Trump, Ukraine and Weaponized Diasporas

I have a new subscriber-only letter — the very first! — looking at the weaponized immigrant dimension of the Trump-Ukraine meddling scandal and the larger war over RussiaGate that this latest skirmish comes out of. It was going to be a very short note, but it grew into something a bit more substantial. Naturally there’s a Nazi collabo family that’s involved!

Here’s the top level content:

I’ve been in Russia for the release of the Russian-language edition of Surveillance Valley and haven’t been able to follow the latest iteration of the Trump-Ukraine meddling scandal — this one about Hunter Biden’s shady work in Ukraine — as closely as I would like. But I’ve been watching the larger story around this develop for a few years now and one thing that’s interesting about it is that it has a very big weaponized immigrant component.

There were a lot of shady sources that helped fuel the RussiaGate narrative. But what people forget today is that a big chunk of that “intel” was procured and spread around by Ukrainian-American political operatives. Their role has never been a secret. Those involved have openly talked — hell, even bragged — about it in the press.

What interests me here the geopolitical aspect of American immigrant and diaspora privilege: Some immigrant communities can openly boast about working with a foreign power to influence an American presidential election and face no repercussions — all because their meddling fits in with the larger interests of America’s foreign policy establishment.

Read the full letter here: https://yasha.substack.com/p/trump-ukraine-and-weaponized-diasporas

—Yasha Levine