Some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country and that perhaps somehow for some reason Ukraine did. This is a fictional narrative that has been

perpetrated and propagated by the Russian Security Services themselves.

There's a story about impeachment that goes like this.

Democrats moved to impeach Donald Trump two months ago

because unlike the Russia scandal, the Ukraine scandal was simple.

Easy for the public to understand.

If you've heard that story before,

you may have also heard this one,

that actually, there are no distinct Russia and Ukraine scandals. There's just one scandal. Through two weeks of

impeachment hearings we learned a lot about the Ukraine back story. The

Hoopes President Trump and his subordinates jumped through before he hopped on the phone with his Ukrainian counterpart Vladimir Zelensky and said,

I would like you to do us a favor though.

But what the hearings left fairly murky is how and when Trump came to view the Allied government of Ukraine as a target for and partner in corruption.

It's not as though Trump had a normal relationship with Ukraine before he became nervous about the

2020 election and then picked Zelensky's name out of a hat.

To understand how we got here, we have to go back to the beginning long before Donald Trump became president.

You were reportedly the closest political advisor, American political advisor to Victor Ganicobich of Ukraine,

who was a close ally Vladimir Putin.

Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.

There's been some controversy about something in the Republican Party platform that essentially

changed the Republican Party's views when it comes to Ukraine.

How much influence did you have on changing that language, sir?

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