Seawytch
Information isnt Advocacy
- Aug 5, 2010
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Okay, I looked it up. Did you?
Trump and Russia, Clinton and Ukraine: How do they compare?
The differences
If the broad outlines are similar, some key elements distinguish these episodes from each other.
The Politico article highlighted a major one.
"Russia’s effort was personally directed by Russian President Vladimir Putin (and) involved the country’s military and foreign intelligence services," the article said. "There’s little evidence of such a top-down effort by Ukraine."
So, according to American intelligence agencies, the Kremlin shaped and directed the email hacking of Democrats and subsequent distribution. In contrast, a variety of actors on the Ukrainian side responded to American queries and provided public documents.
Which leads to the other big distinction: The Russians got their materials through cyber-attacks, while the only telling document revealed by a Ukrainian lawmaker was the product of an official investigation.
"There’s a difference between dealing with the embassy and dealing with a covert intelligence operation," Wittes said. "Are you dealing with government records, or are you dealing in stolen dirt?"
To be clear, we do not know if the hacked emails had any ties to contacts the Trump campaign did or didn’t have with Russians. But hacked emails are different from the results of a public investigation.
Taking that difference one step further, there was nothing inherently illegal in the quest for information on Manafort and how that might link Donald Trump to Russia. Wittes noted that from a research perspective, since Manafort’s work took place in Ukraine, "you pretty much have to go to the Ukrainians to get that."
Other details also separate the two narratives.
Ukraine is seen as an ally to the United States, while Russia is at best a competitor and often called an enemy.
Lastly, the stories from Trump associates have changed over time as more press reports emerge. In the case of Donald Trump Jr., he first said he never represented the campaign in any meetings with Russians. Then he said there was a meeting, but it was about adoption laws. Then he said it was about Clinton, but it represented ordinary opposition research.
