Okay, so I finally was able to get a hold of the yuge!!!! Ukraine-DNC story that was the basis...
....for Sean Hannity's whataboutism last night.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/07/11/exploring-sean-hannitys-defense-of-donald-trump-jr-clinton-and-ukraine-did-it-too/?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.fd42c3314967#comments
In short: A Ukrainian-American political consultant, who was contracted by the DNC for purposes of ethnic outreach, decided to do a little digging as to Paul Manafort's background in Ukrainian politics (remember that Manafort advised the former strongman Viktor Yanukovych prior to Yanukovych fleeing the country after having bloodily cracked down on mass protests against Yanukovych's pro-Russian policies and massive corruption.) The consultant, Alexandra Chalupa (yes, that's really her last name), contacted several Ukrainian government officials who voluntarily provided her with some notable information on Manafort. Armed with this information, Chalupa notified the DNC about her findings. So far, I've seen no indication that Chalupa told Ukrainian officials she was any sort of representative of either the DNC or the Hillary Clinton campaign.
That was it. The long and the short of it. An obscure figure (an American citizen, no less) doing some investigative work contacted the Ukrainian government about Paul Manafort, and then let the DNC know about what she found.
And somehow that is absolutely equivalent to a Russian oligarch--who was both a close political ally to Vladimir Putin as well as an acquaintance and business partner to Donald Trump, who actually acted as a messenger for Putin when Trump held his Miss Universe contest in Russia in 2013--sending a lawyer with Kremlin connections to meet with Trump's son, son-in-law and campaign manager after promising allegedly damaging information about Hillary Clinton, to which Trump's son exclaimed over email, "I love it!".
And mind you, as big as the news was yesterday (thanks in good part to Trump Jr.'s face-palming idiocy), that episode is just a small piece of the Trump-Russian puzzle. Because you also have Jared Kushner meeting with the Russian ambassador on multiple occasions (once asking to set up a secure line of communication before Trump had even took office), Jeff Sessions meeting with the Russian ambassador on multiple occasions, both of them failing to disclose said meetings, Michael Flynn being wined and dined by Putin, Michael Flynn lobbying in Turkey for projects that would expressly benefit Russia, Flynn speaking to the Russian ambassador about sanctions prior to Trump's inauguration, Rex Tillerson having been wined and dined and awarded medals by Putin for securing an Russian-Exxon deal, Trump shooting off his mouth to Russian ambassadors about firing Comey and disclosing intel to them at the White House in a meeting closed to US press but open to Russian press, the suspicious change in the GOP platform about Ukraine policy against Russian aggression, absolutely everything that we read in the Steele Dossier, and so much more in terms of people and things that I could go on and on.
But because someone who consulted the DNC spoke to some Ukrainian government officials about Paul Manafort....yeah that's the big story.
And let me say this as a Ukrainian-American myself. I'm very proud of my Ukrainian heritage and culture. It's a very rich culture that has survived for centuries despite adversity after adversity. But if we are to believe that the Ukrainian government of today is some massive tour de force capable of influencing and interfering with the activities of superpowers....that's one of the most laughable things I've ever heard. The sad fact of the matter is, the Ukrainian government of today is woefully underequipped to handle the matters in its own country let alone the US or anywhere else. Much of that weakness is in fact in good part due to constant meddling and interference from none other than Russia. We saw that with Yanukovych, we see that with the Russian supported fighting in the eastern part of the country, and we saw that in Crimea, where Russia was able to seize a vast amount of Ukrainian territory without the Ukrainian military being able to fire a single shot in its defense. Ukraine is simply not in a position right now to be a major player in world affairs.
And Ukraine sure as fuck never hacked any of our computers, either.
So to claim that it is Ukraine who interfered in the US election to the apparent "benefit" of Hillary Clinton--who sadly is not the President right as much as she ought to be--is absolute absurdity. It's lunacy. And frankly I think Russia might be pushing this argument to numbskulls like Sean Hannity (who will blindly believe a convicted fugitive fraudster named Kim Dotcom as he exploits the tragic murder of a DNC staffer against the victim's family's own wishes) as just one more added Fuck You to Ukraine.
This is pathetic. Truly pathetic.
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