The massive document-dump of material from Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian ratfcking that popped on Buzzfeed and CNN over the weekend is far too extensive to analyze thoroughly in one blog, but the overwhelming conclusion to which anyone reading the documents has to arrive is that there no longer is The Russian Story and The Ukraine Story, but only one story—the Russian Ratfcking and Volga Bagmen story—that leads directly to the president*'s 2016 campaign, to his administration*, and, ultimately, to his liability to impeachment and removal from office.

It is plain that the whole enterprise by which the Russian ratfckers would be shielded from suspicion by having that suspicion instead cast upon Ukraine—the fantastical theory that lay behind the president*'s extortionate demand of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—was a crucial part of the strategy by which the Russian ratfckers would assist the president*'s 2016 campaign. It was the alibi-in-reserve, and it was deployed.

In an April 2018 interview with the special counsel’s office, Rick Gates, who had served as deputy Trump campaign chair and had long been Paul Manafort’s right hand, told investigators that after the campaign learned the DNC had been hacked, Manafort pushed the theory that Ukraine, not Russia, had orchestrated the attack. It’s a conspiracy theory that’s persisted in right-wing circles, even after the US Intelligence Community concluded Russia was involved, and one that Trump brought up in his July 2019 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

In a written memorandum of the July call released by the White House, Trump at one point says to Zelensky, “I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike… I guess you have one of your wealthy people… The server, they say Ukraine has it.”

The documents also present a strong case that limiting the impeachment inquiry, and rushing it to a conclusion, likely will guarantee that we get only half of the story, at best. For example, the revelation in the documents that Konstantin Kilimnik dreamed up the Ukraine diversion not only hauls us again into The Many Lives of Paul Manafort, but also it shows the vast parameters of what should be investigated until every bit of it is unearthed. If that takes us a decade after we are mercifully freed from this venomous ball of snakes in one way or another, then so be it.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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