Cont: Breaking: Mueller Grand Jury charges filed, arrests as soon as Monday pt 2

Status
Not open for further replies.
Emily's Cat said:
:confused: The position you seem to hold is a bit confusing to me. It seems that you think it's acceptable for a candidate to hire a foreign spy to dig up dirt on their opponent... but that it's not acceptable for a candidate to consider accepting dirt on their opponent if they are NOT paying a foreign person for it?
Click to expand...

If Clinton directly or indirectly hired people to collect information, it doesn't matter if some of those people were foreign nationals; they're acting as agents for Clinton, not a foreign entity. It seems you don't appreciate the quid pro quo aspect of having an actual foreign agent approach you and offer dirt on your opponent. If Putin had dirt on Clinton and just wanted to help Trump, he didn't need to collude with Trump people; he could just release it.
 
WilliamSeger said:
If Putin had dirt on Clinton and just wanted to help Trump, he didn't need to collude with Trump people; he could just release it.
Click to expand...

I'm feeling incredibly stupid that I haven't been thinking of the interaction this way.

For some reason, I've been imagining that there was an extra burden of proving that the Trump campaign made some promise to Russia, but that's clearly extraneous.
 
Emily's Cat said:
:confused: The position you seem to hold is a bit confusing to me. It seems that you think it's acceptable for a candidate to hire a foreign spy to dig up dirt on their opponent... but that it's not acceptable for a candidate to consider accepting dirt on their opponent if they are NOT paying a foreign person for it?
Click to expand...

That's EXACTLY correct. One is a simply hiring an individual to perform a task. The other is a foreigner or a foreign government trying on their own to influence American policy.
 
Last edited:
Cavemonster said:
I'm feeling incredibly stupid that I haven't been thinking of the interaction this way.

For some reason, I've been imagining that there was an extra burden of proving that the Trump campaign made some promise to Russia, but that's clearly extraneous.
Click to expand...

I'm convinced Trump has or has been compromised. But the law is specific. It doesn't require a promise.

Our laws are intended to protect as much as possible against foreign meddling in our elections. So political contributions from foreign citizens or nations is illegal and that includes in-kind contributions which dirt or opposition research would be.
 
acbytesla said:
I'm convinced Trump has or has been compromised. But the law is specific. It doesn't require a promise.
Click to expand...

I'm thinking a bit beyond that specific law.

If Trump accepted a $50 donation from a guy from Finland, that would be a violation of the law.

So far as I'm aware, the penalty for breaking that law is usually a fine and it's generally viewed as poor form, not necessarily a big hairy deal.

Simply having broken a law won't even plausibly make a case for impeachment if there is any even marginally reasonable case that the crime in question is not a "high crime". As far as I'm aware, it isn't too rare for candidates to violate campaign finance laws and it doesn't result in impeachment. Bernie Sanders accepted a donation that would fall under the same clause. He paid a fine and is still a senator.

So the logical case that a quid pro quo is involved is very important to the parsing of this incident.
 
Cavemonster said:
If Trump accepted a $50 donation from a guy from Finland, that would be a violation of the law.

So far as I'm aware, the penalty for breaking that law is usually a fine and it's generally viewed as poor form, not necessarily a big hairy deal.
Click to expand...

But if that $50 had been stolen from the other candidate in the election, it would be a much bigger deal.
 
WilliamSeger said:
If Clinton directly or indirectly hired people to collect information, it doesn't matter if some of those people were foreign nationals; they're acting as agents for Clinton, not a foreign entity. It seems you don't appreciate the quid pro quo aspect of having an actual foreign agent approach you and offer dirt on your opponent. If Putin had dirt on Clinton and just wanted to help Trump, he didn't need to collude with Trump people; he could just release it.
Click to expand...

That makes more sense, I suppose.
 
Aber said:
But if that $50 had been stolen from the other candidate in the election, it would be a much bigger deal.
Click to expand...

And if you knew that it had been stolen, either before or after, it becomes an even bigger deal.
 
Cavemonster said:
I'm thinking a bit beyond that specific law.

If Trump accepted a $50 donation from a guy from Finland, that would be a violation of the law.

So far as I'm aware, the penalty for breaking that law is usually a fine and it's generally viewed as poor form, not necessarily a big hairy deal.

Simply having broken a law won't even plausibly make a case for impeachment if there is any even marginally reasonable case that the crime in question is not a "high crime". As far as I'm aware, it isn't too rare for candidates to violate campaign finance laws and it doesn't result in impeachment. Bernie Sanders accepted a donation that would fall under the same clause. He paid a fine and is still a senator.

So the logical case that a quid pro quo is involved is very important to the parsing of this incident.
Click to expand...

But here's the problem with your analysis. It ain't $50 from a guy from Finland. It's millions of dollars worth of information from Russia. A meeting to get dirt on a political opponent from foreigners is conspiracy.
The meeting appears to have led to computer crimes and more counts of conspiracy. Then there is the cover up, the obstruction of justice, the perjuries, the lying to Congress.
Right now, there is significantly more crimes committed by Trump and his campaign then there was on Nixon and CREEP in 72.
 
theprestige said:
Not even a bias for the Republicans, really. I'm a socially-liberal small-government conservative. The GOP is probably the second-worst major party for me.
Click to expand...

I wonder if you are aware of the distinction of being pro-business vs pro-market. The US currently is a plutocracy: corporations are persons, money is free speech and the political process is totally infested with corporate donations. But to be pro-corporate is not to be pro-market, often it's pretty much the opposite.
 
WilliamSeger said:
I If Putin had dirt on Clinton and just wanted to help Trump, he didn't need to collude with Trump people; he could just release it.
Click to expand...

BUT if he did that, he couldn't negotiate anything in return, of course.

You really have to wonder why these Russian agents felt a need to go behind the scenes to give the Trump campaign "dirt" on Clinton, if not to get something in exchange for it?
 
pgwenthold said:
BUT if he did that, he couldn't negotiate anything in return, of course.

You really have to wonder why these Russian agents felt a need to go behind the scenes to give the Trump campaign "dirt" on Clinton, if not to get something in exchange for it?
Click to expand...

It's a bit like the difference between hiring a PI to investigate your opponent and later finding that the pictures were taken by a guy with mob connections, and one day getting into your limo and finding a guy with mob connections sitting there with a folder full of photos of you opponent and greetings from his boss.
 
pgwenthold said:
BUT if he did that, he couldn't negotiate anything in return, of course.

You really have to wonder why these Russian agents felt a need to go behind the scenes to give the Trump campaign "dirt" on Clinton, if not to get something in exchange for it?
Click to expand...
Bingo!
 
Correct me if I’m wrong: the analysis in this thread seems to indicate that if you pay a foreign national to provide information or use their foreign connection to do opposition research, no problem.

If I’ve grokked this correctly, that seems like a thin veneer to comply with the letter but not the spirit of the law. If Trump had hired a Russian agent to provide/find dirt on the Clintons, I don’t think that would have gone over well...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
pgwenthold said:
BUT if he did that, he couldn't negotiate anything in return, of course.

You really have to wonder why these Russian agents felt a need to go behind the scenes to give the Trump campaign "dirt" on Clinton, if not to get something in exchange for it?
Click to expand...

Add in the fact that even if Trump didn't know this was illegal the Russians most certainly did. It wouldn't shock me one bit that they have recordings from the Trump Tower meeting. This is classic intelligence strategy.

Say you're a spy and you just bought some intelligence from your an insider of your enemy. That's great, but it's often better than the original intelligence because now you can blackmail the person who sold you the evidence. You threaten to expose their treason unless they do something else for you. Essentially, they are owned by them because of the sword of Damocles that you have placed over their head.

I
 
xjx388 said:
Correct me if I’m wrong: the analysis in this thread seems to indicate that if you pay a foreign national to provide information or use their foreign connection to do opposition research, no problem.

If I’ve grokked this correctly, that seems like a thin veneer to comply with the letter but not the spirit of the law. If Trump had hired a Russian agent to provide/find dirt on the Clintons, I don’t think that would have gone over well...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

If you hired someone to find dirt on your opponent, that in itself would not be illegal. If they turned out to be a foreign national, that would not be illegal. If you solicited foreign assistance, that would be. If someone you knew to be a foreigner solicited you, you are obligated to turn them down and in fact report them.

This really is not that hard.
 
acbytesla said:
If you hired someone to find dirt on your opponent, that in itself would not be illegal. If they turned out to be a foreign national, that would not be illegal. If you solicited foreign assistance, that would be. If someone you knew to be a foreigner solicited you, you are obligated to turn them down and in fact report them.

This really is not that hard.
Click to expand...
It's only hard if you watch the lies on Fox News.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom