Fiona Hill’s opening statement for her testimony today is a stunning rebuke to President’s Trump’s separation from reality and facts. Ms. Hill is the member of the National Security Council in charge of advising on matters related to Russia. Her opening statement goes right to the legitimacy of the President’s demand on Ukraine to investigate Crowdstrike. Observe Hill’s testimony.
“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. It is 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.
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.”
For the record, the President of the United States, and his allies, are the ones promoting the politically driven falsehoods that clearly advance Russian interests, of which Ms. Hill speaks. She continues.
“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.”
The “these fictions” she is referring to are the fictions of the President of the United States. Even worse, he based American foreign policy on these fictions as reflected in his call with the President Ukraine. The President is divorced from reality and implementing policy based on his conspiracy theory fantasies. This is a real and legitimate concern.
Our President is advancing policy based on harmful fictions, fed to him by Russia intelligence agencies (which he then accepts). In this Trump is serving the interests of Russia, in conflict with the interests of the United States. He does so because he believes it will enhance his own power, which is his real concern. A concern which does not include the welfare of this country.
