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<div class="up-next"><span class="label">UP NEXT:</span><span class="title"><a href="https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2022/04/13/californias_vanished_dream_by_the_numbers_826300.html" class="top-up-next-link">CALIFORNIA'S VANISHED DREAM, BY THE NUMBERS (PT. 2)</a></span></div>
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<div class="now-reading"><span class="label">NOW READING:</span><span class="title">UKRAINE WORKED WITH DEMOCRATS AGAINST TRUMP IN ELECTION 2016 TO STOP PUTIN. THAT BET BACKFIRED BADLY.</span></div>
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<h1>Ukraine Worked With Democrats Against Trump in Election 2016 to Stop Putin. That Bet Backfired Badly.</h1>
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<div class="hero_credit" title="AP License: urn:publicid:ap.org:519a14d9ed2e4047b1c84400883dd3de">AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky</div>
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<h6><em>Ukrainian-Democratic coordination traces back to 2014, when then-Obama Vice President Joe Biden helped install Petro Poroshenko in Kiev. Then came collusion against Trump.</em></h6>
<h2>By&nbsp;<a href="https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/authors/paul_sperry/">Paul Sperry</a>, RealClearInvestigations<br />March 10, 2022</h2>
<p>Six years ago, before Russia’s full-scale invasion of their country, the Ukrainians bet that a Hillary Clinton presidency would offer better protection from Russian President Vladimir Putin, even though he had invaded Crimea during the Obama-Biden administration, whose Russian policies Clinton vowed to continue.</p>
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<div class="body-photo-title">Ukraine worked with Hillary Clinton and the Democrats against Donald Trump as protection against President Vladimir Putin of Russia ...&nbsp;</div>
<div class="body-photo-byline">AP</div>
<div class="inline-social" data-feed-name data-feed-caption="AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel,Pool" data-feed-photo="&lt;a href=">https://assets.realclear.com/images/57/571723_5_.jpg"&gt;
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<div class="body-photo-title">... but Ukraine's bet backfired both when Trump won in 2016 -- and when Russia invaded after the Democrats regained power under Joe Biden.</div>
<div class="body-photo-byline">AP</div>
<div class="inline-social" data-feed-name="Finland Trump Putin Summit" data-feed-caption="Jussi Nukari/Lehtikuva via AP" data-feed-photo="&lt;a href="><br />
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<p>Working with both the Obama administration and the Clinton campaign, Ukrainian government officials intervened in the 2016 race to help Clinton and hurt&nbsp; Donald Trump in a sweeping and systematic foreign influence operation that's been largely ignored by the press. The improper, if not illegal, operation was run chiefly out of the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, where officials worked hand-in-glove with a Ukrainian-American activist and Clinton campaign operative to attack the Trump campaign. The Obama White House was also deeply involved in an effort to groom their own favored leader in Ukraine and then work with his government to dig up dirt on – and even investigate -- their political rival.</p>
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<p>Ukrainian and Democratic operatives also huddled with American journalists to spread damaging information on Trump and his advisers – including allegations of illicit Russian-tied payments that, though later proved false, forced the resignation of his campaign manager Paul Manafort. The embassy actually weighed a plan to get Congress to investigate Manafort and Trump and stage hearings in the run-up to the election.</p>
<p>As it worked behind the scenes to undermine Trump, Ukraine also tried to kneecap him publicly. Ukraine's ambassador took the extraordinary step of attacking Trump in an Op-Ed article published in The Hill, an influential U.S. Capitol newspaper, while other top Ukrainian officials slammed the GOP candidate on social media.</p>
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<div class="body-photo-title">Ukraine's ambassador to the U.S. attacked Trump in an Op-Ed weeks before the 2016 election.</div>
<div class="body-photo-byline">The Hill</div>
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