Fox News attacks Fiona Hill for debunking Trump’s Ukraine conspiracy theory
Written by Eric Kleefeld
Published
In her testimony Thursday as part of the House impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump, former national security official Fiona Hill debunked the “fictional narrative” of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.
Indeed, as The New York Times reports: “In a briefing that closely aligned with Dr. Hill’s testimony, American intelligence officials 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, according to three American officials.”
But anyone who watched Fox News’ prime-time coverage of the day’s events heard only a continued insistence on this narrative, which goes back to 2017 and a Politico article whose co-author says has been misinterpreted. While some staffers at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington and other Ukrainian individuals had been opposed to candidate Trump (who, keep in mind, had made pro-Russian comments regarding the ongoing war in Ukraine), that opposition did not compare to the official Russian government efforts to hack Democratic emails and otherwise assist Trump’s candidacy.
Early Thursday evening, The Five co-host Jesse Watters deemed Hill’s denial of the conspiracy theory evidence to disqualify her as an expert witness: “I mean, this is the reason Trump is dual-tracking diplomacy in Ukraine in the first place because of people like Fiona. Because Fiona doesn't even know there was Ukraine collusion.”
Things only went downhill from there. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) appeared on Special Report with Bret Baier and received no pushback from “news”-side anchor Bret Baier when he declared that Trump “was concerned about influencing the 2016 election and things Ukrainian politicians were doing to encourage Hillary Clinton to win, helping Hillary Clinton win, and against President Trump.”
Indeed, Baier himself had cited the 2017 Politico story on Ukraine earlier that day.
Over on Fox Business, Lou Dobbs declared: “The left-wing national media tonight running headlines that read like this, ‘Fiona Hill blasts GOP, quote, ‘alternative narrative’ on Ukraine.’ But the only alternative narrative today was from Hill herself.”
Laura Ingraham even hosted an entire panel, consisting of Judicial Watch head Tom Fitton and pro-Trump author Lee Smith, to discuss Hill’s appearance.
“Your intelligence and diplomatic ‘betters’ want you, the American people, to know that Ukrainian efforts to hurt the Trump 2016 campaign are just a total fiction,” Ingraham said, to begin the segment.
(In addition, Ingraham put in her two cents on another anti-Fiona Hill talking point — mocking Hill’s British accent — calling her testimony “hoity-toity.”)
And Sean Hannity dismissed Hill as a “so-called Ukraine expert” and urged somebody out there to explain things to her: