President Trump’s former top Russia adviser on the National Security Council blasted what she saw as the false claims that it was Ukraine, not Russia, which interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

Fiona Hill, a U.K.-born U.S. citizen who left her post just days before the July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that sparked impeachment proceedings, testified in front of the House Intelligence Committee as part of the Democrat-led investigation into allegations of Trump’s abuse of power in Ukraine.

“Based on questions and statements I have heard, some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our own country — and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did,” Hill said in her opening statement, a written version of which was available before testimony began. “This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.”

These fictions are harmful even when used in domestic politics, she said, and compared Russian President Vladimir Putin’s election interference operations to a super PAC.

“They deploy millions of dollars to weaponize our own political opposition research and false narratives,” she said.

The U.S. intelligence community concluded in 2017 that Russia was responsible for hacking thousands of Democratic emails and providing those stolen records to WikiLeaks for dissemination, a claim bolstered through special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Independent investigations by the House and Senate also concluded the Kremlin interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

“The unfortunate truth is that Russia was the foreign power that systematically attacked our democratic institutions in 2016. This is the public conclusion of our intelligence agencies, confirmed in bipartisan congressional reports. It is beyond dispute, even if some of the underlying details must remain classified,” Hill said in written remarks.

During impeachment proceedings, Rep. Devin Nunes has repeatedly brought up allegations of Ukrainian election interference during the 2016 presidential election, but the California Republican doesn’t deny that Russia meddled in the race between Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The House Intelligence Committee, now led by Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, produced a report titled "Report on Russian Active Measures" in March 2018, when it was led by Nunes, that concluded that Russia conducted cyberattacks on U.S. political institutions in 2015-2016 and the intelligence community’s assessment of Russian culpability was based on compelling facts and well-reasoned analysis.

Nunes pushed back against Hill’s written statement during his own, before she delivered it, pointing to the Russia report he’d helped produce and directing his staff to hand a copy of it to Hill and to David Holmes, a Kyiv-based U.S. embassy aide who is testifying alongside Hill today.

“The 240-page report analyzed the 2016 Russian meddling campaign, the U.S. response to it, Russian campaigns in other countries, and provided specific recommendations to improve American election security efforts,” Nunes said. “As America may or may not know, Democrats refused to sign on to the Republican report. Instead, they decided to adopt minority views, filled with collusion conspiracy theories.”

Nunes said both Russia and Ukraine took action during 2016.

“It is entirely possible for two separate nations to engage in election interference at the same time, and Republicans believe we should take election meddling seriously by all foreign countries, regardless of which campaign is the target,” he said.

Beginning in 2017, Hill served in the Trump administration as an NSC expert on Russia who was responsible for coordinating U.S. policy for Europe, including Ukraine specifically, Turkey, NATO, and the European Union. She served as a National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Hill is widely considered to be a Russia hawk greatly concerned by the threat posed by Putin.

Hill could cause headaches for both Republicans and Democrats during her Thursday testimony. While testifying behind closed doors on Oct. 14, Hill called British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s dossier a “rabbit hole” that very likely contained Russian disinformation and said Steele could have been played by the Russians.

“The impact of the successful 2016 Russian campaign remains evident today. Our nation is being torn apart. Truth is questioned,” Hill said on Thursday. “Our highly professional and expert career foreign service is being undermined. US. Support for Ukraine — which continues to face armed Russian aggression — has been politicized. The Russian government's goal is to weaken our country — to diminish America’s global role and to neutralize a perceived U.S. threat to Russian interests.”

