Fox’s Wallace presses Pence chief of staff on Ukraine 2016 conspiracy theories

Fox News’s Chris Wallace pressed Vice President Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, on Sunday over conspiracy theories about Ukrainian interference in the 2016 elections, which have been characterized as Russian disinformation.

“It doesn’t have to be an either/or,” Short said on “Fox News Sunday” when Wallace questioned him on whether President Trump continues to believe Ukraine interfered in the elections.

{mosads}”He thinks that we should at least investigate it, Chris. … When Russia interfered in our election, Barack Obama was president and Joe Biden was vice president, and Joe Biden himself said he was in charge of Ukraine policy, and his son is getting between $50,000 and $80,000 a month to serve on a board where he has no experience whatsoever,” Short continued, referring to the 2020 Democratic presidential front-runner and his son Hunter Biden. 

“It seems like we could never get enough investigation of foreign interference in our elections for three years, but as soon as the president asks for it, it’s like, hey, we must impeach him,” Short continued.

“That’s not why it happened, as you know,” Wallace countered. “There was a phone call, and there was a question of conditionality of a White House visit and giving the military aid. It was on that basis that [Trump] was asking for the investigation.”

Wallace also noted a Washington Post report that said Trump had gotten the idea that Ukraine interfered in the elections directly from Russian President Vladimir Putin and told staff that “Putin told me.”

Short responded, “I never heard that.”

The House last week approved two articles of impeachment related to Trump’s request that Ukraine investigate Biden and his son while U.S. military aid to Kyiv was being withheld.