Talk:Conspiracy theories related to the Trump–Ukraine scandal

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This article was nominated for deletion on 18 October 2019. The result of the discussion was keep.

Jesus Christ this article is unbelievably biased and nothing more then an attack page. Neutrality should be restored. Wikipedia is increasingly becoming the propaganda bureau of CNN and MSNBC. 80.111.44.144 (talk) 13:38, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

So you insist on edit warring, rather than following WP:BRD and discussing toward a solution? That's blockable, but I'll engage. Get specific:

• What wording in the article is wrong?
• What sources are unreliable?

You need to do more than gripe. You haven't demonstrated that the article is broken, and we don't know how to fix something that isn't broken. All you're doing is misusing this talk page as a forum for your personal political opinions. That is forbidden. You also edit warred over it. That too is blockable. -- BullRangifer (talk) 22:10, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

What personal political opinions have I expressed? 80.111.44.144 (talk) 22:22, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Your comment reveals a strong political bias and distaste for RS. It's okay to have a bias, but the way you wave it around here isn't constructive. It's just griping, and that's a talk page violation.

Now, rather than focusing on our discussion, get constructive and answer my two questions:

• What wording in the article is wrong?
• What sources are unreliable?

We can deal with that. That's what this talk page is for. You need to be specific and provide exact arguments with quotes and sources. -- BullRangifer (talk) 23:01, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

First, There is no 'conspiracy theory' - most of what is in this page is based on fact. It shouldn't be labeled 'conspiracy theory' - second, it's not Donald Trump's conspiracy theory. The Russia Hoax and Impeachment allegations are Conspiracy theories. The anonymous gripe is based on a frustration that Wikipedia has been taken over by pro-deep state propagandists, as the facts of wikipedia are more like snopes.com not based in reality and based on 'as seen on TV' facts, not hard evidence. Sorry guys, Wikipedia is losing. It has taken years to build the credibility of Wikipedia and now it is becoming another fake site.

I support the above comment. By the way, it is alleged in the introduction to the article that the "Right-wing conspiracy theory" or at least the one argued against here is that Ukraine instead of Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 election. That is already a polemically simplified and biased account. Many critics of the Ukraine involvement, both on the right and the left, maintain that both countries tried to interfere in the election (among other bad actors, such as China, North Korea and Iran). Ukrainian involvement does not by definition rule out Russian involvement. Simple-minded caricatures disguise the actual complexities. Indeed, the very title of the article, "Conspiracy theories" related to the "Trump-Ukraine scandal" betray the propaganda slant. "Conspiracy theories" is a usual way of dismissing out of hand claims by people deemed nut-cases (Guy tells us below it refers just to false political narratives about conspiracies, not real conspiracies at all). The actual Ukraine scandal however does not relate to Trump as the title says but to Joe and Hunter Biden and their Swamp/media protectors and enablers - at least to Trump's defenders who are ignored here. The title completely pre-judges the content. It could no doubt have been written by Adam Schiff or Marie Jovanovich, and Swamp on-hangers keen to take over and shape public discourse, making use solely of leftist media, for those are the sources chosen and used. So it is stated right in the introduction that the corruption charges leveled against Joe and Hunter Biden in relation to the Ukrainian company Burisma are "baseless" (with the "proof" an as-usual very polemical anti-Trump article in the New York Times) - no counters to that view, of which there are now many highly significant articles, are mentioned (for example, see the really devastating investigative report by Chanel Rion of One America News (OAN), "One America News Investigates: Ukrainian Witnesses Destroy Schiff's Case (Part 3)," December 16, 2019 - accessed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRFtijtoV6I but available through links at the OAN website - presenting lengthly interviews on camera between Rudy Giuliani himself and six Ukrainian government officials, two of them the successive Chief Prosecutors of the Ukrainian government, detailing massive on-going Barisma-related corruption by Hunter Biden, including money laundering, and of course Joe Biden's own boastful and public bribery, giving very full documentary evidence - Ukrainian government documents and the like - confirming close involvement from the Swamp-serving NABU set up not by Ukrainians but by people from the American Embassy itself, facilitating extensive collaboration of that Embassy in the corruption and aiding attempts by Ambassador Jovanovich to squash investigation of it or even to refuse visas to Ukrainian officials willing to testify about it in the U.S.).

In the face of Ukrainian government official testimonies, actual documentary evidence they provide including of bank accounts, official letters to American government agencies like the Department of Justice, and so on, the all-too-facile "baseless" gratuitous slur in this article is therefore unjustified, but it is not exceptional: similar editorial judgmental adjectives and phrases are inserted throughout the rest of the article too. NPOV ("Neutral Point of View") is violated throughout. There is simply no decent or fair consideration, or often even mention, of the pro-Trump case or simply Biden-critical case. Instead, right-wing views are given cartoon treatment and description so as to look extremist, odd-ball, "baseless" as we have just seen, "insane" as Guy tells us below (his remarks are peppered with emotive smear comments demonstrating strong POV; perhaps he wrote most of the article?) and so on. There are very serious problems related to the entire Ukraine situation ignored completely or cosmetically altered, ignoring the quite substantial counter-evidence provided by critics of Biden, the actions of the U.S. Ambassador Jovanovich and of the State Department in the Ukraine, and related matters. Disinformation, selective quotes and sources (trashing such careful and respectable sources for example as John Solomon because of political objections worthy of CNN or The Washington Post but no more trustworthy: e.g., see Solomon's "Joe Biden's 'conspiracy theory' memo to U.S. media doesn't match the facts," of Jan. 21, 2020, which simply lists facts, with links to public evidence, that disprove Biden's own claim that opponents merely express a baseless "conspiracy theory": https://johnsolomonreports.com/joe-bidens-conspiracy-theory-memo-to-u-s-media-doesnt-match-the-facts/), and outright insults and slanting by anti-Trump editors do not contribute to wider understanding nor objectivity any more than any doctrinaire ideological editing would from other angles. The article needs a top-to-bottom rewrite so that it preserves NPOV. -- 122.111.212.235 (talk) 01:23, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Nice set of Fox News talking points you have there. We have articles on most of these subjects, so do please feel free to read them so you can make some reality-based arguments that we can engage with. Guy (help!) 09:45, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Fox News talking points" are obviously curse words for you, Guy, but they miss their target twice over. The sources referenced were not from Fox News, and besides your refusal to grant any hearing to right-wing views only shows your own bias. It is obviously deeply set in stone. Genuinely "Reality-based arguments" such as actual interviews with the chief Ukrainian officials involved in the Biden-Berisma affair, actual documents from government records, bank account details of financial transactions, are clearly not relevant to you and must not be allowed to be mentioned in any Wikipedia article on the Ukraine scandal. And I presume that Giuliani is as far as you are concerned Satan himself, mystically toxic, so nothing from him need be cited in terms of genuine and relevant sources, even if it is just interviews with other obviously genuine and relevant sources. All that is cancelled out. Neither do you even cite any "reality-based arguments" to refute what was written. Perhaps we should take this to Wikipedia arbitration? 122.111.212.235 (talk) 10:11, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The issues with the right-wing media bubble and its preference for ideological "Truth" over empirical fact are laid out in detail in Yochai Benkler's Network Propaganda. It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble, it’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so - and the right wing media bubble, of which Fox is the dominant player, is assiduously informing America about things they "know for sure" that just ain't so. It's unfortunate that so many of these things originate in the Kremlin or with the organised crime / oil and gas oligarchy nexus.

There is no "Biden-Burisma affair": Burisma hired Hunter Biden to attempt to curry favour with influential US figures, but Joe Biden continued to pursue the US policy against corruption. Shokin was corrupt. your narrative depends on the idea that he was investigating Burisma and Biden wanted to stop it, but in fact he wasn't investigating Burisma - or anyone else. Read the article on Viktor Shokin. Contemporaneous reporting highlights his corruption.

This is Wikipedia. We work from reliable sources. We do not present fringe views or conspiracy theories as being equivalent to empirical fact, and there's little point in line by line rebuttals of arguments like yours when our articles already contain the facts that debunk them. It's not about hating anyone (I don't hate people, that's a ridiculous waste of emotional energy), but it is remarkable how consistently shady the characters in this drama are. Parnas, Fruman, Firtash, Zlochevsky and the rest, and people like Giuliani and Solomon who credulously accepted their version of events because it happens to align with what they would like to be true. Guy (help!) 11:38, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The issues with the left-wing media bubble and its preference for ideological "Truth" over empirical fact are laid out in rich historical and scholarly detail in Mark Levin's Unfreedom of the Press. It ain't what you don’t know that gets you into trouble, it’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so - and the left wing media bubble, which according to a number of studies amounts to over 90% of the media outlets in the U.S. as judged not only by media content but even by records of reporter and media figures' donations to political parties and causes, is an echo-chamber whose common thrust intensifies their lack of self-criticism and blatancy of claims, assiduously informing America about what centrist America really must and should think and other things they, the leftist media, "know for sure" that just ain't so -- as revealed by election results if nothing else. It's unfortunate that so many of these things originate in the Kremlin or with the organised crime / oil and gas oligarchy nexus. (Of course that is a really classic "conspiracy theory" in itself and I actually don't subscribe to it. But heck, why spoil things when I'm enjoying echoing you.) Anyway, how can you rely on reliable sources when your criteria for reliability are ideological and political, not evidentiary? Your cited article has some relevant facts, just as Giuliani's research also does. But its selective bias is obvious, it falsifies some crucial things (such as there was no on-going prosecution by Shokin of Burisma - which if true would obviate any need for Biden to block his handling of Burisma and thus refutes itself - and it has other flaws that do not affect the issue at hand, namely the Biden-Burisma scandal, which will not disappear no matter how many times you say "Boo!" If Biden really had been caring about Burisma corruption we would have seen him pursuing the matter and reviving prosecutory investigations after Shokin was fired, but we don't see that. Actually, Jovanovich met with Lutsenko, the next Prosecutor General, and demanded he not investigate several persons in Burisma. He refused, as he explained on camera in the ONA special report mentioned above. She was reportedly very angry and upset. I await the likely trials in the second term of Trump's presidency. By the way, I appreciate your compliment concerning your inability to refute any of the specific factual statements I have made aside from your citation of a Shokin exposé. In particular your inability to deny the actual history I laid out elsewhere on this page of Trump's strong anti-Russian foreign policy moves ever since he took on the Presidency, which just in itself for any rational and fair-minded person proved the emptiness of the "Russia collusion" scam right from the start, despite the leftist media clamour. It is easiest just to ignore the challenge when it cannot be won, and I offer you condolences. 122.111.212.235 (talk) 15:05, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Mark Levin is a right wing talk radio host, whereas Yochai Benkler is a Harvard law professor. We have policies on this.

If you want to invert our policies on what constitutes reliable sourcing, you're in the wrong place: you need WP:RSN. Guy (help!) 15:39, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You severely and unfairly belittle Mark Levin in your characterisation. Levin is an accomplished lawyer who has worked successfully both under Reagan in the government (working for the Attorney General Edwin Meese) and in the private sector, has six books to his credit dealing with constitutional law, the nature of democracy and other legal and political topics, all of which have been very highly acclaimed, is the former president of the Landmark Legal Foundation, and has a very successful nationally syndicated talk show and TV program. He knows what he is talking about. Your policies on "this" cannot rightly suppress anything that Levin writes that marks a substantial contribution to the topic. In any case, Levin's points in his book do in fact knowledgeably and effectively refute claims to centrist impartiality in the heavily leftist mainstream media. Of course, his is not the only book that does. There are many such. I was just counterpointing your own solitary citation. 122.111.212.235 (talk) 16:13, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Are you denying that he runs a right wing talk radio show? Or that he writes for a number of right-wing sources?

Nobody denies that all media have an editorial lean. The issue is not that some media leans left and others lean right, it's that conservative media is in a positive feedback loop where they lose revenue if they print facts that conflict with ideology. This has been demonstrated through network analysis. Mainstream media, by contrast, self-corrects. That's why the bullshit claim that Trump raped a 13-yeqar-old rapidly died, whereas Pizzagate and suchlike insanity did not.

In any case what you are demanding is a fundamental change to Wikipedia's rules on sourcing. This is not the venue for such discussion. Guy (help!) 16:22, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• "The Mueller Report's Secret Memos". BuzzFeed News. November 3, 2019. Retrieved 4 November 2019. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help)
• https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/03/us/politics/manafort-trump-ukraine-conspiracy-theory.html

X1\ (talk) 21:30, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Check! soibangla (talk) 21:41, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

. X1\ (talk) 01:37, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

MR. ZELDIN: 0kay. The followup question and answers, the answer is that it's your assessment that where there was interference by Ukrainjans that it's your assessment that it djdn't change the election results. So I see that there is an interpretation
MR. WOLOSKY: That misstates her testimony.
DR. HILL: It also misstates it. I have no basis
MR. ZELDIN: Feel free to correct it. I 'm just
MR. WOLOSKY: We just said it misstated her testimony, so go to your next question, please.
MR. ZELDIN: So the first answer is, it's your position that the Ukrainian Government did not interfere with the U.S. election, correct?
DR. HILL: Correct.

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6543445/Fiona-Hill-Testimony.pdf

It's pretty clear that they are trying to retcon Ukraine's provision of data on Manafort - presumably including the "black book" which was buried after the first, as yet little discussed shakedown - as being interference in the US election along the same lines as Russia's large, well-documented campaign of interference. Guy (help!) 10:24, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

According to Maddow, [1] "Rachel Maddow traces where Donald Trump picked up the conspiracy theory that Ukraine hacked the 2016 election, spotting it being pushed by Paul Manafort, and highlighting a portion of Marie Yovanovitch's Trump impeachment hearing testimony in which Vladimir Putin is quoted pushing the theory."

I'll watch for this in independent sources. Guy (help!) 09:58, 16 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, a step by step run down, from start til present, of the people in that chain would be valuable content. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:31, 21 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Guy, another thing to watch for is something we can use to change the title of this article to Cover-up of the Trump–Ukraine scandal. The impeachment inquiry is painting that picture quite clearly. Just sayin'... All these conspiracy theories are part of the cover-up. They attempt to create a counterfactual narrative for Trump's base. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:31, 21 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The mother article at Trump–Ukraine scandal contains this:

11 Conspiracy theories
   11.1 CrowdStrike
   11.2 First whistleblower
   11.3 Whistleblower rules and hearsay
   11.4 George Soros

We are missing a lot here! We should have less there and more here. -- BullRangifer (talk) 00:48, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm confused - how is Ukrainian interference in the 2016 American presidential election a ‘conspiracy theory’? The links below date back to 2016 and are in chronological order. They all discuss the possibility and this is just a brief search restricted only to mainstream media sources. In relation to the Russia Investigation, alleged 2016 Ukrainian interference is also currently under investigation by John Durham. The phrase 'conspiracy theory' in relation to this alleged interference appears rather strong given how widely reported the issue has been these past four years. RBWilson1000 (talk) 03:45, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Financial Times - 2016 https://www.ft.com/content/c98078d0-6ae7-11e6-a0b1-d87a9fea034f Politico - 2017 https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine-sabotage-trump-backfire-233446 NYT - 2018 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/world/europe/ukraine-paul-manafort.html The Hill - 2019 https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/435029-as-russia-collusion-fades-ukrainian-plot-to-help-clinton-emerges WSJ - 2019 https://www.wsj.com/articles/john-durhams-ukrainian-leads-11569786611

RBWilson1000 (talk) 03:45, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

RBWilson1000, See false equivalence. Individual Ukrainians expressing a preference for the candidate who was not expressing support for Russia's invasion of Crimea is not in any way equivalent to the systematic and well funded Russian election interference campaign, which involved troll farms, covert operators in the US, undeclared illegal foreign funding (e.g. through the NRA) and more.

It is the conclusion of every Western intelligence agency that Russia interfered in the 2016 US election, and the Brexit vote in the UK as a sort of trial-run. There is no credible evidence of systematic or organised interference by Ukraine, nor is it likely because Hillary would have continued to pursue the anti-corruption agenda that jeopardised Ukrainian oligarchs. Moving Ukraine towards Western not Russian interference is essentially an anti-oligarchy operation, and Trump was probably the only candidate likely to push the other way, helping Putin in his efforts to bring Ukraine back into his Russian empire.

Also note that one of your sources (note in passing: cherry-picking is a thing) is John Solomon, who was the conduit for the Yovaovich smears.

John Solomon is not your favorite guy, Guy, but that does not mean he is unreliable. Your criticism is irrelevant to the issue. As for the "Yovaovich" (sic!: Jovanovich) "smears," the same holds. You clearly want to smear critics of your prefered people, but that does not necessarily mean in itself that you are always wrong. Neither does that mean your unfavorite people who criticise your favorites are always wrong either. Again, evidence decides. As for you yourself, Guy, please practise writing down a hundred times, "NPOV rules!"122.111.212.235 (talk) 09:24, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Finally, there's the small matter of testimony in the past two weeks. Every single witness who has been asked if there is any foundation tot he idea that Ukraine interfered in the US election in 2016 has said: no. Fiona Hill noted that this false narrative "has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves".[2]. So we call it what it is: a conspiracy theory and a lie. Guy (help!) 11:01, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

RBWilson1000, you seem to be confused about true election inteperence and the chance discovery/exposure of crimes (which were intended to help Russia) by Trump's campaign manager which had the potential for influencing (but didn't seem to make any difference) Trump's electability. Manafort's actions were part of the collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians, which was the true election interference.

I'm not saying we shouldn't ever mention this blip (except the Hill/Solomon source He is not reliable.), but it has very low due weight here and should be done so it doesn't muddy the waters. The real election interference was Russia/Trump against America. Any Ukrainian factors had no effect and were incidental, a form of own goal by the Trump campaign which could hurt itself. This was part of their collusion, and it was exposed. -- BullRangifer (talk) 16:48, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Even if the Hill Source is questionable, you still have the New York Times, Politico, Financial Times, and Wall Street Journal. Also - I excluded a lot of other sources that have previously reported purposely because many consider them right wing. Election interference isn't a zero sum game. There is no reason to believe more than one country didn't interfere in 2016 (I wouldn't be surprised if it's not quite common) so I don't understand why Russian and Ukrainian interference are somehow tied together. RBWilson1000 (talk) 06:12, 24 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

They are tied together because of an overarching red thread that runs through the whole Russia/Trump interference in the 2016 elections, and that is to lift the sanctions. That's what the Trump Tower meeting was about.

Those sanctions (two sets of them) were imposed because of Russian aggression in Ukraine and election interference by the Russians. That's why Manafort and Carter Page, both very pro-Russian and anti-sanctions, were chosen by Trump. They aligned with his own POV and agenda. -- BullRangifer (talk) 23:56, 24 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

RBWilson1000, No, what you are doing is called novel synthesis. Some Ukrainians, proabbly in the belief that Hillary would win but certainly on the basis that Trump was alarmingly supportive of Russia, made statements favouring Hillary. The idea that Ukraine was systematically favouring the "female candidate" comes from Vladimir Putin, in person. Guy (help!)

Please elaborate on why Solomon/TheHill reporting is to be considered unreliable. Solomon meticulously and consistently cites primary sources for his statements, including official documents. John Solomon has (according to his Wikipedia page) won several awards, and has worked for other reputable outlets, which are considered reliable sources.

Furthermore Solomon's reporting on the FISA Abuse, which has been dismissed as "right-wing conspiracy theories" and "unsubstantiated" by uncountable media outlets, happened to be mostly corroborated by the release of the IG report on the matter. It seems Wikipedia editors are consistently dismissive of reporting that does not fit their narrative.Milanbishop (talk) 18:38, 24 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Winning awards doesn't make you immune to being misled. It is documented Solomon had meetings with Rudy and his indicted friends, and subsequently wrote his piece for The Hill. This piece and Solomon himself have subsequently been criticised in multiple reliable sources for misrepresentation of facts and the spreading of misinformation. That he might be right or vindicated regarding FISA is not mutually exclusive of being wrong about other things (such is the nature of investigative journalism). Koncorde (talk) 10:23, 27 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Koncorde thinks that simply having had meetings with Rudy Giuliani automatically disqualifies his research as being unreliable. Wow. Afraid not. Investigative reporting requires interviewing all sorts of people, including if relevant Giuliani. The reporting would be unreliable on this matter if it did not include interviews with Giuliani, in fact. If just meeting with Giuliani leads inexorably to being "misled," Giuliani is indeed a mystically seductive and sinister sorceror entirely unlike all other mere human beings - apparently he's Satan? No, everything turns on the evidentiary record. On this Solomon insists, and is solid. May I remind Koncorde, besides, that Giuliani is not accused of any crime, nor has he been found guilty of any falsehood. He has actually penetrated pretty deeply into these matters, has direct knowledge of them now, and is a prime source.122.111.212.235 (talk) 09:07, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Milanbishop, We have multiple sources pointing out that Solomon was the conduit for the Kremlin-sourced conspiracy theory of Ukrainian interference, and was also the conduit for the campaign to oust the anti-corruption ambassador Yovanovich, which was pushed by corrupt Ukrainian oligarchs and mobsters with connections to the Trump administration. Kent's testimony established this: https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/george-kents-testimony-destroyed-right-wing-conspiracy-theories-central-impeachment Guy (help!) 11:08, 27 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, Kent is not a reliable witness. He is Jovanovich's deputy, and her own role in the Ukraine scandal is presently under serious investigation. The NABU agency Kent set up, even if it actually worked effectively on anti-corruption, is problematic because it is literally an American government interference in Ukrainian affairs on the face of it, not an Ukrainian initiative nor bureau, and if we are concerned about the Swamp and foreign interference in our own government, we have to be concerned about our government's interference in other countries' affairs too. According to information from Ukrainian anti-corruption crusaders in the Ukrainian Parliament, NABU has not had any sucessful anti-corruption prosecutions since it was created (I think in 2015, if I recall correctly). Its sole activity of note seems to consist of facilitating the movement of billions of illicitly obtained dollars from the Ukraine to the U.S., which the Ukrainian government now has officially declared it wants restored to it. On this, see Chanel Rion's one-hour-long investigative report, "One America News Investigates: Ukrainian Witnesses Destroy Schiff's Case (Part 3)," OAN Dec. 16, 2019, featuring interviews between Rudy Giuliani in the Ukraine and six Ukrainian government officials and political figures, including two successive Chief Prosecutors and three whistleblowers, all prevented from travelling to the U.S. to present their testimony by Ambassador Jovanovich's refusal to issue them visas. See the Youtube video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRFtijtoV6I - it can also be accessed from the OAN website.122.111.212.235 (talk) 09:07, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

From One America News Network:

One America News Network (OANN), also known as One America News (OAN), is a far right[1][2][3] news and opinion channel owned by Herring Networks, Inc., launched on 4 July 2013.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][excessive citations] The network is headquartered in San Diego, California, and operates news bureaus in Washington, D.C.[14] and New York City.

The channel targets a conservative and right-of-center audience.[15][16] Its prime time political talk shows have a conservative perspective,[17][18][19] and the channel regularly features pro-Donald Trump stories.[17][20] The channel has been noted for promoting falsehoods and conspiracy theories.[18][21]

The problem here is that not only are your sources unreliable, but your mechanism for determining reliability and telling fact from fiction appears to be fundamentally broken. Guy (help!) 11:49, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Guy, I am not surprised that you, as a person of open and marked bias whom some might (rightly or wrongly) call far leftist, heatedly seek to discredit the admittedly (even self-styled) "conservative and right-of-center" focus of OAN News (gasp!), as therefore by definition already unacceptably "far right." It must be, because it is as you say conservative, right-of-center, and worst evil of all, actually "pro-Donald Trump"! QED. But your biases are not determinative, Guy. They are just your problem and should not be Wikipedia's. OAN very vigorously and emphatically stands for American democracy, minority and personal rights and freedoms, the Constitution and the rule of law; it does not promote authoritarianism, violence or racism, is not fascist, and so is not far-right. (I notice that the sources ultimately cited by your obviously hostile and itself leftist Wikipedia article for that libelous characterisation come from leftist or even let's say far leftist news media like The Daily Beast, The Guardian, ABC News, and NBC News, which naturally seek to discredit OAN investigations in general, including those made by Rudy Giuliani. These are not reliable non-partisan sources for their claims, but partisan ones.) And your claim that "the channel has been noted for promoting falsehoods and conspiracy theories" applies as well to the entire mainstream media, notably including The Daily Beast, CNN, MSNBC, the NYT and the Washington Post, just to name a few media outlets, according to their innumerable critics around the country and abroad, so the assertion is vapid on the face of it. You see, anyone who dislikes the orientation of a news channel can claim the same thing, that it "promotes falsehoods and conspiracy theories." That cuts no ice at all and may reveal more about the accuser than the accused. There is a double standard that peeps out in such accusations. How about the mainstream media's constant obsessive falsehoods and blatant conspiracy theories about Trump and first his impeachment offenses against the "emoluments" clause, misuse of campaign finances, blah blah blah, etc. and most persistently the ongoing outrage about his alleged "Russian collusion," which carried on with serial "bombshells" and "explosive revelations" for three whole years, with one dud accusation and conspiracy theory after another evaporating in the light of the next day or week with nary a subsequent full acknowledgement of its error and invalidity in the paper or TV news, no follow-up examination of what went wrong with the reporting, no retraction, apology nor least of all admission of extreme partisanship. The whole claim of Russia conspiracy only ended recently with a whimper with the long-delayed, reluctant publication of the Mueller Report that made clear there had never been any evidence of "Russia collusion" and even suggested that this had become clear to the investigators in the very first months of the Mueller investigation, as evidenced in the hackneyed repetition and continued intentional mispresentation of the same invalid sources of evidence in the repeated FISA applications, and the fact that none of those arraigned before it were charged over those three years with Russia-related offenses, only for other purely personal alleged crimes. Nevertheless, all of the mainstream media has been inundated non-stop with falsehoods and conspiracy theories and still is doing so, with the current hullabaloo relating to the Ukraine. None of the mainstream media, so far as I am aware, have shown themselves to be reliable non-partisan sources that fairly and equally report on all sides of these issues without wilful partisan omissions, distortions or untruths. So the only standard can be the evidentiary one, relying on the facts alone fully examined in context, as assessed by common sense, logic and knowledge of law and the Constitution (in this case) as the Senate Republican lawyers defending Trump have so very clearly and eloquently demonstrated in their detailed trenchant but quiet review of the items of information omitted, distorted, or simply invented by the House Democratic Impeachment managers. That is the sort of standard that should rule Wikipedia too. It is appropriate to the NPOV standard. 122.111.212.235 (talk) 13:43, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

OAN is not a reliable source for use on Wikipedia - see WP:DEPS. The fact that you consider it reliable is prima facie evidence that your judgment of what constitutes a reliable source is out of line with Wikipedia's, almost certainly because your information comes from the right-wing media bubble, which rewards ideological "Truth" in the way mainstream media rewards factual accuracy.

If your reading of the Mueller report leads you to conclude that there was "no collusion", then again your evaluation of sources is incompatible with Wikipedia norms. Mueller clearly states that the Trump campaign welcomed interference from Russia and then obstructed investigations of that interference. The "no collusion" narrative relies ion a bait-and-switch: Mueller did not find the necessary combination of both knowledge and intent that's necessary to prove conspiracy (which has been characterised as the "too dumb to crime" defence); in the conservative media, no prosecution for criminal conspiracy means no collusion, despite the evidence of actual collusion (e.g. the "I love it" message from Don Jr).

I am amused by the idea of Senate Republicans being eloquent though. That places quite a high value on variations on "laa laa laa I'm not listening". Guy (help!) 14:43, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

But "laa laa laa I'm not listening" is just what you have been saying all along, Guy ... as you well know. The Mueller Report itself declared in so many words that it found no evidence of collusion with Russia by any Trump team member. Check it out. You must have missed that page. It is in the summary conclusion. The sneering wilful mischaracterisation of the Republican rebuttal of House Democrat claims tells us you consider Republicans or anyone challenging the Swamp not even worthy to listen to and certainly not to take seriously, or you have decided you are to be permanently incapable of doing so anyway, beyond debate. Your definition of "Wikipedia norms" sounds suspiciously limited only to "people who agree with me." Others do not get a look-in. But I must grant that that sort of thing is true of a lot of Wikipedia articles on controversial subjects such as this. I have noticed long ago that Wikipedia is not a reliable non-partisan source on such subjects, which include surprisingly many topics. (Speaking of Russia, I remember years ago when the Russians were still in the process of taking over east Georgia reading an amazing Wikipedia article on that tragic and bloody episode in Georgian history. The article was obviously dominated by Russian troll editors both in the article and the talk page: the entire narrative justified the Russian invasion, and the few Georgian commentators were simply driven off the pages, over-run by the trolls. Authoritarian/totalitarian groups regularly fund these trolling enterprises. Much the same can be observed for example of Middle-Eastern Muslim-related and Chinese topics, in-house Christian ones, and others; Christians in turn are run off in articles significant to secularists, Jewish topics are invaded by very many hostile others, etc. In such matters Wikipedia is simply not a trustworthy source but just like an opinion survey: the most numerous and aggressively motivated group constituency or set of bullies carry the day and embody the final "consensus." Polite editors and minorities few in numbers like the Georgians are erased and their causes traduced. It is analogous to the bullying in school yards.) So smug mockery is not surprising. 122.111.212.235 (talk) 17:24, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No, you're referring to the Barr letter, not the Mueller report. Barr's letter materially misrepresented the report. Mueller's testimony to the House reinforced his finding that the Trump campaign actively welcomed assistance from Russia.

Actually not to Barr, but to Mueller's Report. Barr's letter did not materially misrepresent that report. It was frank in dissenting from the report regarding obstruction - not collusion. It's worth remembering as well that Rosenstien agreed with Barr and signed the letter as well. However, your comment shows again that you didn't actually listen for example to the Republican response Saturday morning in the Senate. Mueller's conclusion, in the Report itself, was read out, that "ultimately the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities." Obviously, you would not bother to actually listen seriously to the Republicans, of course. So maybe I can refer you to the Wikipedia article written by fellow-travellors on "Special Counsel investigation": "The investigation "identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign", and determined that the Trump campaign "expected it would benefit electorally" from Russian hacking efforts. However, ultimately "the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities." Footnotes to the pages follow.

The idea that the Guardian is "hard left" is another example of the ridiculous speed with which the Overton window has moved. The Guardian is centre-left. Trump is demolishing policies introduced by Nixon, decrying them as radical far left socialism. Guy (help!) 17:37, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

One of the traits of echo-chambers restricted only to our own sort is that the "center" tends irresistably to be redefined in one's own terms. It slides away drastically from the center actually out there. "We" are the center. So from a Guardian perspective such as you Guy may share, it represents the center left. Actually, it is far left, as a comparison with the voting population today and/or positions taken by center left parties quite recently and certainly a decade or two ago would immediately reveal. Much the same thing has happened in the American Democratic Party, and this is at the root of its present difficulties both in the presidency candidacy and in Congress. It has lost sight of the center. The reference to Nixon's policies as now being seen by Trump as "radical far left socialism" is a systemic and extreme distortion, but I won't argue it here. 122.111.212.235 (talk) 18:12, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I am still dumbfounded by the claim that interference by Ukrainians in the 2016 American presidential election is a “conspiracy theory” and any investigation into it is “politically motivated”. What happened in 2016 is as easy as 1, 2, 3 to understand. I'm a registered Independent and didn't vote for the president but I remember when his campaign chairman resigned and don't like other countries interfering in our elections. RBWilson1000 (talk) 1-21-2020

1. During the 2016 American presidential campaign, news of an investigation into Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort in Ukraine broke in the New York Times on August 14 2016 (see 1st link). The allegations stemmed from an alleged 'secret ledger' listing payments from a pro-Russian political party to the campaign chairman and were quickly picked up by other press. Paul Manafort resigns a few days later on August 19 2016.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/15/us/politics/what-is-the-black-ledger.html

https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/15/politics/clinton-slams-trump-over-manafort-report/index.html

https://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/paul-manafort-resigns-from-trump-campaign-227197

News flash: Manafort was not in the end accused of being involved in any foreign government interference in the U.S., whether Ukrainian or Russian, to the deep disappointment and even anger of FBI interrogators. He ended up being indicted on tax evasion or similar financial misdeeds irrelevant to this topic.122.111.212.235 (talk) 09:24, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

2. Politico reports a Ukrainian-American DNC consultant, Alexandra Chalupa, worked with the Ukrainian embassy in Washington DC to facilitate dissemination of this and other information related to Paul Manafort.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine-sabotage-trump-backfire-233446

3. In 2018, Artem Sytnik of the head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, issued a statement in court that the Ukrainian prosecutor's public release of the alleged records “resulted in meddling in the electoral process of the United States in 2016."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/world/europe/ukraine-paul-manafort.html

RBWilson1000 02:17, January 22, 2020‎ (UTC)

• The Crowdstrike claims are incoherent nonsense. Expressing a preference against a candidate who is clearly compromised by your country's mortal enemy is not "interference". Expressing concern that Donald J. Trump, with his well-known history, is unfit for office, is also not interference. The black ledger was real, Manafort is in jail because of his connections to corrupt Ukrainians, Parnas and Fruman are under indictment for the same, and let's not forget that while Russia's interference had an effect, the alleged interference by Ukraine did not. Guy (help!) 17:20, 22 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If there was anything to the 'black ledger' why didn't Manafort face charges based on it from the Mueller Investigation? I do agree and haven't followed all this Crowdstrike stuff but that still doesn't change the fact that the Ukrainian prosecutors office leaked information regarding an investigation into the Campaign Chairman of an American presidential candidate a few months prior to the election to the New York Times in 2016. RBWilson1000 (talk) 18:31, January 22, 2020‎ (UTC)

You'd have to ask Robert Mueller, but I'm guessing that the charges on which he was convicted were easier to prosecute with the evidence they already had.

A conspiracy theory, as commonly understood, is a false narrative of conspiracy. The claims that Ukraine hacked the US election, that Crowdstrike is a Ukrainian company, that "the server" is now in Ukraine, and so on, is conspiracist claptrap. The fact that certain Ukrainian politicians expressed a preference for anybody-but-Trump over Trump is neither a conspiracy nor particularly surprising, given that he was pushing Kremlin talking points even during the campaign. The election of loose cannons with a predilection for your mortal enemies is not something most politicians would be sanguine about, and in fact politicians in many countries expressed profound reservations about Trump during his campaign.

As to Chalupa, as far as anyone can tell she was not working directly for the DNC but someone suggested she ask certain questions that - and I cannot stress this enough - were relevant only because Manafort was known to be compromised. That's the thing we have to keep sight of: nothing aboutt he Trump campaign or the 2016 election was remotely normal. We had FBI leaks about the Clinton email investigation, causing Comey to make his ill-judged remarks, we had the Internet Research Agency targeting social media, we had microtargeting based on Facebook data stolen by Cambridge Analytica, we had unprecedented amounts of dark money feeding the social media trolls, we had Russia funnelling money into GOP campaigns via the NRA and Parnas and Fruman. It was insane, and anyone with access to real intel data knew it. It's likely that hints from HPSCI will have made it to the ears of both GOP and DNC campaign staff, we know Nunes leaks like a sieve and he's probably not the only one. So I invoke Hanlon's Razor: never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence.

So I guess that's why reliable sources - and thus we - describe the Kremlin-sourced and GOP driven theories as conspiracy theories, and the ones based on fact, as something else. Guy (help!) 19:10, 22 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, Guy, I am a bit confused too, like R. Wilson at the start of this thread. Given that Trump is Putin's puppet and was according to you "pushing Kremlin talking points even during his (Presidential) campaign," and that Russia colluded with Trump secretly or independently on its own to support Trump against Clinton, we get the following: Clinton continued Obama's policies. So she as Secretary of State naturally supported Obama's whispered promise to Medvedev, Putin's deputy, in late 2012, at the back of the auditorium after a news conference in Europe, caught on camera and by microphones, that he would of course certainly accommodate Putin's demands to withdraw anti-missile systems from eastern Europe (defending Poland and Europe generally), but could only do so after the coming election (since the American people could naturally criticise what some might call this collusion/capitulation), and he hoped Putin would understand. Obama never supplied Ukraine with weapons to defend itself; Clinton as his Secretary of State agreed to that. After all, following massive donations to her Clinton Foundation, she had already released or permitted the sale of one-fifth of American uranium resources to Russia during her time in office. And she supported Russia's take-over of the former central power-broker role of the U.S. in the Middle East, allowing the trespass over the faux "red line" Obama drew in the air in regard to Syria. This has given a huge slab of the Middle East to Russia, which even has finally gained a seaport of its own on the Mediterranean, something sought since the Tsarist period. How very Machiavellian Putin was, then, in preferring Trump over the seemingly supine and easily controlled Clinton! That the Obama administration as usual did nothing to restrict or counter Russian influence during the election, and the bagatelle that the Steele Dossier paid for by Clinton's DNC was sourced from a Russian agent and was designed utterly to discredit Trump are all details we need not consider. And look what happened when Trump took over. Those pre-election Trump campaign promises and Kremlin talking points were all acted on, right up to the present. As Putin's puppet, Trump showed the fiendish cleverness of the plan when he ordered cruise missile strikes against a Syrian air base housing many Russians in his fourth month in office. Russia's outraged formal statements threatening reprisals were of course just for show. In July of 2017 to huge crowds of cheering Poles, Trump gave an important, rousing pro-Polish, pro-American and strongly anti-Russian speech in Warsaw promising firm military and other support to Poland, which clarified his foreign policy objectives generally, all obviously according to you, Guy, and John Brennan et al., secretly obeying Moscow's dictates and designed for sinister Russian goals. A year later, in July 2018, Trump under Kremlin direction was reported by mainstream media to have travelled to Europe again and to have boasted to cheering English crowds of his expulsion of record numbers of Russian diplomats from the US following the poisoning of the Skripals in England. He then went on to the Continent, meeting with EU and NATO leaders, excoriating them for not building up their NATO forces to the promised levels in ensuring defense of Europe against Russia, and especially lambasting Germany's Angela Merkle for agreeing to a gas pipe line from Russia that threatened to make Germany permanently hostage to Russian policies and objectives. The puppet then went to Helsinki, and seemed to equivocate in one misspoken phrase (he failed to insert a negative in the phrase as he intended) in a long press conference about Russian interference in American elections, proving openly to his critics' enormous satisfaction and anger that he was (as John Brennan put it) a "traitor" under Putin's control (even though Trump corrected the statement the next day). Notwithstanding the media uproar at this major betrayal the traitor then returned to Washington, D.C., where he calmly ordered an almost $300 million military aid program to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia. Furthermore, still of course secretly obeying Putin's inscrutably clever orders according to you, Guy, and most of the leftist mainsteam media, Trump strangely enough actually withdrew (as he had promised in his Kremlin-directed presidential campaign talking points) from the Iran Nuke Deal, and imposed very heavy sanctions on that terrorist and genocidal regime despite its being an ally of Russia in Syria. Yes, it is evident that Putin the Puppet-Master is indeed a very clever and Machiavellian fellow. He obviously sees far into the future, where we lesser mortals cannot go. Maybe you can instruct me on what his plans are with his little mouthpiece Trump. All of the above events, by the way, are massively documented even in left-wing media sources, and follows much of their analysis, too. -- 122.111.212.235 (talk) 02:35, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That's a remarkable collection of Fox News talking points you have there. We have articles on most of that stuff, so feel free to read them and come back when you've corrected some of your more egregious errors. Guy (help!) 09:14, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hey man, that's all from mainstream media reports. You mean, Trump never did go to Europe in July 2018 and brag about expelling lots of Russian diplomats? He never insisted on strengthening NATO defense forces against possible Russian aggression, stopping the Russian gas-line project into Germany, or ordering after his return to D.C. hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine (the first significant military assistance from the U.S. that country received since the Russian invasion of east Ukraine)? Was it all just a media fantasy? I thought it was all solid facts, Guy, irrefutable to any honest person. There you go, I just trust the NYT, WaPo, CNN, MSNBC too darn much. They said it happened, but it didn't. It was not reported by them at all. For according to you, all these events, and accusations, were just "Fox News talking points," which are of course automatically not worthy of attention since they are not leftist. How about that? But of course you really know better, Guy, deep in your heart of hearts. However, your response is politically very consistent indeed, even if it manifestly makes you unreliable as an editor in Wikipedia. In any case, Fox News is every bit as reliable and non-partisan as the NYT, WaPo, CNN, MSNBC, etc., since I agree with you they are very partisan sources, just leftist when Fox News is rightist. So what? It's the hard evidence of facts that matter, and that's all I listed. You actually have not refuted them, just wished them away. 122.111.212.235 (talk) 09:48, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"From" being the operative word.

“THE CONSISTENT PATTERN that emerges from our data is that, both during the highly divisive election campaign and even more so during the first year of the Trump presidency, there is no left-right division, but rather a division between the right and the rest of the media ecosystem. The right wing of the media ecosystem behaves precisely as the echo-chamber models predict—exhibiting high insularity, susceptibility to information cascades, rumor and conspiracy theory, and drift toward more extreme versions of itself. The rest of the media ecosystem, however, operates as an interconnected network anchored by organizations, both for profit and nonprofit, that adhere to professional journalistic norms.”

— Yochai Benkler, Network Propaganda

Yes, with determination you can synthesise something from reality based reporting that looks, if you squint hard enough, something like the conservative narrative. But that only works if you ignore the full facts of the issues. We follow reliable sources in characterising things like Crowdstrike and "Ukraine hacked 2016" as conspiracy theories, and the rest as things that either happened or, in some cases, provably didn't despite insistence to the contrary. Like Biden wanting Shokin fired to protect Hunter, which makes no sense at any level. Guy (help!) 11:46, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If Shokin was not actually pursuing corruption issues at Burisma as Biden claimed, you are entirely right, Guy, it would make no sense at any level for Biden to get him fired: his son's corruption would not be revealed to anyone nor made an issue of in his own political circles and future. But if directly contrary to Biden himself Shokin actually was pressing on with corruption investigations and indicating this to Burisma itself just the week or so before Biden's visit, there was on the contrary every reason in the world for Biden urgently to insist he must go, now, immediately, in 6 hours or else: a quid quo pro theatrically boasted of before the world that you seem oblivious of. Your quote from Benkler seems to me to well describe the leftist media bubble as aptly or more so than the rightist version. The so-called professional journalism of the mainstream leftist media has notably displayed itself before all of us these past four years, actually, as astonishingly incompetent, truly unprofessional in ethics and standards, unable for example to correct itself due to political bias that ends up confusing straight reporting with editorial opinionising, unwilling to investigate contrary evidence seriously and thoroughly, etc., etc., etc. These past years have been a bitter revelation of how base the media can go, without remorse or any of the self-correction Benkler boasts of. Have a read of that Mark Levin book, Unfreedom of the Press, that I recommended to you. He lays out the case very well. Benkler obviously could learn something too. It is a misfortune for our Republic. 122.111.212.235 (talk) 18:50, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• What we know about the Politico story at the heart of a Ukraine conspiracy theory by Daniel Funke, Jon Greenberg, Louis Jacobson PolitiFact December 3rd, 2019

X1\ (talk) 01:01, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The "instead of Russia" is a narrative that has been pushed by the media, which falsely claims, that Trump and/or Republicans at any point in time, have made the claim that Russia did not interfere in the elections. In fact, many prominent republicans have made statements, that they certainly do not deny Russian interference, but they also are questioning Ukraine election interference. What happened, is that Trump uttered a theory about CrowdStrike, as the call transcript Trump/Zelensky shows), and that he thought it was Ukraine, not Russia who hacked and/or covered up the DNC e-mail hacking. The DNC hack was only a part of the election meddling of Russia, but media have generalized the statement to include ALL interference, as it being something Trump et al would have proposed. There is no evidence of such a thing, and thus this sentence should at the very least be changed into something reflecting the limited scope of the statement (e.g. "One such theory seeks to blame Ukraine, instead of Russia for the hacking of the DNC servers" (if indeed this is a reference to the CrowdStrike theory). Milanbishop

It's a Russian narrative, and that is indeed the claim. The fact that some of those who wish to appear less insane miss off the most unbelievable part does not really change the underlying theory. Guy (help!) 19:12, 24 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Even if that were the case (i.e. there is a Kremlin-fed narrative that Russia has no guilt in meddling ("instead of Russia" source?? ) there are no reliable primary sources (WP:VERIFIABILITY) that such theory is promoted by Trump et al. If there are in fact, two theories ( "also" and "instead" ), further nuance is warranted like previously stated e.g.:

"One such theory seeks to blame Ukraine, instead of Russia for the hacking of the DNC servers"

"One such theory seeks to put blame on Ukraine in interfering in the election"

The only person that has linked DNC server hacking to be Ukraine and not Russia was Trump, and in contrast many Republicans have refuted the claim that they are proposing Russia did not meddle, and have specifically told reporters that they believe Russia was the primary meddler, but there are concerns, Ukraine officials also were doing some stuff they shouldn't. This goes back to the Politico/2017 Financial TImes/2016 articles. Will provide a list of sources later. Milanbishop (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:14, 2 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There is a NYT article cited, that provides some of the aspects of the conspiracy theories, but there are numerous instances over the last 3 or so years of the Republicans rejecting (or at least downplaying) US Intelligence reports (and Muellers investigation) into Russian interference where it pertains to supporting Trump and Republican candidates and have rejected attempts to take official stands on the subject where possible, in particular framing any investigation as an effort by deep state actors to overturn the election results (which was a popular refrain of Nunes and co during the impeachment hearings).[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] It is significant that Fiona Hill actually explicitly stated the very thing you are denying is taking place, or has taken place.[14]. Koncorde (talk) 10:51, 4 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]