I was shocked to see this sentence in the impeachment articles:
It could be (and I think is) the case that BOTH Ukraine AND Russia interfered. By saying “rather than Russia”, they assume it has to be only one of the two, an elementary mistake which I think would get you a bad score on a law school exam. What the heck?
Well, there is a ton of evidence that Russia interfered in out elections, plus intelligence agency unanimity on that point. There is zero evidence (that I know of, cite it if you got it) that Ukraine did it. And the Trumpers have sought to use this to deflect blame away from Russia.
But that was the crap that Russia was pushing-That it was Ukraine and not Russia that was interfering in our election process. You can imagine anything your heart desires, but the actual scheme that is being talked about here involves Russia telling tall tales to divert attention from their own shenanigans.
No evidence Ukraine interfered. Substantial evidence that Russia interfered and started a phony story about Ukraine interfering. The logical flaw is in the OP.
Why the anger at the OP? He’s got a point, even if it’s not a logical error. It’s just less than ideal writing.
“a discredited theory promoted by Russia alleging that Ukraine - rather than Russia - interfered in the 2016 United States Presidential election.”
The whole thing is about Russia’s allegation, not about who interfered in the 2016 election. It is true that both countries could have, and indeed may have for all I know, interfered in the election. But Russia only alleged that the Ukraine did, and that allegation was specifically to cover their own interference, rather than all parties interfering on a worldwide scale.
I would have said “a discredited theory promoted by Russia alleging that it was Ukraine, rather than Russia itself, that interfered in the 2016 United States Presidential election.”
Surprisingly, this news source is Russian owned. Amazing how Russian owned Ukrainian news sources keep working their way into the discussion these days.
But that said, it is true that “the black ledger” became a thing and got Paul Manafort removed from the Trump campaign. And so we could certainly say that that affected the election.
For that to be “inference”, however, it has to have been intentional. If a Presidential candidate, during an election year, traveled to England and shot someone in the streets of London, we wouldn’t consider it “interference” for them to announce that the murder had taken place nor for them to issue a warrant for that person.
Yes, it will affect the American election. But no, it’s just a matter of what the candidate did and when they did it that caused this to happen at that time. It would be unreasonable to expect the British to hide this information and even worse if they did so purposely with the intention of having it ready as blackmail material, for example. Getting it out in the open may be the most friendly thing they could do.
Many people on this site have given absolutist arguments against foreign involvement in elections. That is short-sighted. It’s throwing the baby out with the bath water.
There are times, places, and means of affecting the elections of another nation that are appropriate and/or necessary. But there are also times and means that are inappropriate and corrupt.
Unfortunately, I don’t have time to explain that further nor find a previous place where I did so. So I’ll just say that a context free interpretation of events is stupid and I would suspect the honesty of my brain if it was engaging in that sort of behavior.
I did. Face it: Ukranian interference is by no means “discredited”. That sentence in the Impeachment Articles set up a false “exclusive or”. A Ukranian court declared Ukranian interference.