Take down Mike Pompeo, too

Mike Pompeo is the secretary of state, and before that, he was the CIA director. That means he is privy to the best government information that exists — including extensive information collected by U.S. intelligence services — showing that Russia, not Ukraine, is the country that interfered in the 2016 election, on President Trump’s behalf.

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Pompeo was asked this question: “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?”

“Any time there is information that indicates that any country has messed with American elections, we not only have a right but a duty to make sure we chase that down,” Pompeo replied.

  WaPo

Crooked as Trump himself.

Pompeo suggested that his time as CIA director persuaded him that many countries and nonstate actors tried to interfere in our election.

Pompeo added that when “we have information that so much as suggests that there might have been interference, or an effort to interfere in our elections, we have an obligation” to combat “these malevolent actors trying to undermine our Western democratic values.”

“America should leave no stone unturned,” Pompeo also said.

That’s weaselly language, and it stops just short of endorsing the idea that Ukraine hacked our elections. But it absolutely does endorse the idea that this question continues to be worthy of investigation.

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[I]t allows Trump and his propagandists to argue that he was right to pressure Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to “investigate” this matter, on the grounds that he was the victim and merely wanted to get to the bottom of his victimization.

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Indeed, Pompeo has repeatedly conceded — see here and here — that Russia did interfere in our elections in 2016. So Pompeo is now feeling his way toward a new and emerging position among Republicans: Yes, Russia was the primary country that interfered in our elections, but maybe, just maybe, Ukraine might have as well.

None of which would in any way absolve Trump of the crime of extorting Ukraine's president to provide a baseless smear of criminality of Trump's political opponent.

But now this is coming from the secretary of state — and the former CIA director. To reiterate, he knows what the intelligence shows on this topic. And there is zero indication that it does show any validity to the notion that Ukraine might have interfered in our elections.

Indeed, if they had any evidence of that, we would have seen it. They would be broadcasting it from the rooftops.

[I]ntelligence officials just briefed Republican senators on this point, telling them that not only is the 2016 Ukraine conspiracy theory nonsense, but that it’s also been a mainstay of Russian self-absolving propaganda and disinformation for years.

Pompeo knows this — yet he’s subtly validating the theory anyway.

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All of this is another reminder that this whole scandal goes far beyond Trump and even his lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, the ringleader of the whole Ukraine extortion scheme. It involves multiple Cabinet officials and top advisers, and large swaths of the government.

And they all have to go. To jail, preferably. Listen to Neal Katyal, former Acting Solicitor General, discuss the impeachment issue.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.