As magnificent a job as the House committees and managers have done pursuing and arguing Trump’s crimes in L’Affaire Ukraine—Adam Schiff is a god, no words adequate—there are a couple things I think our side is getting very wrong. The whole “soliciting foreign interference in an election” is at the top of the list.
Yes, one of the things our founders most feared for our new nation was foreign interference. But, in this hellacious moment in history we are living through, the pernicious interference is not from Ukraine, it is from Russia.
Back in the days of the Constitutional Convention, the US was a weak country, vulnerable to interference from a host of stronger powers. Ukraine is not strong-arming us. Ukraine did not choose to foist Corrupt Biden and CrowdStrike into our national conversation. The coercion, of course, was entirely in the other direction.
It is of course Russia, not Ukraine, that is the threat.
There have been multiple instances in which Trump has been Russia’s willing Useful Idiot, furthering Russia’s goals. In L’Affaire Ukraine alone, there are multiple such instances.
This did not start with Zelensky’s administration. Trump has secured goodies for Russia from Ukraine from the gitgo, starting with the administration of corrupt President Poroshenko and his corrupt prosecutor Lutsenko.
The first things Trump got from Poroshenko was the kiboshing of its prosecution of Manafort and cooperation with the Mueller investigation. Sure, those things helped Trump, but they also helped Russia. In return, Poroshenko got increased military aid, including the javelins Obama refused and an oval office meeting to help boost his image as he ran for reelection.
Now we knew at the time that Ukraine had suddenly let Manafort off the hook and cold-shouldered Mueller. The House sent a letter inquiring about the Mueller non-cooperation, but got no response.
At the time, I did not know if Trump was quid-pro-quo-ing—sorry, Art of the Deal-ing—if Trump initiated the trade or if Poroshenko initiated, correctly surmised how to get on Trump’s good side, and the goodies flowed accordingly. I still could not say for sure. But Rachel Maddow reported a few months ago, based on a Washington Post opinion piece by Jackson Diehl, a guy who has shown an inside track on matters Ukraine before, that the about-face on both fronts was sudden, and just happened to come down quickly after visits from Rudy Giuliani. WaPo piece
So Trump knew Poroshenko was a man he could work with, and when he decided to call on Ukraine to go after Biden, he went back to the Poroshenko well again. We know that from Rudy’s gallivanting and TV appearances, but we really know it now, for sure, from Parnas. His mission, on Team Trump/Giuliani, was to horsetrade investigations in exchange for an oval office meeting (sound familiar?) that would give Poroshenko cache in his battle to get re-elected, and more javelins.
And that was when and why the push to oust Ambassador Yovanovich came about. Both Poroshenko and Lutsenko saw her as an obstacle to carrying out the quid Trump wanted.
Instead, Zelensky got elected, an anti-corruption crusader, and it took months and a phalanx of operatives and a host of threats to bring him to heel. As we know, but for a whistleblower getting military aid released days before Zelensky’s scheduled CNN interview, Trump would have succeeded. It was the fact that Zelensky held out so long, and it took an army of operatives and dozens of acts and communications to pursue the extortion plot, that Trump now stands impeached on a mountain of evidence.
To be sure, Trump got a lot for himself from Poroshenko, and sought things in his personal interest from Zelensky; the Corrupt Biden narrative in particular was candy for the Merkin-Crested Yam. Oh joy, once again he could lead chants of Lock Him Up, just the pronoun changed. Pure crack to his damaged ego.
But that was also all good for Russia, wasn’t it? Getting Manafort off, and depriving Mueller of cooperation, was also good for Russia. Getting Poroshenko re-elected, stomping out the candidate who rose to carry out the anti-corruption reforms the Ukrainian people wanted—indeed, getting Trump re-elected—all would have been and would be big pluses in Russia’s book.
But isn’t CrowdStrike particularly, perhaps even solely, all about a thing Russia wanted? Russia was early to promote, if not the actual source of, the CrowdStrike CT. Putin forced Trump to embrace it publicly in Helsinki.
Sure, CrowdStrike might benefit Trump by removing some of the tarnish of his Great Electoral Victory. But that’s not what this is about. Trump has been forced to publicly accept the conclusions of the IC and both chambers of Congress, that Russia interfered in our election in a “sweeping and systemic fashion.” And even when Trump tried to deny that truth—in Helsinki, remember “I don’t why it WOULD be Russia [that interfered]”--the Official White House walked it back, insisting that Trump had actually said “I don’t know why it WOULDN’T be Russia.”
Embracing CrowdStrike—and now putting the entire GOP in the excruciatingly embarrassing position of also giving the CT credence—is a net negative for Trump. He was forced to sit through multiple sessions with advisers bombarding him with evidence that CrowdStrike is bullshit, and you know that has to have annoyed him mightily. He is not stupid, he knows CrowdStrike makes him look stupid. He knows that is it not winning him any warm feeling from his party, that they now have to endorse it as well.
Nope. This one is all for Russia. In fact, and I really think this is true, my theory is that Putin forced CrowdStrike on Trump to humiliate him. For Putin’s amusement. Remember what a whipped puppy Trump looked, when he walked out to the podium in Helsinki with Putin holding the leash? And if you don’t believe me, look up the Twitter output of Russia expert Julia Davis, @JuliaDavidNews, who regularly posts and translates Russian TV for us. They mock him openly.
So, “foreign interference” in our election, in our affairs, like the Founders feared? That’s not Ukraine interfering, it is not Trump “soliciting” interference from Ukraine. Ukraine is a weak nation, we are powerful. That isn’t what kept the Founders awake at night.
We are indeed fending off foreign interference in our election, and other affairs, from a powerful adversary. Russia is powerful now because they have figured out how to weaponize social media, but especially because they own Trump, lock, stock and barrel, probably through a combination of kompromat and bribes.
Let’s not get that crucial part of the message wrong. There used to be, and hopefully still is some left, bipartisan concern about the Russian threat. Let’s not miss this opportunity to remind voters which party is fighting that threat, and which aiding and abetting.