Merged All things Trump + Russia

[Belz...]

A blatant lie given you've been around the whole thread.

Then by all means, and without quoting your usual Russian sources, what exactly is false about what I said?

Your methods are utterly transparent. I for one can tell you, and suspect there a many readers agreeing with me, that Ziggurat, with whom I rarely share a political view, has exposed your time-wasting and profoundly dishonest games pretty thorougly.

I don't play games. I am not dishonest. Do you have anything to say about the content of my post, or do you have nothing but personal attacks?

Alternatively you could expose this "game" you think I'm playing, but for my part the "game" is discussing facts and logic. Unlike you I have no incentive to pick a "side" on the political spectrum.

 

[Civet]

She's an operative for her client, which is not the Russian government. In case somebody missed it, The Hill had an interesting article about her lobbying tour including questions about why she was in the country in the first place:

Exclusive: DOJ let Russian lawyer into US before she met with Trump team

I was talking about the term as it applied to that Peter Smith guy that died.

 

[Belz...]

They met with a lawyer who is not an agent of Russia and got no information.

They met with a lawyer who was purportedly an agent of Russia at a minimum. I've explained to you why I think she was an agent, and you've been told why whether she actually is is irrelevant to the legality of their actions. Do you even read the posts people write for your benefit?

Your "assuredly" is speculative.

You must be joking. Do you really think they'd give them this information with no expectation of a return?

I'm not ignoring everything that's revealed. I am, however, ignoring the majority of the speculation and hypothesizing that invariably accompanies them.

No, you cannot possibly say that it's speculation at this point. Not with this latest scandal.

 

[trustbutverify]

Kellyanne Conway explains:

I'm convinced.

 

[trustbutverify]

Then by all means, and without quoting your usual Russian sources, what exactly is false about what I said?

You imperialist bastard.

 

[Belz...]

Kellyanne Conway explains:

What an idiot. And damn are those FOX tools mouthpieces of the GOP.

"Yes, of course we did something wrong. But at least we've admitted it, while the other side hasn't!"

Apparently it doesn't dawn on those muppets that the reason why the other side hasn't admitted anything is the same reason why nothing was revealed about them: there's nothing there to see! And it also ignores the fact that their own side tried to hide it for months and only released this information because they had no choice.

I've had actual, mostly smart people throw this sort of argument at me "yeah but at least Trump lies in the open, not like Clinton!" You heard it here, folks. Not admitting to a crime you didn't commit is worse than admitting to one you did!

 

[NoahFence]

I saw a Facebook post that said the Donnie jr meeting was taped?

I'm on my phone so I can't do research crap.... sorry!

 

[skyeagle409]

The emails are not proof that anything was illegal.

It was illegal for Trump Jr to attend that meeting and he should have contacted the FBI right away upon receiving those emails.

Donald Trump Jr 'potentially confessed a crime' in his statement on Russian lawyer meeting, says legal analyst

Donald Trump’s eldest son may have already confessed to a crime in his statements about a newly-revealed meeting with a Russian lawyer, according to a legal analyst and former Justice Department official.

But at least one analyst has claimed that Mr Trump’s eldest son may have already admitted to committing a crime in his comments about the meeting with lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya. “I think the main thing is what Donald Trump Jr admitted to in his statement,” said Matthew Miller, a security and legal analyst for MSNBC and former spokesman for the Department of Justice.

“It is a crime to solicit or accept anything of value from a foreign national in a campaign. Now, the thing of value has never come up in this context before because we’ve never had a campaign like this that potentially colluded with a foreign government,” he said on the network's Morning Joe show.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...otentially-msnbc-matthew-miller-a7833796.html

What would have happened if Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner attended that meeting after receiving those emails and not knowing those emails were part of a government sting operation?

.

 

[acbytesla]

GOP Operative involved with Russians commits Suicide; Shades of Vince Foster?

A Republican Party operative who said he tried to obtain Hillary Clinton’s emails from Russian hackers committed suicide days after speaking to The Wall Street Journal, records acquired by the Chicago Tribune show.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...sought-clintons-emails-committed-suicide.html

Some of you may be a little young for this, but Vince Foster, an attorney at the Rose Law firm in Arkansas where Hillary Clinton was a partner committed suicide. After which every right wing nutjob suggested that the Clintons arranged to have him killed so he wouldn't talk talk with Whitewater investigators. It began a cottage industry of conspiracy theories about how the Clintons killed countless people. There was a website called the Clinton Body Count.

Will some crazy liberal flip the script?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Why flip?
It was obviously a revenge-killing by Clinton.
Duh.

 

[skyeagle409]

.
Things are looking black in the White House.

WH aides exposed to scrutiny over Russia meeting response

(CNN)A scramble by White House aides to respond to the brewing controversy over Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with a Russian lawyer may have exposed those aides to special counsel scrutiny.

They can now be called on by investigators led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller to explain what they may have learned about the meeting that the President's eldest son, Trump Jr., his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort had with the Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/13/politics/white-house-donald-trump-jr-scrutiny/index.html?adkey=bn

 

[jimbob]

They met with a lawyer who is not an agent of Russia and got no information. Your "assuredly" is speculative.

I'm not ignoring everything that's revealed. I am, however, ignoring the majority of the speculation and hypothesizing that invariably accompanies them. And I'm ignoring the overwhelming majority of unattributed and unverified "anonymous source" information. I'm also ignoring the interpretation of non-lawyers with respect to the application of law, and the interpretation of non-psychiatrists with respect to medical mental health diagnoses. I'm also ignoring all of the freewheeling "what he really meant" sludge piled on top of every statement by someone from the white house.

Trump's team *thought* that she was acting for Putin. That's in the emails.

Events otherwise and the timeline suggest that she probably was.

 

[jimbob]

just bumping the current version of the timeline for reference.

@Emily's Cat, the timings look highly... coincidental... if "nothing came of the meeting" as claimed by the person who has already changed his story several times.

Adding events pertaining to Roger Stone / Podesta:

My additions in Red

Mar 19| Podesta email hacked
Apr 19| DCLeaks.com registered
May 3| Trump becomes presumptive nominee
June 3| Goldstone contacts Trump Jr. to setup meeting which promises to discuss Clinton June 7 17:16 | Don Jr. confirms meeting w/ Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya June7 21:13 | Trump promises press conf the next week with Clinton dirt
June 8| Trump posts link to DCLeaks
June 9| Trump Jr, Kushner, Manafort meet with Russian operative
June 12| Assange announces Clinton emails
June 27| Hacked emails posted to DCLeaks
July 11| Trump/Manafort nix pro-Ukranian plank in GOP platform (and lie about it)
Late July | Malware researchers spot unusual server activity between Trump server and Alfa Bank**
Aug 21| Roger Stone writes "it will soon be Podesta's time in the barrel"
Oct 27| Wikileaks releases Podesta emails*
2017 - May| DOJ drops money laundering case against client of Natalia Veselnitskaya***

* An hour after pussy-grabbing video released.


**Unusual activity noticed between Russian bank and Trump server

ETA:*** http://thehill.com/homenews/adminis...-know-why-doj-dismissed-money-laundering-case

 

[Stacko]

I was talking about the term as it applied to that Peter Smith guy that died.

It's a lie anyway.

 

[trustbutverify]

Trump's team *thought* that she was acting for Putin. That's in the emails.

Events otherwise and the timeline suggest that she probably was.

Sometimes I get the crazy feeling there might have been some sort of deal made at that meeting.

 

[Minoosh]

Did you read the interview with Veselnitskaya? She says of the twenty minutes the meeting went, Kushner left after seven minutes or so (after it was clear that she had no dirt on Clinton), and Manafort was sitting in the corner the whole time, busy with his smartphone or whatever. After all, this was in Trump Tower. They didn't meet under a bridge or something.

That doesn't really help much though, does it? Manafort and Kushner, in his own way, realized quickly this wasn't valuable to Trump Sr. It actually reinforces the idea that they wanted/expected Veselnitskaya to offer dirt about Hillary and bailed when it wasn't forthcoming. It may takes Russia off the hook in regards to government-sponsored meddling, but Manafort and Kushner? No. They lost interest when they realized the lawyer did not have dirt on Hillary. But they were certainly willing to hear what she had to say.

It doesn't really reflect on Russia's official involvement or lack of involvement in the matter. This is about what key Trump insiders thought they were going to hear, and what Trump Sr. was told, and when.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

I believe the Russians were just too subtle for the Trump crew: the lawyer knew she couldn't just offer aid in form of FSB research without landing the campaign in deep trouble. Hence the "lobbying against sanctions" Gambit, and also as a way to test how Moscow-friendly the administration would likely be.
Veselnitskaya was already on thin ice, legally: if anyone at Trump Tower had called the FBI, she would have been in massive trouble if caught with Russian intel on Clinton, and it would have reflected badly on Putin.
But plausible deniability doesn't really matter for the Trump clan, so they probably didn't understand why she didn't just drop of a bag of rubles and a Clinton sex-tape.

 

[quadraginta]

Trump's lawyers have known of Fredo's emails since at least June.



IANAL but it seems like malpractice not to have informed their client of this. Although, Propublica has reported that Kasowitz may be back on the sauce so that ma be affecting his judgement.

He has lawyers for plausible deniability.

"What's that you say? Junior? Agents of a foreign power? Of course I don't know anything about it. I have lawyers for that."

 

[quadraginta]

Kellyanne Conway explains:





Caution: Trigger warning for some

Is she channeling Ziggurat, or is he channeling her?

 

[quadraginta]

Can't help yourself, can you? Have to stick to this same pitiful attempt at misdirection no matter how often it is debunked.

Okay. One more time.

It doesn't matter whether she was or not. What matters is that they believed she was, and chose to meet with her because of that belief.

No, actually, that doesn't matter either. And it doesn't matter that they believed her to be an agent of the Russian government because it doesn't matter if she really was an agent of the government. The law in question makes no reference to or mention of foreign agents or governments.

Oddly enough, in an earlier post I pointed out exactly that to her, and by some coincidence I even gave you credit for being among those making the clarification.

So yeah. I know that.

But she is the one fixated on 'agents', and that was what her post was about, so that is what I responded to.

If she had been an undercover agent for the FEC and had been born in Fort Wayne it still wouldn't matter because what does matter is their intent.

Nope. That doesn't matter either. The law in question doesn't depend on intent in any way.

The law about receiving aid from a foreign national doesn't.

Questions of conspiracy to do so certainly do.

Got it? Yet?

If you don't, then it can only be because of willful avoidance of an obvious truth, and anything more you say on the subject can be reasonably disregarded.

It's funny you should advance that position, after getting the fundamentals completely wrong.

It might be funnier if I actually was getting them wrong. But the record here is clear. I am not.

What is especially funny is that you are in essence trying the same sort of misdirection as EC.