Dr. Fiona Hill testified Thursday that members of the Ukrainian government were attempting to curry favor with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016 with the assumption that she was going to win the presidential election.
Hill made the admission while discussing a 2017 Politico article by reporter Ken Vogel that alleged Ukrainian officials attempted to sabotage President Donald Trump’s candidacy. The article has been used to prove that Ukraine, in addition to Russia, had some role in interfering with the US election.
Vogel reported, “Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.”
Hill seemed to acknowledge that Vogel’s reporting was accurate, but indicated that actions taken by “individuals” against the Trump campaign could not be compared to the vast Russian effort to damage Clinton. The testimony seemed to partially contradict her opening statement, during which she accused Republicans of creating a “fictional narrative” by suggesting Ukraine had meddled in the election. (RELATED: Fiona Hill Says Longtime Clinton Crony Showed Her Steele Dossier Before It Was Published)
“I do want to point out that the crux of the article here by Mr. Vogel is he said there was little evidence of a top-down effort by U.K. He makes the distinction between the Russian effort that was directed by Russian president Putin and involved the country’s military and foreign intelligence services. Now, I don’t think that those two things are exactly the same,” Hill testified.
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She also, however, indicated that Ukrainian officials “bet on the wrong horse” in 2016 and said inappropriate and disrespectful things about President Donald Trump.
“They bet on the wrong horse. They bet on Hillary Clinton winning the election. And so, you know, they were trying to curry favor with the Clinton campaign. It’s quite evident here,” Hill said, adding that Trump never let Ukraine’s behavior affect his attitude toward the country.
“I could list a whole host of ambassadors from allied countries who tweeted out, who had public comments about the president as well. And it did not affect security assistance, having meetings with them. If it would, there would have been a lot of people he wouldn’t have met with,” she explained.