• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Book: The Russia Hoax

Brainster said:
Bingo, and the difference is that the collusion must be towards some criminal goal. And that's where the whole Russia collusion case falls apart. I'm trying to see some way that Trump's goal was criminal. He wanted to defeat Hillary; that's not illegal.
Click to expand...
:rolleyes: Really, this is where you are going, pretending there was no criminal goal?

That's a bizarre assertion.

We know the criminal goal, conspiring with the Russians to get Trump elected. I think the evidence of conspiracy is there with the emails and the Trump Tower meeting alone.

Few in the news media are calling it for what it is, so we all await the Mueller report that will spell it out in details too obvious to ignore.
 
Brainster said:
Bingo, and the difference is that the collusion must be towards some criminal goal. And that's where the whole Russia collusion case falls apart. I'm trying to see some way that Trump's goal was criminal. He wanted to defeat Hillary; that's not illegal.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I heard this in Professor Ziggurat's class on Twisted Laws For Partisan Gain. Trump University Class of 98 (but for you, 93.95!)

See, collusion is not a crime unless it's collusion to do something illegal. And all he wanted was to beat Hillary, illegally. The "illegal" part was secondary. Kind of an extra bonus because of his generic miscreant makeup. The important part was "to beat Hillary" and that can't be illegal just because some part of it is illegal. And besides, it's attacking speech and association so a First Amendment Get Out of Jail Free card is in order.

Or somethin' like that. It's amazing that you'd cite an opinion that concludes "it depends" as proof that collusion isn't illegal. Has anyone who's actually got knowledge of the current investigation said "Well, colluding is illegal and we don't care what he was colluding about we're gonna get him on the technicality"? I haven't seen that anywhere.

What we have is about fourteen different angles, seven or eight of which may involve conspiring, plotting, planning on different levels to achieve different things, thirty-five of which may or may not have been "illegal" things.

Once all the results are in we can say whether there was collusion to commit crimes. Until then all you've got is "well, collusion unto itself is not necessarily a crime".

Next up: Dershowitz explains that "Obstruction is not a crime. Why, Rudy had obstruction of the lower bowel last month and no one arrested him!"
 
If Trump could set aside his paranoia about the legitimacy of his presidency he would see that Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election are not a hoax. I don't know the exact evidence intelligence operatives have, but there seems to be very wide consensus that the Russians did attempt to meddle. It's a clue that 12 Russian intelligence officials have been indicted.

Is the "collusion" a hoax? That's a narrower question but Mueller seems to be very methodically working his way through evidence that suggests, at the very least, that the Trump administration was open to receiving info from the Russian government. Hillary's people might have been too, but were much more savvy, paying for research involving Russia-connected individuals (though not, ASFIK, Russia as a state actor).

Trump has very, very reluctantly admitted that Russia (the government) made numerous attempts. His administration seems much more adamant about accepting that as a given. Trump and Trump's team seem to be on different pages in this matter.

I haven't read the book though - this comment is based on general info, not claims in the book.
 
In order to strive towards a common reality, could we all just agree that collusion isn't necessarily a crime, but the collusion the Trump campaign is alleged to have carried out is a crime? It would help so much if we could stop being bogged down in countless inane "collusion isn't a crime" posts from Trumpists.

This message is mainly directed at resident Trumpists, such as the ones posting in this thread.
 
"There was no collusion, witch hunt!"
"Sure, there was collusion, but is that even illegal?"
"Okay, it's illegal, but is it really the kind of illegal that should have consequences?"
 
Brainster said:
Bingo, and the difference is that the collusion must be towards some criminal goal. And that's where the whole Russia collusion case falls apart. I'm trying to see some way that Trump's goal was criminal. He wanted to defeat Hillary; that's not illegal.
Click to expand...

The collusion part is
18 U.S.C. § 371—Conspiracy to Defraud the United States
If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

The criminal parts are...
52 U.S. Code § 30121 - Contributions and donations by foreign nationals
(a) Prohibition. It shall be unlawful for—
(1) a foreign national, directly or indirectly, to make—
(A) a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State, or local election;
(B) a contribution or donation to a committee of a political party; or
(C) an expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement for an electioneering communication (within the meaning of section 30104(f)(3) of this title); or
(2) a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation described in subparagraph (A) or (B) of paragraph (1) from a foreign national.


and

18 U.S. Code § 2 - Principals
"(a) Whoever commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a principal.

(b) Whoever willfully causes an act to be done which if directly performed by him or another would be an offense against the United States, is punishable as a principal.

Make sure you understand the LEGAL meaning of procure... it means to "persuade or cause (someone) to do something". Publicly asking the Russians to find a political opponent's hidden documents is overtly procuring the commission of a criminal act, every bit as much as it would be asking them to break into a building and steal printed documents (a la Watergate).
 
Last edited:
smartcooky said:
Hah! Reminds me of a review I read once by Ann Newbury, who used to do the movie reviews for the "NZ Listener" magazine....

Flying Piranhas 2
If you missed seeing Flying Piranhas, here's your chance to miss the sequel.
Click to expand...
A review by Churchill in his journalism years : "If you're the sort of person who likes this sort of thing, you'll find this the sort of thing you like".
 
Brainster said:
Bingo, and the difference is that the collusion must be towards some criminal goal. And that's where the whole Russia collusion case falls apart. I'm trying to see some way that Trump's goal was criminal. He wanted to defeat Hillary; that's not illegal.
Click to expand...

And as such any laws broken on the way are not crimes. THis means that we really need to free Madoff, all he wanted to do was make money which is totally legal!
 
smartcooky said:
The collusion part is
18 U.S.C. § 371—Conspiracy to Defraud the United States
If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
Click to expand...

And the offense against the United States was Trump getting elected? Because you cannot go with the "defraud" part which means to take money illegally from someone by deception.

The criminal parts are...
52 U.S. Code § 30121 - Contributions and donations by foreign nationals
(a) Prohibition. It shall be unlawful for—
(1) a foreign national, directly or indirectly, to make—
(A) a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State, or local election;
(B) a contribution or donation to a committee of a political party; or
(C) an expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement for an electioneering communication (within the meaning of section 30104(f)(3) of this title); or
(2) a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation described in subparagraph (A) or (B) of paragraph (1) from a foreign national.
Click to expand...

So you're banking on the Russian release of the DNC emails as the "other thing of value" that foreign nationals contributed or donated? Fascinating!

and

18 U.S. Code § 2 - Principals
"(a) Whoever commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a principal.

(b) Whoever willfully causes an act to be done which if directly performed by him or another would be an offense against the United States, is punishable as a principal.

Make sure you understand the LEGAL meaning of procure... it means to "persuade or cause (someone) to do something". Publicly asking the Russians to find a political opponent's hidden documents is overtly procuring the commission of a criminal act, every bit as much as it would be asking them to break into a building and steal printed documents (a la Watergate).
Click to expand...

I certainly hope the Democrats employ you as their legal counsel on these matters.
 
Brainster said:
Bingo, and the difference is that the collusion must be towards some criminal goal. And that's where the whole Russia collusion case falls apart. I'm trying to see some way that Trump's goal was criminal. He wanted to defeat Hillary; that's not illegal.
Click to expand...

So accepting the support of a foreign power hostile to the US to do so is OK in your book?
Or are you a case of "Nothing matters but keeping the GOP hold on the White House".
 
Brainster said:
And the offense against the United States was Trump getting elected? Because you cannot go with the "defraud" part which means to take money illegally from someone by deception.
Click to expand...
Trump lost by 3 million American voters' votes. He barely won a couple of EC states that skewed the results. And there is mounting evidence that the Russians gave him considerable help to win.

So yes, Trump getting elected by cheating is an offense against US democracy.

As for the rest of your post, good luck with that when Mueller's report comes out.
 
dudalb said:
So accepting the support of a foreign power hostile to the US to do so is OK in your book?
Click to expand...

If someone comes to me claiming to have damaging information on my political opponent, I'm obligated not to accept the information based on their nationality?
 
Brainster said:
If someone comes to me claiming to have damaging information on my political opponent, I'm obligated not to accept the information based on their nationality?
Click to expand...

If you knew that person was a representative of a foreign hostile power whose intention was to influence an election, yes.
 
Brainster said:
If someone comes to me claiming to have damaging information on my political opponent, I'm obligated not to accept the information based on their nationality?
Click to expand...

When a foreign power is doing that you might want to contact the FBI that they are violating the laws, but hey their espionage is helping you so who cares about national integrity? No conservative that is sure. Nothing wrong with a little espionage between friends.
 
Its like if you know a politically damaging terror attack is going to happen, are you really supposed to report that crap? Or just ride in on the anger over the attack?
 
Brainster said:
If someone comes to me claiming to have damaging information on my political opponent, I'm obligated not to accept the information based on their nationality?
Click to expand...

Correct.

Furthermore;

If someone comes to you claiming to have damaging information on your political opponent that you know they have stolen, you are obliged to inform the FBI regardless of their nationality? If you don't you are committing a crime called accepting stolen goods - 18 U.S. Code § 662

If someone comes to you claiming to have damaging information on your political opponent that you do not know they have stolen, but you later find out that they did steal, you are obliged to inform the FBI regardless of their nationality? If you don't you are committing a crime
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom