The Trump Administration is Grasping at Straws

 

By Askold Krushelnycky

The following commentary is in response to a CBS News report entitled Did Ukraine Try to Interfere in the 2016 Election on Clinton's Behalf? 

I must say that the country's not ablaze with the news that it's been mentioned by some of those defending President Donald Trump from allegations of collusion with Russia.  

The White House trying to portray equivalency between Russia's intensive cyber & propaganda interference in the US elections and Ukraine's publicizing Paul Manafort's Moscow connections is proof the Trump administration is clutching at straws as its discreditable interactions with Moscow continue.

All US intelligence agencies were unanimous in saying Russia, and its dictatorial leader, Vladimir Putin, who for years has been increasingly hostile to America and didn't conceal his hatred for Clinton, used cyber warfare and other means to try to help Trump's campaign. 

Most Ukrainians (and many Americans of Ukrainian origin like Alexandra Chalupa) knew that Manafort had worked for former pro-Putin Ukrainian President Yanukovych for years before he was overthrown. Manfort's connections with Yanukovych and other Kremlin-connected clients had anyway long been known about before Chalupa highlighted them.

Trying to somehow portray Russian actions and what Chalupa did as equivalent or even in the same ball park is like saying an arsonist and the person who called out firefighters were both involved in trying to influence the fate of the building set on fire & thus equally culpable.  Correct, but only from an absurdly perverted perspective.

 

 

Askold Krushelnycky is a British citizen and freelance journalist whose parents were refugees from Ukraine. He is the author of “An Orange Revolution – A Personal Journey Through Ukrainian History”, which was published in 2006 by Random House/Harvill Secker. He is working on a second book that will focus on the turbulent events in Ukraine since the fall of 2013, when mass demonstrations turned into revolution and, ultimately, the present conflict between Russia and Ukraine.