Trump pushing the same Ukraine conspiracy theories as Russian state TV

[ffr]

One of the more overlooked aspects of President Donald Trump’s now-infamous phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was his insistence that the country’s new leader investigate a conspiracy theory that would exonerate Russia from interfering in the 2016 presidential election.

According to this conspiracy theory, Russia was framed for hacking the Democratic National Committee and the actual hacks took place in Ukraine.

“The server, they say Ukraine has it,” Trump told Zelensky, in reference to the DNC server. “There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you’re surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it.”

Russian media monitor Julia Davis writes in the Daily Beast that this is the exact same conspiracy theory that Russian TV hosts have been pushing on their programs for months.

For example, Davis notes that “Dmitry Kiselyov, the host of Russia’s most popular Sunday news program… urged Trump to keep digging in Ukraine for ‘the sweetest’ kompromat of all: ‘Proving that Ukraine — not Russia — interfered in the U.S. elections.'”

And that’s not all — Davis also found that “pro-government experts on the nightly television show The Evening with Vladimir Soloviev have been openly rooting for the supposed scandal in Ukraine to ‘kill Biden’ politically, and allow Trump ‘to disprove’ Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. elections, and destroy the heart of the Democratic Party in the process.” - Raw Story

Ruh-roh, that's the second connection she's made between the transcript, Trump and Russia.

[struggle4progress]

1. Just one of those coinky dink thingies!

[dalton99a]

2. It is a very beautiful and perfect coincidence

[ffr]

3. The second in just today's news cycle, apparently.

"On May 13th Russian state TV reported that no US officials would be attending the inauguration in Ukraine, on direct orders from Trump." That's Russian TV, spoken in Russian.

In the WB complaint:

I learned from U.S. officials that, on or around 14 May, the President instructed Vice President Pence to cancel his planned travel to Ukraine to attend President Zelensky’s inauguration on 20 May; Secretary of Energy Rick Perry led the delegation instead. According to these officials, it was also “made clear” to them that the President not want to meet with Mr. Zelenskyy until he saw how Zelenskyy “chose to act” in office.