Conspiracy theories related to the Trump–Ukraine scandal
Since 2016, U.S. president Donald Trump and his allies have promoted several conspiracy theories related to the Trump–Ukraine scandal. One such theory seeks to blame Ukraine, instead of Russia, for interference in the 2016 United States presidential election. Also among the conspiracy theories are baseless accusations against Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden, and several elements of the right-wing Russia investigation origins counter-narrative. American intelligence believes that Russia engaged in a yearslong campaign to frame Ukraine for the 2016 election interference, and that the Kremlin is the prime mover behind promotion of the fictitious alternative narratives, and that these are harmful to the United States. FBI director Christopher A. Wray stated to ABC News that "We have no information that indicates that Ukraine interfered with the 2016 presidential election" and that "as far as Foreign interference in the 2020 United States elections|the election itself goes, we think Russia represents the most significant threat."
Background
According to FBI witness interview notes released in October 2019, upon hearing news of a hack of a Democratic National Committee server in June 2016, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort speculated Ukraine rather than Russia was culpable, a narrative that was also promoted by Konstantin Kilimnik, thought to be a Russian intelligence asset for whom Manafort was working along with Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman.The New Yorker found that reporting of the conspiracy in the right-wing media was initiated by Peter Schweizer, a former Breitbart News contributor and president of The Government Accountability Institute, "a self-styled corruption watchdog group chaired and funded by conservative mega-donor Rebekah Mercer" and founded by Steve Bannon.
Adoption by Trump
President Trump had long felt that the conclusion of the United States Intelligence Community and the Mueller Report – that the Russian government had interfered in the 2016 election to benefit him – might undermine the legitimacy of his election as president. He and his alliesmost notably his personal attorney Rudy Giulianipromoted the alternative narrative that the Ukrainian government had interfered to benefit Hillary Clinton, in coordination with Democrats, the digital forensics company CrowdStrike and the FBI, alleging the Russian government had been framed. The New York Times reported in November 2019 that American intelligence determined Russia conducted a yearslong campaign to frame Ukraine for the 2016 election interference. Contrary to Trump's allegations, it is the consensus judgment of the American intelligence community and the Senate Intelligence Committee that it was Russia, not Ukraine, that interfered in the 2016 elections.Trump also falsely asserted that CrowdStrike, a publicly owned American company, was owned by an unnamed wealthy Ukrainian oligarch. The conspiracy theory claimed that the company — which had investigated a hack of a Democratic National Committee server — had planted evidence on the server to implicate Russia, and that the FBI had failed to take possession of the server to verify that claim. Although the FBI did not take possession of the server, CrowdStrike had provided the FBI with an exact disk image and traffic logs of the server to conduct its own analysis, which led the Mueller Report to concur with the intelligence community that the server had been hacked by Russian intelligence. Two weeks prior to taking office, Trump was briefed by top American intelligence officials that American, British and Dutch intelligence had attributed the DNC hack to Russia by hacking into Russian intelligence networks and observing stolen DNC emails there. Trump was also told at that meeting that a Russian mole the CIA had cultivated for decades and who had reached the highest levels of the Kremlin told the CIA that Putin personally ordered and orchestrated the Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Trump also asserted without evidence that Ukraine was in possession of the DNC server, as well as Hillary Clinton's deleted emails. Trump and Giuliani asserted Ukraine's involvement also included the Trump–Russia dossier, which was echoed by congressman Devin Nunes, a staunch Trump defender, during an impeachment inquiry hearing in September 2019. One former senior White House official said Trump explicitly stated Ukraine was culpable because "Putin told me."
The conspiracy theory later evolved to include baseless allegations of corruption by Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden in their activities in Ukraine. In November 2019, Trump ally senator Rand Paul extended the conspiracy theory by asserting without evidence that the anonymous whistleblower who had triggered the Trump-Ukraine scandal "is a material witness to the possible corruption of Hunter Biden and Joe Biden," adding, " might have traveled with Joe Biden to Ukraine for all we know." Bloomberg News reported in January 2020 that American intelligence and law enforcement were examining whether Russia was involved in promoting disinformation to undermine Biden as part of a campaign to disrupt the 2020 election.
This led Trump to pressure Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to open an investigation into the matters, which triggered the Trump–Ukraine scandal, which in turn led to the opening of an impeachment inquiry into Trump. During an October 16, 2019, press meeting in the Oval Office, Trump asked about the DNC server eight times in rapid succession, which "they say, is held by a company whose primary ownership, individual, is from Ukraine." His staff had repeatedly attempted to persuade Trump that the conspiracy theory had no merit, including his former homeland security advisor Tom Bossert, who later remarked, "the DNC server and that conspiracy theory has got to go...If he continues to focus on that white whale, it's going to bring him down."
During November 2019 hearings for the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump, Fiona Hill — until August 2019 the top Russia expert on the National Security Council — criticized Republicans for promulgating a "fictional narrative":
As Trump and other Republicans used the hearings to promote the Ukraine interference conspiracy theory, Russian president Vladimir Putin remarked, "We see what is going on there in the U.S. now. Thank God nobody is accusing us anymore of interfering in the U.S. elections. Now they're accusing Ukraine." During the weeks leading to Hill's testimony, American intelligence officials had briefed senators and their staffs about a yearslong campaign by Russia to frame Ukraine for the 2016 election interference.
Biden-Ukraine conspiracy theory
Trump and his allies have also promoted a conspiracy theory that Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, were engaged in corrupt activities in Ukraine. Trump's defense team promoted this conspiracy theory during his impeachment trial, and Trump has said he planned to make it a major issue during the 2020 campaign, while a Republican-controlled Senate committee ramped up an investigation in spring 2020. Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, spearheaded an effort to gather information in Ukraine to advance the conspiracy theory, and attorney general Barr confirmed that the Justice Department created an "intake process" to review Giuliani's findings. The conspiracy theory asserts that Hunter Biden was paid a large sum of money by a Ukrainian firm, Burisma Holdings, to take a job for which he was unqualified, as a means for Burisma to influence then-vice president Joe Biden, who then extorted Ukraine for $1 billion to fire a prosecutor so as to prevent Hunter Biden from being investigated for corruption. This narrative has been found to be false. Hunter Biden did take a high-paying job with Burisma, but involving matters for which he was qualified, and there is no evidence he was peddling influence with his father. Vice president Biden did withhold $1 billion in government aid to Ukraine, but for the opposite reason the conspiracy theory asserts: as a matter of American and international policy to induce Ukraine to remove a corrupt and ineffective prosecutor who was not assertively investigating Burisma. Trump defended the fired prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, “who a lot of people said was a great prosecutor and they took him off.” In a widely-circulated 2018 video, a portion of which was included in a Trump campaign ad, Joe Biden is seen taking credit for Shokin's firing, but not for the reason the conspiracy theory and Trump ad contend.In September 2019, Shokin signed an affidavit asserting his beliefs — rather than assertions of facts — that Joe Biden engineered his removal from office to prevent an investigation into Burisma and Hunter Biden. Giuliani promoted the affidavit in television appearances, asserting that Shokin "says under oath" that he was investigating Hunter Biden when he was fired. The affidavit notes that it was provided "at the request of lawyers acting for Dmitry Firtash...for use in legal proceedings in Austria." Firtash, a Ukrainian oligarch, had for five years been living in Austria, figthing extradition to the United States where he was under indictment for a bribery scheme. Since July 2019, Fitrash's lawyers included Joseph diGenova and his wife Victoria Toensing, close Trump and Giuliani associates who are regular guests on Sean Hannity's Fox News program. The New York Times reported that Giuliani had directed Lev Parnas to recommend to Firtash that he hire diGenova and Toensing, with the proposition that Firtash could help to provide compromising information on Biden, which Parnas's attorney described was "part of any potential resolution to extradition matter". The Washington Post reported that in mid-August 2019, Toensing and diGenova secured a rare face-to-face meeting with attorney general Bill Barr to argue the Firtash charges should be dropped. Prior to that meeting, Barr had been briefed in detail on the initial whistleblower complaint within the CIA that had been forwarded to the Justice Department, as well as on Giuliani's activities in Ukraine. Barr declined to intervene in the Firtash case. Bloomberg News reported that its sources told them that Giuliani's high-profile publicity of the Shokin affidavit had greatly reduced the chances of the Justice Department dropping the charges against Firtash, as it would appear to be a political quid pro quo. diGenova has said he has known Barr for decades, as they both worked in the Reagan/Bush Justice Department.
Firtash made his fortune brokering Ukrainian imports of natural gas from the Russian firm Gazprom. As vice president, Joe Biden had urged the Ukrainian government to eliminate middlemen such as Firtash from the country's natural gas industry, and to reduce the country's reliance on imports of Russian natural gas. Firtash denied involvement in collecting or financing damaging information on the Bidens. In 2017, the Justice Department characterized him as an "upper echelon of Russian organized crime".
In May 2020, Ukrainian lawmaker Andrii Derkach, an associate of Rudy Giuliani with links to Russian intelligence, released snippets of recordings of Joe Biden speaking with Petro Poroshenko, the Ukrainian president during the years Hunter Biden worked for Burisma. The recordings, which were not verified as authentic and appeared heavily edited, showed Biden linking loan guarantees for Ukraine to the ouster of the country’s prosecutor general. The recordings did not provide evidence to support the ongoing conspiracy theory that Biden wanted the prosecutor fired to protect his son. Poroshenko denied In June 2020 that Joe Biden ever approached him about Burisma and characterized the recordings as fake. One America News, a favorite news outlet of Trump's that features conspiracy theories, heavily promoted the recordings.
In some cases, Giuliani and his associates worked with individuals linked to Russian organized crime and intelligence, including Firtash and Derkach. In late 2019, multiple sources reported that the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, which Giuliani had once led, was investigating him for multiple felonies relating to his activities in Ukraine. The chairman of the Senate committee investigating the matter, Ron Johnson, was warned by American intelligence officials of a risk he could be playing into the hands of Russian intelligence to spread disinformation.
Propagators among Republican members of Congress
Republican representatives and senators who have promoted the idea that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election despite conclusions that there is no evidence of this from the Senate Intelligence Committee and U.S. intelligence agencies include the following:Representatives
- Devin Nunes
- Jim Jordan
- Matt Gaetz
- Louie Gohmert
Senators
- Chuck Grassley
- John Kennedy
- Richard Burr
- Lindsey Graham
- Ted Cruz
- Ron Johnson
- John Barrasso
Statements by Cabinet-level officials
Appearing to support conspiracy theories
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
On November 26, 2019, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appeared to grant legitimacy to the notion that Ukraine, rather than or in addition to Russia, was behind interference in the 2016 United States elections. He had been asked by a reporter "Do you believe that the U.S. and Ukraine should investigate the theory that it was Ukraine and not Russia that hacked the DNC emails in 2016?" Pompeo responded "Any time there is information that indicates any country has messed with American elections, we not only have a right but a duty to make sure we chase that down," adding, "to protect our elections, America should leave no stone unturned." This is despite Pompeo's former role personally briefing President Trump as CIA director that Russia was behind the interference, as well as his May 2017 testimony to the Senate.Attorney General William Barr
On December 10, 2019, the day following the publication of a Justice Department inspector general report on the origins of the Mueller investigation, NBC News interviewed Attorney General William Barr. Barr claimed in an interview with NBC news that the Russia investigation was "completely baseless" and said he believed the FBI's investigation was conducted in "bad faith". Unlike 's remarks the day prior, Barr refused to refute the conspiracy theory of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election.Denying conspiracy theories
FBI Director Christopher A. Wray
On December 9, 2019, following the release of the DoJ inspector general's report into the origins of the FBI-Mueller Russia investigation, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray was interviewed by ABC News. In the interview, Wray pushed back on the conspiracy theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 presidential election, stating "We have no information that indicates that Ukraine interfered with the 2016 presidential election" and "as far as Foreign interference in the 2020 United States elections|the election itself goes, we think Russia represents the most significant threat." Wray added, "there's all kinds of people saying all kinds of things out there. I think it's important for the American people to be thoughtful consumers of information and to think about the sources of it and to think about the support and predication for what they hear."Distraction using Russian interference investigation
President Trump directed attorney general Bill Barr to "investigate the investigators" who opened the FBI investigation into Russian interference, supposedly for partisan political motives to harm Trump; allied intelligence services are alleged to have been part of the scheme. That FBI investigation led to the Mueller investigation, resulting in convictions of some 2016 Trump campaign associates. In September 2019 it was reported that Barr has been contacting foreign governments to ask for help in this inquiry. He personally traveled to the United Kingdom and Italy to seek information, and at Barr's request Trump phoned the prime minister of Australia to request his cooperation. One British official with knowledge of Barr's requests observed, "it is like nothing we have come across before, they are basically asking, in quite robust terms, for help in doing a hatchet job on their own intelligence services."Barr sought information related to a conspiracy theory that had circulated among Trump allies in conservative media claiming that Joseph Mifsud was a Western intelligence operative who was supposedly directed to entrap Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos in order to establish a false predicate for the FBI to open its investigation. That investigation was initiated after the Australian government notified American authorities in July 2016 that its diplomat Alexander Downer had had a chance encounter with Papadopoulos in May 2016 – two months before the DNC website hacking became known – and that Papadopoulos told him that the Russian government had "dirt" on Clinton in the form of emails.
On October 2, 2019, Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Trump supporter and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote a letter to the leaders of Britain, Australia and Italy, asserting as fact that both Mifsud and Downer had been directed to contact Papadopoulos. Joe Hockey, the Australian ambassador to the United States, sharply rejected Graham's characterization of Downer. A former Italian government official told The Washington Post in October 2019 that during a meeting the previous month, Italian intelligence services told Barr they had "no connections, no activities, no interference" in the matter; Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte later affirmed this. The Washington Post reported on November 22, 2019 that the Justice Department inspector general had aggressively investigated the allegation that Mifsud had been directed to entrap Papadopoulos, but found it was without merit. American law enforcement believes Mifsud is connected to Russian intelligence.
The New York Times reported in December 2019 that Barr's designated investigator John Durham was examining the role of former CIA director John Brennan in assessing Russian interference in 2016, requesting emails, call logs and other documents. Brennan had been a vocal critic of Trump and a target of the president's accusations of improper activities toward him. The Times reported Durham was specifically examining Brennan's views of the Steele dossier and what he said about it to the FBI and other intelligence agencies. Brennan and former director of national intelligence James Clapper had testified to Congress that the CIA and other intelligence agencies did not rely on the dossier in preparing the January 2017 intelligence community assessment of Russian interference, and allies of Brennan said he disagreed with the FBI view that the dossier should be given significant weight, as the CIA characterized it as "internet rumor." Politico reported in July 2019 that after becoming CIA director in 2017, Trump loyalist Mike Pompeo intensely challenged CIA analysts on their findings that Russian interference was designed to help Trump, but he found no evidence to dispute it. The Times reported in February 2020 that Durham was examining whether intelligence community officials, and specifically Brennan, had concealed or manipulated evidence of Russian interference to achieve a desired result. FBI and NSA officials told Durham that his pursuit of this line of inquiry was due to his misunderstanding of how the intelligence community functions.
CrowdStrike
The label "conspiracy theory" is routinely applied to a any conjecture or hypothesis that had fierce opponents wishing to discredit the idea.Major features of numerous conspiracy theories are false assertions that CrowdStrike is actually owned by a wealthy Ukrainian oligarch.
In fact, CrowdStrike is not owned by a wealthy Ukrainian oligarch, but is a publicly traded company headquartered in California, and the DNC server is actually 140 individual servers, decommissioned and located in the United States, rather than being in Ukraine, as Trump has claimed.
The conspiracy theory additionally falsely asserts that FBI agents were not allowed to examine the server because such action would expose the DNC plot, when in fact, system images and traffic logs of the DNC servers were provided to the FBI, making it unnecessary for them to actually possess the 140 physical servers.
This conspiracy theory, that originated from a "GRU persona, 'Guccifer 2.0'", was created "to cast doubt on Russia's culpability in the DNC ".