Fiona Hill is quite the character. She was a star witness at Donald Trump’s first impeachment, which centered around the ridiculous idea that he was subverting American foreign policy, despite the fact that the president sets American foreign policy. There was also never any direct evidence offered that Trump arranged a “quid pro quo” with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, with both men denying the charge.
Of course, because everything is always connected in Washington, D.C., Hill also played a role in the Steele Dossier, introducing Christopher Steele to what would become one of his primary sources. Later, she lied about those contacts before Congress. Further, Hill made bizarre statements during the impeachment hearings, asserting that Ukraine had not tried to interfere in the 2016 election on behalf of Hillary Clinton. As I wrote at the time, that’s just patently false.
Overall, Hill has often shown herself to be a bureaucratic hack with far-left tendencies and an unhealthy obsession with Ukraine. That continued after Russia’s invasion of the Eastern European nation. Hill has repeatedly stepped in to defend Joe Biden, despite the fact that Putin waited until he took office to make his move. In doing so, she’s often tied herself in knots trying to slam Trump while excusing Biden’s failures in ways that just don’t make sense.
That happened again recently, with Hill attempting to take another shot at Trump while speaking at the Chicago Council of Global Affairs, another globalist organization full of over credentialed mediocrities. In doing so, she inadvertently admitted that Putin preferred Biden be in office before making his move. After some conservatives responded by pointing out what she said, charges of “misconstruing her words” arose.
Here’s exactly what she said. You can also click here for the full video.
As I note, while Hill is clearly trying to take another lazy shot at Trump, she falls flat on her face and ends up making a strong critique of Biden–despite that not being her intent.
According to Hill, Putin wanted Biden to be in office before invading Ukraine because he thought that the current president would be easier to negotiate with. The ridiculous framing offered for that admission is that Biden is just so smart and knowledgeable about global affairs that Putin would not have to explain anything to him in the process (lol).
But anyone with half a brain can ascertain the real reason Putin would prefer Biden to Trump: He felt he could get more in negotiations with Biden, and did not have any idea how Trump would react.
That’s the only logical reason anyone chooses one negotiating partner over another. It’s always about what can be gained in the end. No one goes into a car dealership and chooses the salesman who is going to upcharge them on everything. In Putin’s eyes, Biden was the easy, predictable pushover who would try to maintain the global status quo, just as Obama had done after Russia’s 2014 invasion. Trump, on the other hand, was a wildcard who might not be able to give a dissertation about NATO but dang sure knew how to respond to aggression.
In the end, that’s what makes Hill’s commentary so stupid and hilarious. She actually believes she’s owning the orange man by saying that Putin preferred Biden. Her incoherence is driven by her desperate desire to never speak ill of the current president, which further proves how much of an unreliable, biased witness she was during the impeachment proceedings. That a lot of Republicans praised her at the time as a non-political straight shooter is more evidence that conservatives should pick and choose who they listen to carefully. Some of us called her out at the time for what she was.
As to her fluff about Biden being so incredibly knowledgable about foreign affairs, I’d point to his 50-year record of failure on that front as a counter.