New York Times finally comes back to admitting Ukraine interfered in the 2016 US election
by Eddie Scarry
| December 31, 2019 12:26 PM
It took three months, but the New York Times is finally coming back around to acknowledge a story it covered at the time — that Ukraine’s government did indeed interfere in the 2016 election.
A lengthy report in the paper this week downplayed the election meddling by referring to it as “unfounded or overblown theories about Ukraine interfering in the 2016 election.” But that the New York Times is acknowledging it at all is progress.
The New York Times had previously only talked about the matter as if it were a partisan myth, a theory pushed only by Trump and conspiracy-minded Republicans. In a report last month, the paper said that the “charges” of Ukraine’s election interference — they’re only accusations without any basis, right? — actually originated in (where else?) Russia.
"American intelligence officials,” the article said, “informed senators and their aides in recent weeks that Russia had engaged in a yearslong campaign to essentially frame Ukraine as responsible for Moscow’s own hacking of the 2016 election."
And yet that claim hasn’t been backed up by any further details or reporting. Thomas Rid, a strategic studies professor at Johns Hopkins, pointed that out in a separate piece for the Atlantic, rightfully noting that neither the New York Times nor anyone else has “offered the concrete details, direct quotes, or names that would ordinarily back up such a grave claim.”
But guess who did offer the concrete details, direct quotes, and names that back up the assertion that the government of Ukraine thrust itself into 2016? That was none other than the New York Times itself.
Before the New York Times started lying about Ukraine's interference in 2016, it had been the paper that initially reported on it. Ukraine's government ran to the New York Times with interviews and materials (very dubious materials) that year, and the result was an article that eventually led to the resignation of Trump's campaign manager, Paul Manafort.
Manafort was certainly a crook, but how did he manage to be a crook for decades, taking money from pro-Russia oligarchs in Ukraine, without being caught? It wasn’t until he took a position on the campaign of a candidate who had been excessively friendly toward Russia that suddenly a strange diary showed up in the possession of a Ukrainian government agency, the diary conveniently exposing him as a major bank fraudster and tax evader. What a coincidence!
No matter what you think of Manafort, that whole thing embarrassed the Trump campaign. Ukraine was responsible for it.
The New York Times might now think that particular instance of election interference has been “overblown,” but it did happen, and at least the newspaper is accepting that fact. |
