Hard Facts:  Ukraine Campaigned Against Trump in 2016

Ukraine meddled in the 2016 presidential election.  The Ukrainian government campaigned against Donald Trump in 2016.  These are facts.  Cold, hard math.  When the swamp screams that something has been "debunked" or is "without evidence" you need to sit up, put down the coffee, and carefully investigate.

On August 4, 2016, Ukraine's Ambassador to the United States, His Excellency Valeriy Chaly, published an opinion /editorial column in The Hill.  This is Ukraine's Ambassador, representing the Ukrainian government.  He was a member of the Ukrainian government, whose job, authority, and position it was to speak to the United States on behalf of Ukraine. 

This was no accident, but the official position of Ukraine's then President Poroshenko, that the voters of the United States should vote against Donald Trump.  Valeriy Chaly was foreign policy advisor during Petro Poroshenko’s 2014 presidential campaign.  In June 2014, Chaly was appointed deputy head of the administration of newly-elected Poroshenko.  Chaly became ambassador of Ukraine to the United States on Aug. 3, 2015.  From November 2009 to April 2010, he was deputy minister for foreign affairs of Ukraine.  (He resigned to protest President Viktor Yanukovych.)

With that background, Chaly knew what he was doing.  Abusing his position on Embassy Row,  Chaly campaigned against Donald Trump, who was officially nominated by the Republican Party on July 19, 2016.

On August 4, 2016, Chaly’s op-ed attempts to couch his campaign advertisement for Hillary Clinton as "concern" (in my words) about whether the United States would remain on Ukraine's side if Trump were elected.  Wha?  

President Barack Obama and then Secretary of State John Kerry sat by and did nothing but send blankets, tents, and MRE's (speaking loosely and figuratively) while Russia annexed Crimea (a large peninsula jutting into the Black Sea, so geographically separate) and then openly invaded Eastern Ukraine.  I'm not sure if Obama made popcorn, but Obama just watched, after flirting with Russia's then President Medevev about abandoning the U.S.A. 's missile defense systems on a hot microphone.  

Obama's open mic slip on missile defense system

So why would Ukraine single out Trump if this experienced diplomat were only focused on U.S. policy about Ukraine's independence?   Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not stand up to Russia, including when Russia acquired ownership of 20% of the U.S.A.'s proven uranium deposits through Uranium One in exchange for $145 million in bribes to the Clinton family funneled as a quid pro quo through the Clinton Foundation.  

But Chaly did not appeal on general principles of U.S. supporting Ukraine.  Ukraine campaigned against Trump.

In January, 2017, these events sparked reporting such as:  Kenneth Vogel and David Stern, "Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire:  Kiev officials are scrambling to make amends with the president-elect after quietly working to boost Clinton," The Politico, January 11, 2017.   The most important part is that the Ukrainian government openly admitted that Ukraine had caused a rift with the incoming Trump Administration:

Ukraine, on the other hand, has traditionally enjoyed strong relations with U.S. administrations. Its officials worry that could change under Trump, whose team has privately expressed sentiments ranging from ambivalence to deep skepticism about Poroshenko’s regime, while sounding unusually friendly notes about Putin’s regime.

Poroshenko is scrambling to alter that dynamic, recently signing a $50,000-a-month contract with a well-connected GOP-linked Washington lobbying firm to set up meetings with U.S. government officials “to strengthen U.S.-Ukrainian relations.”

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Thus, Ukraine's government was openly telling reporters, presumably not just at The Politico, that Ukraine had poisoned the well with the incoming Trump Administration.  (Furthermore, what do we think happened with that $50,000 a month D.C. Swamp lobbying firm contract?)  

The Politico also reported:  

The Ukrainian antipathy for Trump’s team — and alignment with Clinton’s — can be traced back to late 2013. That’s when the country’s president, Viktor Yanukovych, whom Manafort had been advising, abruptly backed out of a European Union pact linked to anti-corruption reforms. Instead, Yanukovych entered into a multibillion-dollar bailout agreement with Russia, sparking protests across Ukraine and prompting Yanukovych to flee the country to Russia under Putin’s protection.  

* * *

Manafort’s work for Yanukovych caught the attention of a veteran Democratic operative named Alexandra Chalupa, who had worked in the White House Office of Public Liaison during the Clinton administration. Chalupa went on to work as a staffer, then as a consultant, for the Democratic National Committee. The DNC paid her $412,000 from 2004 to June 2016, according to Federal Election Commission records, though she also was paid by other clients during that time, including Democratic campaigns and the DNC’s arm for engaging expatriate Democrats around the world.

In an interview this month, Chalupa told Politico she had developed a network of sources in Kiev and Washington, including investigative journalists, government officials and private intelligence operatives. While her consulting work at the DNC this past election cycle centered on mobilizing ethnic communities — including Ukrainian-Americans — she said that, when Trump’s unlikely presidential campaign began surging in late 2015, she began focusing more on the research, and expanded it to include Trump’s ties to Russia, as well.

Ukraine's own political leaders claim that criminal activity in their country interfered in the 2016 U.S. election.   David Stern, "Ukrainian MP seeks probe of Ukraine-Clinton ties:  Parliament member demands to know whether his country's government targeted Trump in the 2016 campaign," The Politico, August 16, 2017.  

"A Ukrainian member of parliament has requested a criminal investigation into possible meddling by his country’s government into last year’s U.S. presidential elections, claiming the interference has “seriously damaged Ukrainian-American relations.”

"In a July 24 [2017] letter to Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Andrei Derkach, an independent MP who was formerly aligned with a pro-Russian party, requested that authorities launch a pretrial investigation into “illegal interference in the election of President of the United States organized by a criminal organization.” This organization, he said, consisted of senior members of the country’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau, government officials, and other public figures."

Therefore, any rational American would expect the incoming President of the United States to have some, well, questions.  It was entirely appropriate for President Trump to tell Ukraine (in my words) "...  We need to talk ....  !  There are a few issues between us we need to work out." 

President Trump had these and many other legitimate reasons to want to know more about whom he was dealing with.  Remember that since the break-up of the Soviet Union, the Ukraine has had many short-lived, successive governments.  There are abundant reasons for the U.S.A. to want to press 'pause' and find out exactly whom they are dealing with .... this month.

When a former comedian, Volodymyr Zelinksy won the Presidency in a landslide, Trump legitimately and appropriately needed to find out if new Ukrainian President Zelensky was the real deal or another question mark.

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