Cont: The Trump Presidency Part III

[ChristianProgressive]

Of course any attempt by a foreign power to influence a US election is a cause for concern, not to say chastisement where appropriate. It may be done legally but it would still be a violation.

It actually is illegal for a foreign power to have ANY influence on the election.

Nathaniel Persily at Stanford University Law School said one relevant statute is the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002.

"A foreign national spending money to influence a federal election can be a crime," Persily said. "And if a U.S. citizen coordinates, conspires or assists in that spending, then it could be a crime."

Persily pointed to a 2011 U.S. District Court ruling based on the 2002 law. The judges said that the law bans foreign nationals "from making expenditures to expressly advocate the election or defeat of a political candidate."

Another election law specialist, John Coates at Harvard University Law School, said if Russians aimed to shape the outcome of the presidential election, that would meet the definition of an expenditure.

"The related funds could also be viewed as an illegal contribution to any candidate who coordinates (colludes) with the foreign speaker," Coates said.

To be sure, no one is saying that coordination took place. What’s in doubt is whether the word "collusion" is as pivotal as Jarrett makes it out to be.

Coates said discussions between a campaign and a foreigner could violate the law against fraud.

"Under that statute, it is a federal crime to conspire with anyone, including a foreign government, to ‘deprive another of the intangible right of honest services,’ " Coates said. "That would include fixing a fraudulent election, in my view, within the plain meaning of the statute."

Josh Douglas at the University of Kentucky Law School offered two other possible relevant statutes.

"Collusion in a federal election with a foreign entity could potentially fall under other crimes, such as against public corruption," Douglas said. "There's also a general anti-coercion federal election law."

http://www.politifact.com/punditfac...ws-hosts-wrong-no-law-forbids-russia-trump-c/

 

[fuelair]

That was why Kushner's and Don Jr's meeting was pretty close to a smoking gun.

All of them smell of taint!!!!!

 

[Oystein]

Ok, my only condition is that if I lose I get to pay by sending you an Amazon gift code for $100. Is that ok? More anonymous that way.

That would be ok, and vice versa. I trust we'll work it out in three years, I am not going to predict which means of payments I'll prefer then. I am in Europe, not sure how Amazon will handle gift codes across the water then.

 

[Belz...]

Of course any attempt by a foreign power to influence a US election is a cause for concern, not to say chastisement where appropriate. It may be done legally but it would still be a violation.

I have no issue with that. But it doesn't invalidate the results in and of itself.

 

[Stacko]

He's trying to pick a twitter fight with Michael Moore.

 

[Andy_Ross]

He's trying to pick a twitter fight with Michael Moore.

Deflection.

 

[Tero]

That meeting's not in the dossier so it doesn't signfiy. Only the dossier signifies. Everything stems from the dossier. One dossier to rule them all ...

Bring down the dossier and the whole story collapses. Then we can get back to Clinton and stuff which really matters.

??
There is no ”bring down the dossier” anymore since many points in the Steele dossier have been independently proven. He can only be blamed for invesigators being pointed in the right direction. No pee pee tape does not delete the rest of Trump crimes.

 

[Minoosh]

??
There is no ”bring down the dossier” anymore since many points in the Steele dossier have been independently proven. He can only be blamed for invesigators being pointed in the right direction. No pee pee tape does not delete the rest of Trump crimes.

Not sure the urination incident would have been against the law - though if I were that hotel I would have insisted on a replacement mattress.

 

[Stacko]

More lies. The files were released as scheduled by the JFK Assassination Records Act of 1992.

 

[Stacko]

He's trying to pick a twitter fight with Michael Moore.

And Playbill just fact checked Trump.

 

[SezMe]

That was James Inhofe.

Oops. You're right.

 

[TheSupermeerkat]

The wanker is golfing again. I remember someone bitching aboiut Obama playing golf and say if they were president there would be no time for such things.

Silly! Donald is the greatest and bestest and winningest president, so it’s ok when he does it.

 

[SezMe]

Above the very local gov't level, candidates become known primarily through media buys. How does a citizen know of a particular candidate to assign tax monies for campaigning, if they were precluded private fundraising prior to that point.

Since even cable companies use public infrastructure, require all TV outlets to carry a minimum number of minutes of free ads every election cycle.

 

[SezMe]

I think it is clear that the Clinton campaign did pay for some negative research about Trump...but then paying for negative research has become SOP for every campaign nowdays.
They saw that the research was crap,and decided it would be self defeating to use it.
BTW what happened tonight indicates why this cropped up just now.

Yeah, I'm having a real problem figuring out what the issue is regarding the dossier. Is there a political campaign above city council that doesn't do oppo research. And the higher the office, the extensive and expensive it is.

 

[SezMe]

Probable cause in the 4th Amendment sense means preponderance of the evidence that the person subject to the search or arrest has committed a crime.

But impeachment does not require that the President has been proven to have committed a crime. Ask Tricky Dick.

 

[SezMe]

that would actually be outside the scope of the investigation, which is specifically tasked with looking for Russian meddling in the election.
Only if these crimes relate to Manafort working for Russia would this argument fly.

Meuller's plan may be to indict one or more third level scum then use the threat of jail time to get evidence against Trump.

 

[SezMe]

Ok, my only condition is that if I lose I get to pay by sending you an Amazon gift code for $100. Is that ok? More anonymous that way.

Oystein, make it a condition that if he loses, he has to admit it in the most active Trump thread at the time.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I agree, only if the election was indeed tainted. That has not been established. I'm also not convinced that changing people's minds about voting counts as tainted. Votes were not entered illegally.

So if the Trump campaign broke the law, assisted the Russians interfering in the election, and that included flooding social media with fake stories in addition to ads (which being placed by a foreign power are illegal), supplied voter data information such as that obtained by the RNC to the Russians ... none of that tainted the election?

What do you think election laws are for?

To define tainting an election so narrowly that 'taint' only means manipulating the vote counts suggests you might not understand what election laws are about.

 

[SezMe]

I've noticed that you don't really understand what evidence is. Evidence is any piece of knowledge which, if and when obtained, would increase the posteriori Bayesian probability of a claim being over the a priori Bayesian probability of the same claim being true. The very admission by Steele in his dossier that he has over half a dozen different sources high up in the Russian government is evidence that he has paid them.

You need to take your own advice. That he has Russian sources is NOT evidence that he paid them.

 

[BobTheCoward]

So if the Trump campaign broke the law, assisted the Russians interfering in the election, and that included flooding social media with fake stories in addition to ads (which being placed by a foreign power are illegal), supplied voter data information such as that obtained by the RNC to the Russians ... none of that tainted the election?

What do you think election laws are for?

To define tainting an election so narrowly that 'taint' only means manipulating the vote counts suggests you might not understand what election laws are about.

People understand what they are purportedly about. That doesn't mean we agree or think they are right.

Yes, I would call that an untainted election.