During an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Texas Senator Ted Cruz told host Chuck Todd that he believes Ukraine “blatantly interfered” in the 2016 United States elections, Axios reports.
According to Cruz, the media is pretending Russia is the sole perpetrator of interference in the election that led to Trump’s victory.
“Ukraine blatantly interfered in our election. The sitting ambassador from Ukraine wrote an op-ed blasting Donald Trump during the election season…. It’s hysterical two years ago there was article after article after article in the mainstream media about Ukrainian interference in the election, but now, the Democrats have no evidence of a crime.”
Cruz went on to criticize Todd for suggesting that Louisiana Senator John Kennedy — who also pushed the controversial theory on Meet the Press — was “basically a stooge for Putin.”
The Ukraine interference theory has been pushed by Donald Trump and his allies as the president faces an impeachment probe for his alleged pressure campaign on Ukraine to secure investigations into Trump’s political rivals. Trump is accused of withholding military aid from Ukraine as leverage, and the controversial theory is a defense to justify this decision.
Intelligence officials have noted that Russian security services are also promoting such a theory of Ukraine interference. Per The Guardian , Fiona Hill, former national security council’s director for European and Russian affairs, attacked the reportedly “debunked conspiracy theory” and noted its propagation by Russia.
“This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves,” she said.
WATCH: @SenTedCruz says he believes Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election. #MTP #IfItsSunday pic.twitter.com/OPAxpe6T6t
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) December 8, 2019
According to Republicans in Trump’s camp, Ukraine took part in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) — an act reported to be carried out by Russians. The Guardian reports that defenders of the theory claim that computer records were “fabricated” in order to frame Russia for the act.
“A key talking point is CrowdStrike, a security firm hired by the DNC that detected the hack,” the report reads.
As The Inquisitr previously reported, the primary pusher of the theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election was allegedly Andriy Telizhenko. Telizhenko is a 29-year-old former Ukrainian diplomat who recently met with Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who is also implicated in the impeachment probe.
Giuliani recently headed to Ukraine’s capital , Kyiv, to meet with multiple Ukrainian officials. He was reportedly looking for information that would support Trump’s request for investigations into Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. In addition to Telizhenko, Giuliani allegedly met with independent Ukrainian lawmaker Andriy Derkach.