"The Ukrainian Job" - or - Russian Propaganda About 2016 Election Interference, Now Being Used By Trump Defenders

This storyline needs its own category, away from the investigation of Trump's actions here-and-now.

To start

Mr. Trump and his allies have been fixated on Ukraine since the 2016 American election, convinced that the country holds the key to unlock what they view as a conspiracy to undermine Mr. Trump. Mr. Giuliani in particular has viewed Ukraine as a potentially rich source of information beneficial to Mr. Trump and harmful to his opponents, including Mr. Biden.

But a detailed look at Mr. Lutsenko’s record shows how Mr. Trump and his allies embraced and relied on a Ukrainian prosecutor with no formal legal training and a long history of wielding the law as a weapon in his personal political battles, disregarding the concerns of senior diplomats who said he wasn’t credible.

This Lutsenko guy got involved with Rudy, and then -

After his meetings with Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Lutsenko provided grist for a series of articles in The Hill, a Washington news portal. His remarks were pitch-perfect in their appeal to Mr. Trump and his supporters.

Mr. Trump tweeted the headline of one of the articles: “As Russia Collusion Fades, Ukrainian Plot to Help Clinton Emerges.”


paulsurovell
said:

There is no quote in the article of anyone articulating the theory that Ukraine hacked the DNC. The closest is this:

the president’s vague suggestion that Ukraine, not Russia, might be
responsible for the hacking, or that CrowdStrike somehow connived in it

Sorry, his "vague suggestion" doesn't even include the word "hacked".

Nor is there any statement -- vague or otherwise -- by Trump prior to his July conversation with Zelensky that says Ukraine hacked the DNC. That's a "fringe conspiracy" that has not and does not exist.

The article quoted George Eliason. The quote did not include the word “hacked,” but Eliason’s writings, which blame Ukraine intelligence for the DNC hack and date from at least July of last year, do.

The article also includes the passage below. Rather than quote 4chan, et al., it provides a roadmap that a reader who doubts the roots is free to follow on his own.

To go in search of the roots of Mr. Trump’s CrowdStrike-Ukraine conspiracy theory is to travel the internet’s most peculiar provinces and the darkest threads on Twitter and Facebook. On 4chan and pro-Trump spaces on Reddit, on websites like ZeroHedge.com and Washington’s Blog, you can find plenty of speculation about evil manipulation by CrowdStrike and secret maneuvers by Ukrainians — often inflamed by Mr. Trump’s own statements.

how could Ukrainians have hacked the DNC? Paul had me convinced it was an inside job and not a hack.

I wish the conspiracy theorists would get their stories straight.  As soon as I'm convinced of the rightness of one of their arguments, they switch to another.


I'm still wrapping my head around this.  So Ukraine wanted to boost Clinton and harm Trump in 2016, while at the same time harming Russia by framing them for the hack.  So in order to help Clinton, they hacked the DNC and leaked emails embarrassing to the Democrats.  Apparently the hope was to depress voter turnout by demoralizing progressive Democrats.  And they did this in support of Clinton. And to embarrass Russia.  With the hope that ultimately this frame job would be pinned on Trump.

So they tried to help elect Trump because they supported Clinton?  


ml1 said:

I'm still wrapping my head around this.  So Ukraine wanted to boost Clinton and harm Trump in 2016, while at the same time harming Russia by framing them for the hack.  So in order to help Clinton, they hacked the DNC and leaked emails embarrassing to the Democrats.  Apparently the hope was to depress voter turnout by demoralizing progressive Democrats.  And they did this in support of Clinton. And to embarrass Russia.  With the hope that ultimately this frame job would be pinned on Trump.

So they tried to help elect Trump because they supported Clinton?  

 Give him time.  I'm sure it'll become clear eventually.


Some more background:

A White House reconstruction of the July 25 call, which Mr. Pompeo listened to as the conversation unfolded, showed that Mr. Trump asked Mr. Zelensky to “do us a favor” and investigate whether people in Ukraine were involved in the stealing of emails from the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, is pushing an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that the Ukrainians framed the Russian government by making it look like a Ukrainian hack of the Democratic committee was the work of Moscow.

In fact, American intelligence officials and prosecutors have cited ample evidence that it was Russia that stole the emails to embarrass Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump’s Democratic challenger in 2016. 

[Kurt D. Volker, who recently resigned as the Trump administration’s special envoy to Ukraine] said the claim was fueled by Yuriy Lutsenko, who was Ukraine’s top prosecutor and had also investigated a Ukrainian energy company that had employed Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Mr. Lutsenko is said to have closed that investigation within 10 months, but pushed to reopen it this year, as he was communicating with Mr. Giuliani.

In his testimony to lawmakers, Mr. Volker said he told Mr. Giuliani that Mr. Lutsenko was “not credible.” Mr. Volker also described the conspiracy theories as self-serving, and designed to make Mr. Lutsenko appear valuable to the United States.

I wonder if one of the reasons why Giuliani is so obsessed with Biden is that it was Biden who coined the phrase "a verb, a noun and 9/11" about Giuliani during his Presidential campaign and basically destroyed it* in a single verbal meme.

*Which wasn't too hard, as Giuliani's campaign was terrible.


DaveSchmidt said:


paulsurovell
said:

There is no quote in the article of anyone articulating the theory that Ukraine hacked the DNC. The closest is this:

the president’s vague suggestion that Ukraine, not Russia, might be
responsible for the hacking, or that CrowdStrike somehow connived in it

Sorry, his "vague suggestion" doesn't even include the word "hacked".

Nor is there any statement -- vague or otherwise -- by Trump prior to his July conversation with Zelensky that says Ukraine hacked the DNC. That's a "fringe conspiracy" that has not and does not exist.

The article quoted George Eliason. The quote did not include the word “hacked,” but Eliason’s writings, which blame Ukraine intelligence for the DNC hack and date from at least July of last year, do.

The article also includes the passage below. Rather than quote 4chan, et al., it provides a roadmap that a reader who doubts the roots is free to follow on his own.

To go in search of the roots of Mr. Trump’s CrowdStrike-Ukraine conspiracy theory is to travel the internet’s most peculiar provinces and the darkest threads on Twitter and Facebook. On 4chan and pro-Trump spaces on Reddit, on websites like ZeroHedge.com and Washington’s Blog, you can find plenty of speculation about evil manipulation by CrowdStrike and secret maneuvers by Ukrainians — often inflamed by Mr. Trump’s own statements.

Eliason does not say that Ukraine, not Russia, "hacked the DNC".

He actually supports the VIPS position that the DNC emails that were published by Wikileaks were leaked, not hacked:

https://www.mintpressnews.com/beyond-the-dnc-leaks-hacks-and-treason/247674/
[ August 14, 2018 ]

The reasons supporting a leak are described by the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). This shows clearly why the leak to Wikileaks is much more plausible than a hack for the files taken in what is commonly called the DNC hack. This leak was one “hack” of many that was going on.
Imagine being this person inside the situations described above with the reality hitting you that things were very wrong. Even if they only saw parts of it, how much is too much? US government secrets were being accessed and we know this because the passwords were given out to the research teams the hackers were on.
It is very possible that giving the files to Wikileaks was the only safe way to be a whistleblower with a Democrat president supporting Team Hillary even as Team Hillary was cannibalizing itself. For detail on how the leak happened, refer to Adam Carter at DisobedientMedia.com and the VIPS themselves.

In this same article, Eliason does make a connection between Ukraine and Crowdstrike (which I don't claim to fully understand), but my impression is that he's saying that Crowdstrike used a hacking group made up primarily of Ukrainians using software developed by Russians (that Crowdstrike called "Fancy Bear"), to conduct opposition research for Alexandra Chalupa, the DNC consultant cited in the Politico article. And in the process, Crowdstrike gave "Fancy Bear" access to the DNC servers, leaving a footprint which Crowdstrike blamed on Russia.

I have no way of evaluating this theory and I doubt that it is what Trump was referring to in his conversation with Zelensky.

Edited to Add: This is consistent with the article you linked.


ml1 said:

I'm still wrapping my head around this.  So Ukraine wanted to boost Clinton and harm Trump in 2016, while at the same time harming Russia by framing them for the hack.  So in order to help Clinton, they hacked the DNC and leaked emails embarrassing to the Democrats.  Apparently the hope was to depress voter turnout by demoralizing progressive Democrats.  And they did this in support of Clinton. And to embarrass Russia.  With the hope that ultimately this frame job would be pinned on Trump.

So they tried to help elect Trump because they supported Clinton?  

 Right, it's all in the Politico article that I cited in the OP of the collusion thread.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine-sabotage-trump-backfire-233446

and in the 2016 FT article:


nohero said:

Some more background:

Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, is pushing an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that the Ukrainians framed the Russian government by making it look like a Ukrainian hack of the Democratic committee was the work of Moscow.

Do you have any direct quotes of Giuliani to resolve this contradiction?

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/09/29/rudy-giuliani-trump-biden-ukraine-009765

Giuliani started his attacks on the Obama White House and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. He denied ever courting the theory that Ukrainians hacked the Democratic National Committee

paulsurovell said:

ml1 said:

I'm still wrapping my head around this.  So Ukraine wanted to boost Clinton and harm Trump in 2016, while at the same time harming Russia by framing them for the hack.  So in order to help Clinton, they hacked the DNC and leaked emails embarrassing to the Democrats.  Apparently the hope was to depress voter turnout by demoralizing progressive Democrats.  And they did this in support of Clinton. And to embarrass Russia.  With the hope that ultimately this frame job would be pinned on Trump.

So they tried to help elect Trump because they supported Clinton?  

 Right, it's all in the Politico article that I cited in the OP of the collusion thread.

 And Paul doesn't see any problem, if that's the point of the article he's relying on.


paulsurovell said:

nohero said:

Some more background:

Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, is pushing an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that the Ukrainians framed the Russian government by making it look like a Ukrainian hack of the Democratic committee was the work of Moscow.

Do you have any direct quotes of Giuliani to resolve this contradiction?

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/09/29/rudy-giuliani-trump-biden-ukraine-009765

Giuliani started his attacks on the Obama White House and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. He denied ever courting the theory that Ukrainians hacked the Democratic National Committee

 I, for one, would never try to find a consistent thread of argument or logic in Rudy's rants.


paulsurovell said:

 Right, it's all in the Politico article that I cited in the OP of the collusion thread.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine-sabotage-trump-backfire-233446

and in the 2016 FT article:

 It doesn’t say what I wrote. 


nohero said:

paulsurovell said:

nohero said:

Some more background:

Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, is pushing an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that the Ukrainians framed the Russian government by making it look like a Ukrainian hack of the Democratic committee was the work of Moscow.

Do you have any direct quotes of Giuliani to resolve this contradiction?

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/09/29/rudy-giuliani-trump-biden-ukraine-009765

Giuliani started his attacks on the Obama White House and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. He denied ever courting the theory that Ukrainians hacked the Democratic National Committee

 I, for one, would never try to find a consistent thread of argument or logic in Rudy's rants.

 You posted a characterization of his position not a quote. He talks all the time. Find the quote or admit the characterization was false.


ml1 said:

paulsurovell said:

 Right, it's all in the Politico article that I cited in the OP of the collusion thread.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine-sabotage-trump-backfire-233446

and in the 2016 FT article:

 It doesn’t say what I wrote. 

I'll break it down for you this evening. It's there and it's not hard to find.


paulsurovell said:

I'll break it down for you this evening. It's there and it's not hard to find.

I can only conclude that either a) you didn't understand what I wrote or b) you are planning to mischaracterize what I wrote so that you can claim it matches what's in the article.


ml1 said:

paulsurovell said:

I'll break it down for you this evening. It's there and it's not hard to find.

I can only conclude that either a) you didn't understand what I wrote or b) you are planning to mischaracterize what I wrote so that you can claim it matches what's in the article.

 Thanks for the heads-up.


paulsurovell said:

 Thanks for the heads-up.

 sorry, but I read the article, and there's no way that it says anything like what I wrote above.  So how do you plan to claim that it does?


ml1 said:

paulsurovell said:

 Thanks for the heads-up.

 sorry, but I read the article, and there's no way that it says anything like what I wrote above.  So how do you plan to claim that it does?

Give him time. He's only been working on it (checks notes) since yesterday morning.


nohero said:

Give him time. He's only been working on it (checks notes) since yesterday morning.

my comment was purposely absurd, so I suppose it isn't easy to figure out how to pretend it's a serious summary of an article.


ml1 said:

nohero said:

Give him time. He's only been working on it (checks notes) since yesterday morning.

my comment was purposely absurd, so I suppose it isn't easy to figure out how to pretend it's a serious summary of an article.

 You reached your "conclusion" before I answered. That's absurd.


nohero said:

ml1 said:

paulsurovell said:

 Thanks for the heads-up.

 sorry, but I read the article, and there's no way that it says anything like what I wrote above.  So how do you plan to claim that it does?

Give him time. He's only been working on it (checks notes) since yesterday morning.

 It's been longer than that since you started looking for the Giuliani quote. And don't pretend you haven't been looking.


paulsurovell said:

nohero said:

ml1 said:

paulsurovell said:

 Thanks for the heads-up.

 sorry, but I read the article, and there's no way that it says anything like what I wrote above.  So how do you plan to claim that it does?

Give him time. He's only been working on it (checks notes) since yesterday morning.

 It's been longer than that since you started looking for the Giuliani quote. And don't pretend you haven't been looking.

 Again, Paul, you're the only one who hears those voices in your head.


paulsurovell said:

 You reached your "conclusion" before I answered. That's absurd.

not at all.  I read your source materials.  There is no way you could do what you promised to do without being in error.


nohero said:

paulsurovell said:

nohero said:

ml1 said:

paulsurovell said:

 Thanks for the heads-up.

 sorry, but I read the article, and there's no way that it says anything like what I wrote above.  So how do you plan to claim that it does?

Give him time. He's only been working on it (checks notes) since yesterday morning.

 It's been longer than that since you started looking for the Giuliani quote. And don't pretend you haven't been looking.

 Again, Paul, you're the only one who hears those voices in your head.

Actually, in your haste to prove that there was a conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, hacked the DNC, you accused Giuliani of doing so without a quote. Still looking for it or are you ready to admit your blunder?


ml1 said:

paulsurovell said:

 You reached your "conclusion" before I answered. That's absurd.

not at all.  I read your source materials.  There is no way you could do what you promised to do without being in error.

 That's another conclusion before I answered.


paulsurovell said:

 That's another conclusion before I answered.

 go for it then.


paulsurovell said:

Actually, in your haste to prove that there was a conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, hacked the DNC, you accused Giuliani of doing so without a quote. Still looking for it or are you ready to admit your blunder?

 I don't care to sort out who pushed which phony story about Ukraine and hacking.  It's not important, and pretty irrelevant to the actual facts.  That's the purpose of this thread, see the OP.

If you have a problem with the author of the article who attributed something to Giuliani, take it up with that person.

Don't write your letter the way you respond online here, though.  You don't want it to end up in the "crank" pile.


I'm considering a week time-out for paul for being tedious and wasting everyone's time.   Stop with the conspiracy claptrap now and desultry asides.


nohero said:

paulsurovell said:

Actually, in your haste to prove that there was a conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, hacked the DNC, you accused Giuliani of doing so without a quote. Still looking for it or are you ready to admit your blunder?

 I don't care to sort out who pushed which phony story about Ukraine and hacking.  It's not important, and pretty irrelevant to the actual facts.  That's the purpose of this thread, see the OP.

If you have a problem with the author of the article who attributed something to Giuliani, take it up with that person.

Don't write your letter the way you respond online here, though.  You don't want it to end up in the "crank" pile.

 There are two reasons for the phony Ukraine hacking story: (a) to distract attention from what Giuliani is really investigating -- Ukraine collusion with Hillary in 2016 and (b) to confuse people about the official investigation of the Russia investigation by ridiculing it as something absurd.  Both reasons part of media/intelligence community attempt to discredit and undermine an investigation that it fears will further expose its complicity with a three-year hoax.


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