“These fictions are harmful even if they are deployed for purely domestic political purposes.”
–Former national security aide Fiona Hill
A House Republican report on impeachment repeats Russian lines of propaganda that suggest Ukraine is to blame for interference in the 2016 election.
A copy of the report reviewed in advance by CBS News and The New York Times argues that there are “valid” reasons to believe that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election.
“The evidence shows that President Trump holds a deepseated, genuine, and reasonable skepticism of Ukraine due to its history of pervasive corruption,” the report says, according to CBS News. “There is also nothing wrong with asking serious questions about the presence of Vice President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, on the board of directors of Burisma, a corrupt Ukrainian company, or about Ukraine’s attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election.”
“Publicly available — and irrefutable — evidence shows how senior Ukrainian government officials sought to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election in opposition to President Trump’s candidacy, and that some in the Ukrainian embassy in Washington worked with a Democrat operative to achieve that goal,” the document continues. “While Democrats reflexively dismiss these truths as conspiracy theories, the facts are indisputable and bear heavily on the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry.”
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) was called out by an impeachment witness for repeating similar Russia-friendly arguments last month.
“These fictions are harmful even if they are deployed for purely domestic political purposes,” former national security aide Fiona Hill told a congressional committee.
The report also says that Republicans could not find evidence of corruption in President Donald Trump’s decision to withhold aid from Ukraine.
“President Trump then released security assistance to Ukraine and met with President Zelensky in September 2019 — all without Ukraine taking any action to investigate President Trump’s political rival,” the report claims.