Hi Asha: I've done much research on these topics. The complicated truth: certain individuals on the Democratic and Poroshenko sides *did* act stupidly/improperly (if not illegally) in 2016, but none of it involves Crowdstrike or Burisma or Trump's pretexts for soliciting a bribe.
1/ I know it'd be easy for us to conflate the Chalupa-Chaly-Shulyar-Telizhenko story with the Crowdstrike insanity—then we could say both are deza—but it'd backfire. Better for Democrats to admit there was some 2016 stupidity on the left that has *nothing* to do with impeachment.
2/ Fiona Hill and Devin Nunes were talking past each other—and it was instructive. Hill was saying "Don't pretend Ukraine hacked Clinton when it was Russia" (Crowdstrike); Nunes was saying "Chalupa was secretly passing info from the Ukrainian embassy to the DNC"—a separate item.
3/ When the Senate trial comes, it will be a *massive* bait-and-switch: though Trump was acting based on Russian disinformation (Crowdstrike), the Republicans will *pretend* he was motivated by things that actually *did* happen (but were not illegal) involving Chalupa and others.
4/ Because some reading this thread are unclear on my diction from the first post in this thread: there was *no* illegal behavior involving Democratic operatives and Ukraine. I was calling certain 2016 behaviors stupid but noting they *weren't* illegal and are *not* relevant now.
