FBI Director Christopher Wray gave an on-camera interview to ABC News, and when he was asked about Ukraine and the 2016 election, here’s how the network reported it in its online article: “Wray also pushed back on a widely debunked theory put forth by the president and his allies that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 election – and sounded the alarm on the Kremlin’s plans for the 2020 cycle.”
That is a gross mischaracterization of both the loaded question that was asked of Wray and of his answer. Here’s how that part of the interview actually went:
ABC’s Pierre Thomas: “Did the government of Ukraine directly interfere in the 2016 election on the scale that the Russians did?”
Already, we see that Thomas isn’t simply asking whether there was any election meddling by Ukraine’s government, but whether it was “on the scale” of Russia’s own interference, a completely separate and debatable matter.
Wray’s answer: “We have no information that indicates that Ukraine interfered with the 2016 presidential election.”
It’s not clear whether Wray is specifically addressing Thomas’s exact question about Ukraine having meddled “on the scale that the Russians did” or if he’s flat-out dismissing the fact that Ukraine’s government did target Trump’s 2016 campaign when it mysteriously came into possession of dubious evidence connecting Paul Manafort to a Russia-linked network of money launderers.
But in addition to that, there’s nothing to indicate that the FBI has ever bothered looking into Ukraine’s role in the 2016 election. Why would it? “Election interference” is not a crime, even if (as with Russia’s 2016 activities) it can involve other crimes. Wray said that the FBI has “no information” on it, but that doesn’t mean that it bothered to look. Has it?
It’s taken for granted in the bureau that Russia is our adversary, and Ukraine is our ally, so it’s entirely possible that Ukraine’s interference is considered benign and thus goes unchecked. For the sake of argument, say that the FBI’s evidence against Manafort came from Ukraine. It would be in Wray’s interest to shrug off election interference by a friendly country by being evasive. He has “no information” about it! After all, the bureau might have to work again with Ukraine in the future.
Wray and anyone else is free to deny Ukraine’s activity as “interference” by another country, but that isn’t the last word on the matter. To deny isn’t to debunk.
