One interesting takeaway from Trump’s impeachment hearings occurred when former White House national security expert Fiona Hill gave testimony on her conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin on fracking.

The Washington Free Beacon reports:

Under questioning from Rep. Mike Conaway (R., Tex.) at a hearing on the impeachment of President Donald Trump, Hill agreed that a ban on fracking would play into Putin’s hands.

“In November 2011, I actually sat next to Vladimir Putin in a conference in which he made precisely that point,” she said. “It was the first time that he had actually done so to a group of American journalists and experts who were brought to something called the Valdai Discussion Club. So he started in 2011 making it very clear that he saw American fracking as a great threat to Russian interests.”

Hill added everyone in attendance was struck by how much Putin stressed the issue at the time. Putin has continued to oppose American fracking, which has transformed the U.S. into the world’s top oil and gas producer and reduced Russia’s influence in the global energy market. It has also helped reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a goal of climate change advocates. [Click here to watch the clip.]

The irony was unmissable. Democrats have spent the past three years asserting that President Trump is a Russian asset — even after his exoneration from collusion charges in the Mueller report — while their own presidential candidates are carrying water for a serious Putin policy objective.

Consider that:

• Joe Biden: supports a fracking ban on federal lands.
• Elizabeth Warren: support a ban on fracking.
• Bernie Sanders: supports a ban on fracking.
• Pete Buttigieg: supports a ban on fracking.
• Kamala Harris: supports a ban on fracking.

Thanks in part to President Trump’s success in reducing government red tape, America is now the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas. If President Trump is a Manchurian candidate, he has a funny way of showing it since 60 percent of Russia’s total exports come from oil and gas.

President Trump also dealt a significant energy-related blow to Russia with his decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Treaty, which some Democrats are currently hoping to add back to USMCA.

As National Review had noted, “The Paris Agreement is the mother and father of one-sided deals. It requires the United States to keep cutting its emissions in perpetuity irrespective of what anyone else does.” China, India, and Russia are all permitted to increase emissions under the agreement.

The Paris agreement also included a United Nations climate slush fund whose tab would have largely fallen on the backs of American taxpayers.

2020 Democrats: your fracking ban plays right into Putin’s hands. Stop colluding.

Photo credit: Nicholas A. Tonelli via Flickr, CC BY 2.0