Are they dopes, dupes, or worse? by @BloggersRUs

Are they dopes, dupes, or worse?

by Tom Sullivan

What to make of Friday evening's New York Times report that American intelligence officials provided a classified briefing to senators "in recent weeks" on Russia's "yearslong campaign to essentially frame Ukraine as responsible for Moscow’s own hacking of the 2016 election"?

The question is not so much that such a briefing occurred or that it reflected an accurate assessment of Russian propaganda vis-à-vis Ukraine. Former White House official Dr. Fiona Hill in her opening statement schooled House Intelligence Committee members this week not to traffic in the “fictional narrative” propagated by "the Russian security services themselves." Hill said, "I would ask that you please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests." The Russia expert gave the world an unclassified summary of the briefing senators received in secret.

The question the Times report raises is why Republicans in the Senate (if not in the House) refuse to push back against the Russian narrative Donald Trump repeats and repeats and repeats:

The revelations demonstrate Russia’s persistence in trying to sow discord among its adversaries — and show that the Kremlin apparently succeeded, as unfounded claims about Ukrainian interference seeped into Republican talking points.
As early as 2017, Russian operatives have "peddled a mixture of now-debunked conspiracy theories along with established facts to leave an impression that the government in Kyiv, not Moscow, was responsible for the hackings of Democrats and its other interference efforts in 2016." Prominent Russians, Ukrainians, oligarchs, reporters, and American political figures have transmitted this narrative likely unaware of its origins, the Times reports.

After Hill's testimony and the Times reporting, the origins of the false story should be clear to all. To U.S. senators who were briefed in greater detail. To House Intelligence Committee members who likely were also briefed. And to the president himself, whether or not he paid attention or accepted the assessment of the U.S. intelligence community he has publicly doubted. Trump prefers to take Russian President Vladimir Putin's word that Russia was not involved.

Moscow has long used its intelligence agencies and propaganda machine to muddy the waters of public debate, casting doubts over established facts. In her testimony, Dr. Hill noted Russia’s pattern of trying to blame other countries for its own actions, like the attempted poisoning last year of a former Russian intelligence officer or the downing of a passenger jet over Ukraine in 2014. Moscow’s goal is to cast doubt on established facts, said current and former officials.
Facts are at the heart of the House impeachment inquiry and the public hearings held over the last two weeks.

"Not a single Republican member of this committee said Russia did not meddle in the 2016 elections," Representative Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) said Thursday, pushing back against Hill. Yet, in his "prebuttal" to Hill's opening statement, ranking member Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) referred to the Mueller investigation into Russian interference as a "hoax."

Philip Bump writes in the Washington Post:
The attempt to shift blame to Ukraine has been a daily refrain for Nunes. Democrats “turned a blind eye to Ukrainians meddling in our elections,” he said, ignoring “an election meddling scheme with Ukrainian officials on behalf of the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign.”

It appears Nunes may have had a hand in shaping Trump’s view, too. Hill, during her deposition, said Kash Patel, a former Nunes staffer who joined the White House, apparently shared information with Trump about Ukraine — so much so that Trump seemed to think Patel was the NSC’s Ukraine director. Hill said “it alarmed everybody.”
Patel joined the National Security Council’s International Organizations and Alliances directorate in February after working with Nunes "to discredit FBI and DOJ officials investigating Russia’s election interference," Politico reported on Oct. 23.

Nunes and other Republicans continue to excuse Trump's abuse of power as an legitimate response to an illegitimate concern about a Russian fiction that Ukraine, not Russia, meddled in the 2016 election.

Even Rep. Will Hurd, retiring Republican of Texas, gives Trump cover for using the conspiracy theory about the Bidens in his attempt to extort political dirt for use in his 2020 reelection. Politico chief political correspondent Tim Alberta questioned why, tweeting, "The difficulty is that Republicans have so thoroughly subjugated themselves to Trump that even if/when an honest, respected statesman-type like Hurd makes a decision that shields the president, it’s nearly impossible to believe it was done for the right and defensible reasons."

Former congressman Mark Sanford of South Carolina has no political future and loathes Trump, Alberta argues, yet claims he sees insufficient evidence to support impeachment. For his part, Hurd said during the hearings this week, "An impeachable offense should be compelling, overwhelming, clear and unambiguous." Yet, Bill Clinton's dissembling over the meaning of "is" was impeachable enough for Republicans (including Sanford) in 1998.

By now, it is clear Trump has been duped into believing what Hill called a Russian "fictional narrative" on Ukraine. By now, members of Congress in both houses should know — or have been briefed — that it is just that: a fiction, a conspiracy theory. By now, after witness after witness has told the same story about how Trump, his personal attorney and his associates, leveraged presidential authority improperly for personal ends at odds with national security and in ways that advance Russian efforts to undermine U.S. interests. The unanswered question is why they persist.