George Kent, the deputy assistant secretary at the State Department who is testifying Wednesday in an impeachment hearing, is supposedly deeply involved with Ukraine. Yet he doesn’t know about Ukraine’s involvement in our 2016 presidential election.
He said during his testimony that “there is no factual basis” behind the assertion that Ukraine interfered in the campaign.
Doesn’t he read the New York Times? They’re the ones who broke the story that Ukraine did interfere.
An Aug. 14, 2016, article eventually led to the imprisonment of Paul Manafort, who at the time was leading Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign:
Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych’s pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to Ukraine’s newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Investigators assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials.
It’s no coincidence that Ukraine’s government suddenly took an interest in Trump’s campaign chairman, who had been saying a lot of favorable things about Russia. It’s no coincidence that Ukraine then ran to the Times with a curious notebook linking Manafort to money from Russia.
That was interference for the purpose of hurting Trump’s candidacy.
Why Ukraine would want to damage Trump is obvious. They preferred the candidate who was going to take a hard-line approach on Russia, which has been at war with Ukraine since 2014.
Yes, Russia was apparently responsible for posting a bunch of memes on Facebook and Twitter and for the hack of the Democratic National Committee’s emails. But it’s also true that Ukraine put Trump’s campaign chairman in prison.
George Kent’s knowledge about Ukraine apparently doesn’t go that far, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
