I thought I could help them with President Trump’s stated goal of improving relations with Russia, while still implementing policies designed to deter Russian conduct that threatens the United States, including the unprecedented and successful Russian
operation to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.
This relates to the second thing I want to communicate. Based on questions and statements I have heard, some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country—and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did. This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.
The unfortunate truth is that Russia was the foreign power that systematically attacked our democratic institutions in 2016. This is the public conclusion of our intelligence agencies, confirmed in bipartisan Congressional reports. Itis beyond dispute, even if some of the underlying details must remain classified.
The impact of the successful 2016 Russian campaign remains evident today. Our nation is being torn apart. Truth is questioned. Our highly professional and expert career foreign service is being undermined. U.S. support for Ukraine—which continues to face armed
Russian aggression—has been politicized.
The Russian government’s goal is to weaken our country—to diminish America’s global role and to neutralize a perceived U.S. threat to Russian interests. President Putin and the Russian security services aim to counter U.S. foreign policy objectives in Europe,
including in Ukraine, where Moscow wishes to reassert political and economic dominance.
I say this not as an alarmist, but as a realist. I do not think long-term conflict with Russia is either desirable or inevitable. I continue to believe that we need to seek ways of stabilizing our relationship with Moscow even as we counter their efforts to harm us. Right now, Russia’s security services and their proxies have geared up to repeat their interference in the 2020 election. We are
running out of time to stop them. In the course of this investigation, I would ask that you please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests.
As Republicans and Democrats have agreed for decades, Ukraine is a valued partner of the United States, and it plays an important role in our national security. And as I told this Committee last month, I refuse to be part of an effort to legitimize an alternate narrative that the Ukrainian government is a U.S. adversary, and that Ukraine—not Russia—attacked us in 2016. These fictions are harmful even if they are deployed for purely domestic political purposes. President Putin and the Russian security services operate like a Super PAC. They deploy millions of dollars to weaponize our own political opposition research and false narratives. When we are consumed by partisan rancor, we cannot combat these external forces as they seek to divide us against each another, degrade our institutions and destroy the faith of the American people in our democracy.
Nancy Pelosi just stated that “it is dangerous to let the voters decide Trump’s fate.” @FoxNews In other words, she thinks I’m going to win and doesn’t want to take a chance on letting the voters decide. Like Al Green, she wants to change our voting system. Wow, she’s CRAZY!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 19, 2019
The weak response to these hearings has been, “Let the election decide.” That dangerous position only adds to the urgency of our action, because the President is jeopardizing the integrity of the 2020 elections.Even after the Mueller report was released, Pelosi didn't want impeachment. She and many others in the Democratic Party believed it would be a mistake to take the president on for his 2016 actions and the subsequent cover-up when another election was imminent. But when evidence emerged that Trump was actively trying to sabotage the 2020 election by letting Russia off the hook for 2016 — and was trying to bribe or extort foreign leaders into smearing Democrats — she really had no choice.
HILL: "Putin & Russian security services act like a Super PAC. They deploy millions of dollars to weaponize political opposition research & false narratives. When we're consumed by partisan rancor, we can't combat these external forces as they try to divide us against each other" pic.twitter.com/SQ24T3DUSJ
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 21, 2019
Schiff highlights the hypocrisy of Trump saying he sincerely wants to root out corruption in Ukraine when in reality he tried to force the govt there to act corruptly by investigating baseless allegations against his political rival pic.twitter.com/YeHn1v1ANh
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 21, 2019