, and FARA officials.
“For the first six months after Trump got elected, it looked like the Commission would be quietly wound down due to these reported violations,” said Schrage. “Then the Commission took extraordinary steps to reinstall all the main characters that had been involved in the criminal and national security violations. They are now trying to lock in funding.”
Late last year, Senator Wicker excoriated the Trump administration’s Ukraine-Russia peace proposal and “put restrictions undermining Trump policies, such as blocking troop transfers from Europe,” in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Schrage noted.
“It put money in for Ukraine that the administration did not ask for,” said Schrage. “Wicker blocked key appointees to serve with officials driving Trump’s policy and peace initiatives.”
Schrage led international crime and terrorism efforts as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, served as co-chair of the U.S. delegation to the G8 Anti-Crime and Terrorism Group, and was the Scholl Chair in International Business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Particularly troubling to Schrage was staff member Kyle Parker’s work with a “controversial former Russian Duma Member linked to Ukraine intelligence named Ilya Ponomarev. While Wicker’s and Helsinki’s top staff were working with Ponomarev, the former Duma member suggested to Western journalists that he had links to the assassins of Darya Dugina, a journalist and daughter of a controversial Russian philosopher.
Schrage found evidence that the Commission had “obstructed justice by covering up at least $87,400 in criminal-flagged FARA violations by Parker, bringing cash back from Ukraine in his luggage. It was supposed to be referred to the Department of Justice FARA unit for independent action before Helsinki officials and Wicker intervened.”
“We witnessed Ponomarev coming to the commission and discussing planning a quote-unquote, ‘Wagner-style coup’ to take out Putin, and using the commission to gain legitimacy for his efforts to have foreign powers break up and divide Russia,” said Schrage. “The U.S. government under both Presidents Biden and Trump acted to stop U.S. officials from being linked to these types of coups and assassinations as they could be easily manipulated by foreign actors to trigger wider wars.”
Schrage and Helsinki’s General Counsel discovered that both Republicans and Democrats had blown the whistle for years on multiple cases of conflicts of interest, criminal activity, and foreign influence by Helsinki Committee staff. Those included supplying Ukrainian snipers, accepting gifts from foreign nationals with interests in war with Russia, and reckless behavior by the Commission’s Chief of Staff, Kyle Parker.
After the release of Schrage’s report, the commission’s chairman at the time called for Parker’s dismissal. “I urgently recommend you secure his immediate resignation or termination,” wrote Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC) in a letter to Senator Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD). But Cardin never did so, and Wicker has also kept Parker in his position.
Senator Wicker did not respond to repeated emailed and telephone requests for comment.
The investigation uncovered particular concerns regarding prominent foreign financier, Bill Browder, who worked closely with Parker and Wicker for years while, Schrage claims, exerting increasing control and influence over the Commission.
Browder did not return repeated requests for comment.
Schrage reported that Browder, a U.S.-born UK investor who renounced his U.S. citizenship, told him that he paid for “extravagant dinners” for Parker abroad and “aggressively pushed me to accept what I knew, from my background leading international crime at the State Department, was an illegal or unethical gift.”
While it may seem a small thing, Schrage explained, such gifts are “the classic way corrupt actors or intelligence services develop assets. You push government officials or contacts into legal violations, and get them to not report your own, so that it spirals as leverage to larger and larger corruption.”
Schrage, who has decades of experience working in the foreign policy and national security community, called the offer a “clear red flag.”
“I asked him, ‘You know I can’t accept that, right? That’s not proper and a violation of ethics,” said Schrage. “He pushed again and bragged that it was okay to take it because he was always buying all these extravagant dinners for Parker in London and at the best restaurants, and he never objected.”
After rebuffing Browder, said Schrage, “He got hostile and cold.”
Through the Helsinki investigation, Schrage learned Parker was told by Senator Wicker at a private meeting after a hearing to find a way to “get rid of” the two officials leading the Helsinki investigations, Schrage and Helsinki’s General Counsel, a potential criminal obstruction of justice violation.
This report reads like a Jack Ryan script. Unfortunately, unscrupulous and corrupt players who will risk previously unthinkable nuclear war for financial gain and expansion of personal power do not exist only in the movies or on TV. God help us.
Let’s check how many military vendors are “$upporting” Wicker……