New York Magazine is reporting that Republicans are working with Russian operatives to reelect Donald Trump, citing a report by U.S. intelligence.
According to the report, “two weeks ago, William Evanina, director of the United States National Counterintelligence and Security Center, published a somewhat vague warning about various forms of foreign interference in the upcoming election. On Friday, he followed up with a more direct and incriminating one, specifically warning that Russia is working to help reelect Donald Trump. Even more important is what this warning unmistakably implies: that Trump and his Republican allies in Congress are actively cooperating with Russia’s campaign.”
Evanina warned that Russia’s efforts to help Trump include “spreading disinformation on social media” and criticizing Biden’s remarks. In addition, the statement notes, “pro-Russia Ukrainian parliamentarian Andriy Derkach is spreading claims about corruption — including through publicizing leaked phone calls — to undermine former Vice President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party.”
“Derkach has been working openly with Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. None of this is a secret,” the report notes.
Here are the two of them meeting in Kiev in December:
Rudy just met in #Ukraine with former pro-#Russia MP Andriy Derkach just days ahead of peace talks between #Ukraine’s President Zelensky and Putin🇷🇺.#Ukraine’s president learned of Rudy’s arrival FROM THE MEDIA. “Equally shocked by his arrival was the US embassy.”😳 pic.twitter.com/rbmEFJ7KGk
— Dr. Dena Grayson (@DrDenaGrayson) December 5, 2019
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans on the Homeland Security Committee are holding hearings in an attempt to undermine Biden. They have produced no evidence of wrongdoing to advance their agenda.
The Russians have given Republicans stolen tapes of secret conversations Biden held with Ukrainians during his tenure as vice-president, and pro-Trump media outlets have hyped up the material, but nothing they have is inconsistent with the narrative that mainstream news organizations found. Biden was working to clean up Ukraine.
According to The Washington Post, Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson received secret documents from Ukrainians. And former Giuliani associate Lev Parnas has confessed to putting Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee and perhaps Trump’s most energetic defender on all things Russia, in touch with one of the Ukrainians releasing documents in the United States.
There is hardly any secret to what they’re up to. Johnson says he plans to release his report on Biden in September. It hardly matters if the information Russia gives him actually substantiates his allegations, or even whether it is authentic. The obvious plan is to splash some headlines into news screens in the heat of the campaign that seem to connect Biden to some kind of wrongdoing.
“In reality, it is not a scandal about Biden at all. It’s a scandal about Republican cooperation with a Russian propaganda campaign,” the report concluded.
