In the story , Rowland wrote, “On Wednesday, Donald Trump said that GOP Sen. Rob Portman could back his account of dealings with the Ukraine.”

Senator Portman, R-OHIO, is the co-chair of the Senate Ukraine Caucus and, unfortunately for Trump, could not back up Trump’s account – he wouldn’t lie for Trump because Senator Portman and a bipartisan group of senators, prodded by Vice President Joe Biden, had sent a letter in February 2016 to then-Ukranian President Petro Poroshenko urging him to crack down on corruption within the Ukrainian government.

[...]

The letter, in fact, supports Joe Biden’s account of how Victor Shokin, the Prosecutor General referred to in the bipartisan letter, came to be fired — a month after the letter was sent, the Ukrainian legislature voted to remove Shokin.

The letter does not support the made-up, baseless account that Trump has been pushing where he called the firing “unfair ” and then demanded an investigation into Biden and his son.

[...]

So, who else signed the February, 2016 letter that was sent by the Senate Ukraine Caucus? –Democratic Senators Sherrod Brown, Dick Durbin, Jeanne Shaheen, Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal. They were joined by Republican Senators Rob Portman, Ron Johnson and Mark Kirk (defeated by Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, in 2017) .

So, why didn’t Senator Portman immediately come to Vice President and former colleague Joe Biden’s defense when Trump began to lie about the Ukraine, Biden and his son, Hunter?