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Mueller Investigation pt4

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BobTheCoward said:
Yet time and time again we hear Trump supporters claim "No evidence of collusion", despite the fact that there is a significant amount of evidence (from the Trump tower meeting, to various lies and changing stories various characters have used.)
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The simple answer is that in a quid pro quo that is alleged, you would need a "pro". Take the tower meeting. You have no evidence that it was discussed there.
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Well, let see, from: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/09/us/politics/trump-russia-kushner-manafort.html
Donald Trump Jr., was promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton before agreeing to meet with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign, according to three advisers to the White House briefed on the meeting and two others with knowledge of it.

So, at the very least, it appears that people in the Trump campaign had the desire to work (illegally) with Russians.

Now, the current Trumpian claim is that nothing came of the meeting. So basically they are saying "I wanted to break the law but luck kept me from doing so".

Yet after that meeting, certain things started happening that helped the Trump campaign...information that had been stolen (that had been sourced to the Russians) got leaked. So the people that WANTED to break the law, all of a sudden seemed to benefit just as if the law had been broken.

Occam's razor: What is more likely: 1) That Trump's campaign (AFTER they said they wanted to break the law and work with the Russians) actually discussed working together at the Trump tower meeting, or 2) The Trump campaign wanted to break the law, couldn't, but then everything magically started to benefit Trump.
 
Segnosaur said:
Well, let see, from: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/09/us/politics/trump-russia-kushner-manafort.html
Donald Trump Jr., was promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton before agreeing to meet with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign, according to three advisers to the White House briefed on the meeting and two others with knowledge of it.

So, at the very least, it appears that people in the Trump campaign had the desire to work (illegally) with Russians.
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This is such a weird defense, anyway: "Sure, we intended to commit a crime, but since we were unable to do so, we should be innocent, right?"
 
Belz... said:
This is such a weird defense, anyway: "Sure, we intended to commit a crime, but since we were unable to do so, we should be innocent, right?"
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Still one of my favorite lines of all time. "Attempted Murder? Now I ask you what kind of crime is that? Do they give Nobel Prizes for Attempted Chemistry?" - Sideshow Bob
 
Belz... said:
This is such a weird defense, anyway: "Sure, we intended to commit a crime, but since we were unable to do so, we should be innocent, right?"
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Its even worse than that, because not only does it look like they intended to commit a crime, they were later seen benefiting from that crime.

Its like someone saying "I wanted to rob that bank but I couldn't break in", then later seen spending money that had been stained with exploding dye packs.
 
Belz... said:
This is such a weird defense, anyway: "Sure, we intended to commit a crime, but since we were unable to do so, we should be innocent, right?"
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Indeed so!

This approach rather reminds me of a criminal that I knew who liked to say:

"It is only illegal if you get caught!"
 
Segnosaur said:
Its even worse than that, because not only does it look like they intended to commit a crime, they were later seen benefiting from that crime.

Its like someone saying "I wanted to rob that bank but I couldn't break in", then later seen spending money that had been stained with exploding dye packs.
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"...launder it."
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Trump Tweets

The Senate Intelligence Committee: THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF COLLUSION BETWEEN THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN AND RUSSIA!
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It's not like Burr has been caught before lying about Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Since January 2015, Burr had been a member of the Gang of Eight—a group that consists of the majority and minority leaders of the Senate and House and top Republicans and Democrats on the Senate and House intelligence committees. The U.S. intelligence community is able to share the nation’s most sensitive secrets with this small group without anyone else outside the administration knowing.

As far back as summer 2015, the U.S. intelligence community reportedly informed the Gang of Eight that Russia’s intelligence agencies were engaged in a hacking operation against the Democratic National Committee (DNC). That was many months before the DNC was aware of the breach, and months before the FBI reached out to the DNC to inform the organization.

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Senator Burr’s office, however, appeared to deflect attention away from Russia. A spokeswoman for Burr told Politico,“Burr has said for ‘some time that foreign adversaries are intent on gaining unauthorized access into our country’s government and private networks to access sensitive data.” Politico noted that instead of talking about Trump’s statement, Burr’s spokeswoman “mostly focused on the FBI investigation of the recent hacking attack on the Democratic National Committee’s email servers,” telling the news outlet that “public discussion about attribution … are premature, at best.”

By that point, however, not only did Burr know that the intelligence community had attributed the DNC hack to Russia, but the U.S. intelligence agencies even knew in summer 2015 the specific unit and agents within Russia’s intelligence services who performed the hacking. Among other specific data, Dutch intelligence agencies had for months reportedly accessed security cameras in the hackers’ Moscow offices and handed that information over to their American counterparts.

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With this information in hand, Burr decided not only to join the Trump campaign and tie his political fate to Trump. Burr also took the now difficult-to-explain step of publicly repudiating suggestions that the Russians were acting in support of Trump. In an Oct. 3, 2016 interview, Burr said, “I have yet to see anything that would lead me to believe” Russia was interfering to benefit Trump. It was also a notable exception to Burr’s reputation for avoiding speaking with the press.
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Segnosaur said:
So, at the very least, it appears that people in the Trump campaign had the desire to work (illegally) with Russians.

Now, the current Trumpian claim is that nothing came of the meeting. So basically they are saying "I wanted to break the law but luck kept me from doing so".
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Not quite. Team Trump wanted to break the law, but the Russians were staying within the law, so Team Trump didn't have the opportunity.

So it becomes "We tried to break the law but the Russians were too ethical for us."

The Russians.
 
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Fast Eddie B said:
A gross display of willful ignorance.

Someone here may have pointed me to it, but this New York Times article and graphic tell a convincing story of over 100 contacts with Russians during the Trump campaign. To anyone with eyes to see.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/01/26/us/politics/trump-contacts-russians-wikileaks.html

[qimg]https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7886/46168493715_0bb250514f_c.jpg[/qimg]

On the site, it’s an interactive chart where you can click on each contact or denial to see specifics.
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I'd love to see an enterprising reporter prepare a comparable chart for the Obama/Biden, Romney/Ryan and Clinton/Kaine campaigns of 2012 and 2016. How many contacts with the Russians is typical for a US presidential campaign, I wonder?
 
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