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   From: gop@sgmail.com   
      
    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.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)