Now that the public is finally getting around to acknowledging that Ukraine's government did insert itself in the 2016 election for the purpose of hurting President Trump's campaign, the national media are pretending that it didn't happen.

In the case of the New York Times, they're pretending that they themselves weren't the ones to initially report on it.

A Times report on Friday said that the "charges" over Ukraine's election meddling originated with — where else? Russia.

The story said that "American intelligence officials informed senators and their aides in recent weeks that Russia had engaged in a yearslong campaign to essentially frame Ukraine as responsible for Moscow’s own hacking of the 2016 election."

Interesting. Did that "yearslong campaign" extend back to August 2016, when the Times broke the story that an entire Ukrainian government agency was investigating Paul Manafort, who at the time was serving as Trump's campaign chairman?

Back then, the paper reported that Ukraine’s "newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau," which worked in conjunction with America's FBI, was in possession of a mysterious, handwritten diary that showed Manafort was receiving millions of dollars in payments from one of the country's pro-Russian politicians. "Investigators assert," the Times reported, "that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials."

If that report was part of a larger disinformation campaign by Russia, I'd like to know when the Times plans on issuing a retraction.

We're supposed to believe that Ukraine's government, completely by coincidence, happened upon this little notebook — literally found in the ashes of a burned-down building — that exposed Manafort as a money launderer. We're supposed to believe that this was a matter of fate, not a form of retaliation against Trump, who had been saying positive things about Russia.

Yeah, I don't believe any of that.

This was Ukraine's most consequential government agency investigating the top official in a major candidate's presidential campaign. The Times report on Friday, however, dismissed Ukraine's documented and consequential interference as "scattershot."

Welcome to 1984.