Much has been been made about Donald Trump Jr.'s decision to release a series of emails Tuesday showing he took interest in receiving damaging information about Hillary Clinton from an alleged Russian government source.
While the facts surrounding the emails and the content within them are pretty damning, especially with Trump Jr.'s rapidly changing story, it should be noted he wasn't the only campaign official during the 2016 presidential election open to opposition research from a foreign government.
Shortly before President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration in January, POLITICO published a lengthy investigative piece about the Clinton campaign and Democrat National Committee's brazen collusion with the Ukrainian government to win the White House and to damage Trump's candidacy.
Donald Trump wasn’t the only presidential candidate whose campaign was boosted by officials of a former Soviet bloc country.
Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.
A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.
Politico’s investigation found evidence of Ukrainian government involvement in the race that appears to strain diplomatic protocol dictating that governments refrain from engaging in one another’s elections.
To be clear, this isn't a perfect comparison or a totally equal playing field. Russia is an adversary, even enemy, of the United States. Ukraine isn't quite an ally, but certainly not an adversary and Ukrainian officials who worked with the Clinton campaign argue they did so to warn about Russia. Regardless, the argument being made by Democrat campaign operatives that opposition research from foreign governments is never considered or welcomed, is a bit bogus.
Cc: DNC, Ukraine https://t.co/KkGCtqoqDN
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) July 11, 2017
Meanwhile, Trump Jr.'s email dump isn't going away, mostly the because the coverup is looking worse than the "crime."
Updated Trump Jr. timeline:
— Mark Berman (@markberman) July 11, 2017
March: Said he had no mtgs
Sat: Had one about adoption
Sun: Was expecting dirt on Hillary
Mon: From Russian govt pic.twitter.com/IpvC5ezgsW