In a monumental display of right-wing gaslighting, Washington Post columnist Hugh Hewitt and Fox News contributor Mike Pompeo claimed Monday that former President Donald Trump had worked to strengthen Ukraine’s defenses against Russia — entirely leaving out Trump’s notorious political extortion plot, which Pompeo participated in and Hewitt ran media interference on leading to Trump’s first impeachment.
In 2019, Trump withheld military aid vital to Ukraine’s defense while pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to launch a bogus investigation against Trump’s political opponent, Joe Biden. The military aid was eventually delivered to Ukrainian forces to shore up their capacity to resist a Russian attack, following pressure from Congress, but the ensuing scandal stemming from this quid pro quo extortion plot was an international sensation. Trump was acquitted in his impeachment trial after his political and media allies argued that his behavior was not an abuse of office, an argument employed once the facts of the case — that Trump held hostage military aid for Ukraine’s defense against Russia — could no longer be disputed.
In the days since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began, and military equipment provided by the United States became instrumental to Ukraine’s self-defense, right-wing media have attempted to paint an alternate reality in which Trump is cast as an opponent of Russian aggression and defender of Ukraine, despite Trump’s ongoing praise of Putin. Right-wing radio host Hugh Hewitt and former Trump-appointed CIA Director and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, now a Fox News contributor and rumored presidential aspirant, provided a perfect example of this revisionism on Monday.
During an interview on Hewitt’s radio program, both men falsely proclaimed that the Trump administration had actually built up support for Ukraine, never acknowledging those previous events. The two men also erased their own personal histories: As then-Secretary of State, Pompeo had been in the loop on Trump’s extortion plot against Ukraine, while Hewitt ran interference for Trump in the media once it was exposed.
And, at the height of absurdity, Hewitt claimed that the U.S. Army had “slow-walked” an earlier sale of military aid to Ukraine, while never acknowledging the even more notorious instance in which Trump himself had done so.