The Sellout of Ukraine Is Nearly Complete

Plus, the crisis at the Department of Justice over Eric Adams is one of the most significant in the history of the department.

I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality of American politics. If you were sent this email or are a free subscriber and would like to become a paid subscriber, you can sign up here.

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Earlier this week, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth really stepped in it:

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday that the war between Ukraine and Russia “must end,” that Kyiv joining NATO is unrealistic and that the US will no longer prioritize European and Ukrainian security as the Trump administration shifts its attention to securing the US’ own borders and deterring war with China.

… “The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement,” Hegseth said. And he added that any security guarantees offered to Ukraine “must be backed by capable European and non-European troops.”

“To be clear, as part of any security guarantee, there will not be US troops deployed to Ukraine,” he said.

Hegseth also said that a return to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders, before Russia invaded Crimea and eastern Ukraine, “is an unrealistic objective.”

On the substance, I actually agree with Hegseth. NATO membership is almost certainly not in the cards for Ukraine — and that’s the right outcome. Granting Ukraine NATO membership would increase the potential for war between the US and Russia, which the US should do everything in its power to avoid. In addition, a return to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders would mean the return of Crimea, which has never been a realistic possibility. There’s been a lot of magical thinking about the likely outcome of this war, and one could argue that Hegseth’s statement is a necessary corrective.

The problem with the SecDef’s comments is that he made them publicly. Previously, the US position on NATO membership was ambiguous. At the NATO Summit in Vilnius in July 2023, President Joe Biden said that "Ukraine's future lies at NATO," but he also said that the country was not yet ready for NATO membership and that the war with Russia would need to end before the alliance would consider extending an invitation to Kyiv. Membership wasn’t off the table, but it was still a possibility (even if, realistically, it seemed unlikely ever to happen).

Now, with Hegseth’s comments, the ambiguity is gone. By saying the quiet part loud, he has directly undercut Ukraine’s negotiating position should Kyiv and Moscow ever hold talks about ending the war. Hegseth has taken two of the most significant potential Ukranian concessions to Russia off the table. Now Russia has every incentive to take a harder line in negotiations than if Hegseth had kept his mouth shut.

Moreover, he's further boosted Russia by putting Ukrainian security on Europe’s plate and downplaying a US role in providing security guarantees to Kyiv. If Moscow doesn’t have to worry about the US providing long-term security guarantees to Ukraine, there’s even less reason for Putin to consider a negotiated deal. Putin might want to end the war, but Ukraine desperately needs it to end — and with Ukraine unable to rely on NATO’s biggest member for support — Russia can keep the fighting going and ensure that when the Ukrainians begin negotiations, they’ll be in a much weaker position, both politically and militarily.

Indeed, the greatest irony in Hegseth’s comments, which focused on the need for the war to end, is that this increases the likelihood that the war will continue.

Hegseth screwed up so badly that it took less than 24 hours for him to partially back off his comments and for US officials to claim that NATO membership was not officially off the table — but the damage has already been done.

And to add insult to injury, Hegseth’s boss made these infelicitous comments at a press conference with the Indian Prime Minister.

I think that when you look at Ukraine and when you look at the mess that they're in, it's got to be ended and it's got to be stopped. Now, Russia has taken over a pretty big chunk of territory.

And they also have said from day one, long before President Putin, they've said they cannot have Ukraine be a NATO. They said that very strongly … But from long before Putin, they said, “You cannot have Ukraine going in in any way into NATO.” I start from that standpoint

… I will tell you that I've heard that Russia would never accept that. I think Ukraine knew that because Ukraine wasn't in and never requested to be in until more recently. That's the way it is, and I think that's the way it's going to to be.

At the outset it needs to be pointed out, it’s simply insane that Trump’s starting position on NATO membership for Ukraine is PUTIN’S STARTING POSITION! One might expect that the starting position for the President of the United States is what is in America’s strategic and national security interests.

However, the real story is that Trump is making Hegseth’s statement worse. He is aligning the US with Russia’s position on NATO membership for Ukraine. I’ll be the first to acknowledge that NATO membership for Ukraine was likely not going to happen, but saying it should be off the table because the war needs to end is rewarding Moscow for invading Ukraine — and demanding nothing in return. In fact, in an Oval Office statement this week, Trump basically blamed the Russian invasion on Ukraine’s desire for NATO membership.

If there was any question that the Trump administration would ultimately sell Kyiv out to curry favor with the Russians, Hegseth and now Trump have provided an answer. To be sure, the war was never going to end well for Ukraine, and Kyiv will undoubtedly need to make difficult concessions to Moscow. But Trump has helped make those painful steps far worse, all the while giving Russia more leeway to prosecute the war and seek an even better outcome when negotiations finally take place.

One More Thing

• The smarter play by Hegseth would have been to make these comments privately to Ukrainian President Zelensky — then leak the conversation but have US officials publicly deny it ever happened. Doing so would send a message to Ukrainians that Trump is strong-arming Zelensky and would give him some measure of political cover if and likely when he is forced to explain these concessions to his people. Denying the leak could signal to the Russians that the US was still sticking to a position of ambiguity on NATO membership.

What’s Going On

• Please take a few minutes today to read the extraordinary letter from Danielle Sassoon, the now-former US attorney for the Southern District of New York, refusing to carry out an order to dismiss federal corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams. (By the way, Sassoon is a member of the Federalist Society and former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

• Five other officials at the Department of Justice have resigned since Sassoon's resignation. This is perhaps the most significant crisis in the department's history. The closing paragraph from Hagen Scotten’s resignation letter (he was the lead prosecutor in the Adams case) is truly something.

  

• According to Sassoon’s letter, Adams's lawyers “repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the department’s enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed.” She also said that Emil Bove, the department’s acting deputy attorney general, “chastised” a member of her team for taking notes and asked for any notes taken in the meeting to be confiscated. What’s particularly amazing about this series of events is that rather than reject Adams's quid pro quo request — which is what 99 percent of prosecutors would do — Bove asked, “Where do I sign?”

• There are growing calls for Adams to resign and, if he doesn’t, for New York Governor Kathy Hochul to oust him as a mayor — a right she has as governor. Adams is so clearly corrupted (he appeared earlier today on Fox and Friends with Trump’s Border Czar, Tom Homan) and so clearly putting his legal issues ahead of his responsibilities as Mayor that I think this is more likely to happen than not. (Though Hochul is so feckless and risk-averse that Adams might hang on).

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