Mueller Investigation pt5

[Skeptic Ginger]

Agreed. I thought you were talking about a different Clinton.

That said, I do think it’s wrong to trivialize lying under oath. A “process” crime is still a crime.

That whole prosecution of Bill was ridiculous. But it's off-topic and no one changes their views by this time anyway.

Back to the topic, a number of people in the Trump admin and campaign lied under oath. It's not getting the 'this-isn't-trivial' attention at all by the GOP it seems.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The Tower meeting wasn't about the hacked emails.

What dirt on Clinton do you suppose it was about?

 

[Cabbage]

The Tower meeting wasn't about the hacked emails.

Oh really now?

Please provide your evidence.

 

[Cabbage]

Why do we think the tower meeting is related to the hacked emails?

I'm not saying it was. I'm more interested in seeing how Ziggurat knows it was unrelated.

The honest, skeptic's position really is: We don't know.

AND: We don't know because of all of the lies told about it.

It's amazing that anyone is OK with brushing that fact aside.

Still waiting on Zig's "evidence".

 

[Ziggurat]

Oh really now?

Please provide your evidence.

From the evidence we have (emails about setting up the meeting), the alleged information (which, again, may not even exist) was about Hillary's dealings with Russians.

Information about such dealings would not have been on DNC servers, because such dealings (if they had occurred) would not have been done through the DNC. If there was evidence of that in her emails, they would have been on her servers, not the DNC. The DNC servers were hacked, but we have no evidence that her servers were hacked.

Furthermore, there's no reason to assume the information (if it existed) came from emails at all. If Hillary had dealings with Russians, then those Russians would have had record of those dealings, possibly even paper records. Russian intelligence could have obtained those records through lawful means, since they have jurisdiction over Russians in Russia. Hell, the information (if it existed) could have also come in the form of witness testimony.

But again, there's no evidence that the alleged information about Hillary ever existed at all, and non-existent information doesn't have a source.

 

[Lurch]

And that is veeeeeery specific wording. Its just the sort of wording you might use if there was some other entity, not the actual Russian government, that you are trying to sidestep away from talking about.. such as

Viktor Vekselberg
Aleksandr Torshin
The Internet Research Agency
Guccifer 2.0
The Russian Institute for Strategic Studies
Konstantin Kilimnik
Viktor Yanukovych

et al

These entities are not actually the Russian government, but for all intents an purposes, they might as well be.

Remember folks, "plausible deniability".

Well worth a "re-post".

 

[Cabbage]

From the evidence we have (emails about setting up the meeting), the alleged information (which, again, may not even exist) was about Hillary's dealings with Russians.

Information about such dealings would not have been on DNC servers, because such dealings (if they had occurred) would not have been done through the DNC. If there was evidence of that in her emails, they would have been on her servers, not the DNC. The DNC servers were hacked, but we have no evidence that her servers were hacked.

Furthermore, there's no reason to assume the information (if it existed) came from emails at all. If Hillary had dealings with Russians, then those Russians would have had record of those dealings, possibly even paper records. Russian intelligence could have obtained those records through lawful means, since they have jurisdiction over Russians in Russia. Hell, the information (if it existed) could have also come in the form of witness testimony.

But again, there's no evidence that the alleged information about Hillary ever existed at all, and non-existent information doesn't have a source.

Adoptions were discussed but they're not listed in the email. You're assuming the email is an exhaustive list of topics to be covered.

What evidence do you have that the list is, in fact, exhaustive?

And again, let's be absolutely clear: I'm not saying I have evidence that the meeting concerned the DNC hack. I'm asking for YOUR evidence that the meeting did NOT concern the DNC hack.

"You can't possibly know" is all I'm saying. Do you agree?

If not, please provide evidence that you know.

 

[Ziggurat]

And that is veeeeeery specific wording. Its just the sort of wording you might use if there was some other entity, not the actual Russian government, that you are trying to sidestep away from talking about.. such as

Viktor Vekselberg
Aleksandr Torshin
The Internet Research Agency
Guccifer 2.0
The Russian Institute for Strategic Studies
Konstantin Kilimnik
Viktor Yanukovych

et al

These entities are not actually the Russian government, but for all intents an purposes, they might as well be.

Remember folks, "plausible deniability".

If you want to hang an argument on the exact phrasing, let's start with a link to the source:
https://www.documentcloud.org/docum...ort-conclusions-from-AG-Barr.html#document/p2

First up:

The report outlines the Russian effort to influence the election and documents crimes committed by persons associated with the Russian government in connection with those efforts. The report further explains that a primary consideration for the Special Counsel's investigation was whether any Americans including individuals associated with the Trump campaign joined the Russian conspiracies to influence the election, which would be a federal crime. The Special Counsel's investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 US. presidential election. As the report states: "[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."

Note that Barr is explicitly linking non-government Russian actors with the Russian government. Second, Barr doesn't use "Russian government" but just "Russia" in this passage. And third, Mueller's report itself used "Russian government" phrasing.

Second bit, which is where the quote you addressed comes from:

Based on these activities, the Special Counsel brought criminal charges against a number of Russian military officers for conspiring to hack into computers in the United States for purposes of influencing the election. But as noted above, the Special Counsel did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in these efforts, despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign.

Again, Barr explicitly mentions "Russian-affiliated individuals". If you were trying to be lawyerly to cover up collusion with "Russian-affiliated individuals" by focusing only on the Russian government, it seems like you'd want to avoid all mention of them.

In other words, I think you're stretching here to find a loophole, but that's probably just wishful thinking.

 

[Ziggurat]

Adoptions were discussed but they're not listed in the email.

No doubt an effort to infiltrate the US with baby Russian spies.

You're assuming the email is an exhaustive list of topics to be covered.

No, actually, I'm not. I'm pointing out a lack of evidence for the claim. Is it possible other dirt on Hillary was offered? Sure, in principle. Is there any actual evidence that other dirt on Hillary was offered? No, at this point there is no other evidence.

What evidence do you have that the list is, in fact, exhaustive?

You misunderstand the nature of the claims, and where burdens of proof lie.

And again, let's be absolutely clear: I'm not saying I have evidence that the meeting concerned the DNC hack.

Then you're most of the way to agreeing with my claim. See below

I'm asking for YOUR evidence that the meeting did NOT concern the DNC hack.

Except that's not my claim. And it's not provable anyways. Unless there's a recording of the entire meeting, then there will always be the possibility that the meeting involved stuff we don't know about.

The only part of my claim which you haven't conceded yet is that the evidence which IS public only supports non-hacked information. I make no claim about the possibility or impossibility of other matters having been discussed for which public evidence doesn't exist, because obviously I can't make any claims about that.

 

[Belz...]

From the evidence we have (emails about setting up the meeting), the alleged information (which, again, may not even exist) was about Hillary's dealings with Russians.

Information about such dealings would not have been on DNC servers, because such dealings (if they had occurred) would not have been done through the DNC. If there was evidence of that in her emails, they would have been on her servers, not the DNC. The DNC servers were hacked, but we have no evidence that her servers were hacked.

Furthermore, there's no reason to assume the information (if it existed) came from emails at all. If Hillary had dealings with Russians, then those Russians would have had record of those dealings, possibly even paper records. Russian intelligence could have obtained those records through lawful means, since they have jurisdiction over Russians in Russia. Hell, the information (if it existed) could have also come in the form of witness testimony.

But again, there's no evidence that the alleged information about Hillary ever existed at all, and non-existent information doesn't have a source.

Which is all irrelevant to the question of whether Junior et al are guilty of a crime.

 

[Childlike Empress]

The DNC servers were hacked, but we have no evidence that her servers were hacked.

The "evidence" we have that the DNC servers were hacked is the word of DNC-hired CrowdStrike, ran by a disgruntled Russian, and the laughable "4, not 17 intelligence agencies" thing Clapper, Brennan and the other crooks published based on that "evidence" and some ramblings about Abby Martin's RT show that had ended two years earlier already.

I for one trust Craig Murray's word alone, who has the evidence of his principles-over-career stance in his curriculum vitae, more than that of those bunch of professional spooks.

The only hack we have evidence for is the one of the Podesta mails, which was a successful phishing operation with the phishing email and following internal communication contained in the published data.

 

[Childlike Empress]

Adoptions were discussed but they're not listed in the email. You're assuming the email is an exhaustive list of topics to be covered.

I've intoduced you to the sender of that mail, Rob Goldstone. Do a google images search for him. As far as the story goes, he was asked to arrange the meeting by the Azerbaijani popstar he was managing who was asked by his father, an oligarch maybe directly or indirectly affected by the Magnitzky act sanctions.

The Russian lawyer was on US tour to lobby against the Magnitzky act. Goldstone says he made up the "dirt offer" which is plausible because he included some position of "prosecutor general" or what it was which is not existant in Russia, but in his native UK.

Goldstone, the popstar, Don Jr, Kushner, the lawyer (her name is almost unspellable) all say pretty much the same about what took place. None of them were touched by Mueller for any lying or process crimes.

This is what we know, and what you are trying to dream up is baseless speculation trying to save your CT.

 

[theprestige]

Adoptions were discussed but they're not listed in the email. You're assuming the email is an exhaustive list of topics to be covered.

What evidence do you have that the list is, in fact, exhaustive?

And again, let's be absolutely clear: I'm not saying I have evidence that the meeting concerned the DNC hack. I'm asking for YOUR evidence that the meeting did NOT concern the DNC hack.

"You can't possibly know" is all I'm saying. Do you agree?

If not, please provide evidence that you know.

The ongoing claim is that the Trump Tower meeting was a Russian Collusion Event. The null hypothesis for the claim is that it wasn't. The evidence does not support the claim. Those making the claim now wish to push all the uncertainty back onto the null hypothesis, but that's not actually how logic works.

---

There's also the added comedy of people trying to traduce Trump's joke about Hillary's emails into a public announcement of criminal conspiracy. This leads to the amusing argument that the DNC server hack must have been that conspiracy, and the Trump Tower meeting must have been about that hack. Even though we don't have any evidence that that's what happened, and even though that doesn't really make sense anyway.

---

Pushing your uncertainty back onto the null hypothesis like this is basically arguing for a Conspiracy of the Gaps.

You're certain the conspiracy happened somewhere. You just can't point to the evidence of it.

 

[Cabbage]

No doubt an effort to infiltrate the US with baby Russian spies.

If that's what you believe, fine, but it's completely beside the point. You mentioned the absence of hacked emails (from the setup email) being evidence the meeting didn't concern hacked emails at all, which is quite obviously false as demonstrated by my example of adoptions. That was the only intent.

No, actually, I'm not. I'm pointing out a lack of evidence for the claim. Is it possible other dirt on Hillary was offered? Sure, in principle. Is there any actual evidence that other dirt on Hillary was offered? No, at this point there is no other evidence.



You misunderstand the nature of the claims, and where burdens of proof lie.

No. You misrepresent what you actually said. Let's recall what you actually said:

The Tower meeting wasn't about the hacked emails.

If you said we don't have evidence to prove it wasn't about the hacked emails I would agree. That's not what you said, however.

Except that's not my claim. And it's not provable anyways. Unless there's a recording of the entire meeting, then there will always be the possibility that the meeting involved stuff we don't know about.

The only part of my claim which you haven't conceded yet is that the evidence which IS public only supports non-hacked information. I make no claim about the possibility or impossibility of other matters having been discussed for which public evidence doesn't exist, because obviously I can't make any claims about that.

Well, you claimed the meeting wasn't about the hacked emails, so what do you base that conclusion on if not evidence? Faith??? You even admit you don't know, "there will always be the possibility that the meeting involved stuff we don't know about."
Look, all I'm saying is you made a categorical statement that even you admit hasn't been/can't be proven. If you actually meant that we don't have evidence supporting a connection between the two, that's what you should have said.

The fact is neither you or I actually know what transpired at the meeting due to the lies told about it.

Neither a connection nor a lack of connection has been established. That's precisely all that the evidence suggests.

 

[Cabbage]

I've intoduced you to the sender of that mail, Rob Goldstone. Do a google images search for him. As far as the story goes, he was asked to arrange the meeting by the Azerbaijani popstar he was managing who was asked by his father, an oligarch maybe directly or indirectly affected by the Magnitzky act sanctions.

The Russian lawyer was on US tour to lobby against the Magnitzky act. Goldstone says he made up the "dirt offer" which is plausible because he included some position of "prosecutor general" or what it was which is not existant in Russia, but in his native UK.

Goldstone, the popstar, Don Jr, Kushner, the lawyer (her name is almost unspellable) all say pretty much the same about what took place. None of them were touched by Mueller for any lying or process crimes.

This is what we know, and what you are trying to dream up is baseless speculation trying to save your CT.

Completely irrelevant to the discussion Zig and I are having, but thanks! Do you get paid per hour or per post? Just curious.

And I highlighted Don Jr because it's a known fact he lied about the meeting, due to the conflicting stories he told about the meeting.

But thanks for trying!

 

[Cabbage]

The ongoing claim is that the Trump Tower meeting was a Russian Collusion Event. The null hypothesis for the claim is that it wasn't. The evidence does not support the claim. Those making the claim now wish to push all the uncertainty back onto the null hypothesis, but that's not actually how logic works.

Zig made the claim, I didn't. Talk about null hypothesis and burden of proof all you want, the fact is we don't know what transpired at the meeting because the participants have deliberately misled us about it. That "we don't know" is our base hypothesis, and these categorical claims that we know this or that did or did not happen at the meeting are unsupported at this point.

 

[Cabbage]

You're certain the conspiracy happened somewhere. You just can't point to the evidence of it.

And you know this all because I question Zig's categorical statement that the meeting is absolutely not connected to the hacked emails????

Yeah, one of us is definitely making unwarranted assumptions, but it ain't me, bro.

You know, when someone like OJ for example is acquitted of murder, that doesn't imply he's innocent, merely that he's acquitted.

Similarly, if the evidence doesn't prove a connection between the meeting and the hacked emails, it doesn't imply there's no connection, merely that the evidence doesn't prove it. I wouldn't quibble with the claim, "The evidence doesn't support a connection" but that's quite different from "There is no connection".

 

[newyorkguy]

Just to re-establish, Russians -- including employees of Russian government agencies -- did hack DNC computers and have been indicted for same by Robert Mueller. This is from Attorney General William Barr's summary of the Mueller Report:

The Special Counsel found that Russian government actors successfully hacked into computers and obtained emails from persons associated with the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party organizations, and publicly disseminated those materials through various intermediaries, including WikiLeaks. Based on these activities, the Special Counsel brought criminal charges against a number of Russian military officers for conspiring to hack into computers in the United States for the purposes of influencing the election. Link

This is from the criminal complaint filed by Mueller:

Case 1:18-cr-00032-DLF Document 1 Filed 02/16/18
<snip> p12 - The conspiracy had as its object impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful governmental functions of the United States by dishonest means in order to enable the Defendants to interfere with U.S. political and electoral processes, including the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Link

CNN reported almost two years ago that the FBI warned the Democratic National Committee in Fall 2015 that at least one of their computers had been breached by Russian hackers.

The first quiet warning of the Russian operation came in September 2015, when an agent from the FBI's Washington Field Office notified the Democratic National Committee that Russian hackers had compromised at least one DNC computer. It was the FBI's first direct contact with the DNC: a message left for a low-level computer technician, who did not return the FBI's call. Link

 

[WilliamSeger]

The ongoing claim is that the Trump Tower meeting was a Russian Collusion Event. The null hypothesis for the claim is that it wasn't. The evidence does not support the claim.

********. The hard evidence says that was the whole purpose of the meeting, and the circumstantial evidence is that many lies were told about the meeting, and that Trump did in fact try to lift Magnitsky Act sanctions when he got in office.

 

[Cabbage]

Still waiting for that evidence, Zig........or at least an admission you misspoke.