Opinion: Republicans acknowledge Russian election interference. So why
are they so irrational about Ukraine?
For President Trump, intelligence findings that Russia interfered on his
behalf in the 2016 election seem to have made him determined to prove
Ukraine helped his opponent Hillary Clinton. There is no evidence of
Ukraine's involvement in the election.
For President Trump, intelligence findings that Russia interfered on his
behalf in the 2016 election seem to have made him determined to prove
Ukraine helped his opponent Hillary Clinton. There is no evidence of
Ukraine�s involvement in the election.
(Mandel Ngan / AFP/Getty Images)
By Jonah GoldbergColumnist
Dec. 10, 2019 3 AM PT

Contrary to a lot of heated rhetoric from Democrats, most Republicans
understand that Russia was responsible for the hacking of the Democratic
National Committee�s server in 2016 and other efforts to sow mischief in
the electoral process. They�ll even admit it when pressed.

The problem is they want everyone to believe that Ukraine did the same
thing. It didn�t.

For the record:

7:30 a.m. Dec. 11, 2019An earlier version of this story misspelled the
name of former chess champion Garry Kasparov. Also, the story said he was
born in Russia. He was actually born in Azerbaijan, then a part of the
Soviet Union.

To make the case, the Ukraine conspiracy theorists take a handful of
anecdotes about individual Ukrainians and insinuate or insist this thin
gruel amounts to something as sinister as the Russian effort. While the
effort is a propaganda gift for Russian President Vladimir Putin, they�re
pushing this piffle to show they�ve got the president�s back amid the
impeachment drama. They�re trying to legitimize Trump�s pressure campaign
on Ukraine, but it takes some huge leaps of faith.

The president subscribes to a fever swamp illusion that goes by the
shorthand �CrowdStike.� This potted conspiracy theory holds that the
Ukrainians were really the ones to hack the DNC, and the cybersecurity
firm CrowdStrike somehow colluded in hiding the server somewhere in
Ukraine. (It�s not there and there were actually scores of servers.)
Before Trump pressed Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelensky to investigate
Joe Biden, he first asked him to get to the bottom of CrowdStrike.
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Trump isn�t pushing this canard because it�s Russian propaganda, but
because it�s Trumpian propaganda. He detests the fact that everyone,
starting with the CIA and continuing through Robert S. Mueller III, has
confirmed Russia�s interference on his behalf because he thinks it robs
glory from his victory. It�s his �Achilles� heel� his former aide Hope
Hicks told the FBI in recently released interview notes.

The problem is that no one can take this CrowdStrike craziness seriously.
According to Trump�s own theory, Ukraine meddled on behalf of Hillary
Clinton. And, to that end, they dealt a devastating blow to her campaign
by hacking the DNC server and pinning it on Russia.

Those dots don�t connect. So what the president�s defenders are doing is
waving away the actual matter Trump asked about � CrowdStrike � and
stitching together enough random bits to claim Ukraine meddled just enough
to make the president�s �concerns� seem legitimate. It�s a bait and
switch.

Take the dramatic appearance by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on �Meet the
Press� on Sunday. �Of course Russia interfered in our election,� he said.
�Nobody looking at the evidence disputes that.�

The controversial part came when Cruz added: �Because Russia interfered,
the media pretends nobody else did. Ukraine blatantly interfered in our
election.�

No it didn�t.

Cruz�s best evidence of meddling is an op-ed he cites that was written by
the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States in the wake of convoluted
remarks by then-candidate Trump about Russia�s illegal annexation of
Crimea. Trump himself later tried to walk back the comments, but not
before the Ukrainian ambassador wrote that Ukraine was troubled by Trump�s
backsliding on the Crimea issue. To bipartisan and worldwide horror,
Russia illegally stole Crimea. The ambassador, writing at a time when
Ukrainians were being killed by Russia-backed forces, said: �Many in
Ukraine are unsure what to think, since Trump�s comments stand in sharp
contrast to the Republican Party platform.�

This is outrageous meddling? Who knew an op-ed in the Hill could be so
influential?

Trump�s comments stood in contrast to Sen. Cruz�s own position on the
annexation. Does Cruz think that an ambassador raising concerns that echo
Cruz�s amount to �blatantly� interfering in an election? Is it comparable
to Russia�s anonymous purchase of Facebook ads in 2016 designed to exploit
political divides and help Trump get elected?

Other examples of Ukrainian meddling thrown around by Trump defenders
mostly include random statements by individual Ukrainians or the effort by
independent Ukrainian actors to release damaging � and truthful �
information about former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort�s corrupt
dealings in Ukraine on behalf of pro-Russian politicians. They often
mention a Ukrainian court ruling saying the disclosure of that information
amounted to meddling in U.S. elections. Less mentioned is the fact that
the ruling was overturned. Whatever you make of all that, you could make
the case that withholding such information would have amounted to
�interference� too.

But the idea that any of this is remotely equivalent to Russia�s
clandestine, Putin-ordered interference is preposterous. It�s also
irrelevant because there�s no evidence Trump had any of this in mind when
he asked Zelensky about CrowdStrike.

Just after the 2016 election, the Soviet-born former chess champion Garry
Kasparov tweeted: �The point of modern propaganda isn�t only to misinform
or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate
truth.�

That may be the closest we can come to understanding the president�s
Ukraine strategy � and that of his defenders.