Mueller Investigation pt5

[acbytesla]

Reports are that Trump has had a 'heavy staff presence", including his lawyers, around him the last few day in Mar a Lago. Not that they were circling the wagons, right? For someone who "has done absolutely nothing wrong", Trump sure gives a damn fine imitation of someone who was scared ***less the last couple years.

I've never thought that Trump would be indicted on anything Russia related. I don't think he colluded with Russia. I do think he admires Putin because he sees a kindred spirit in him and sucks up to him. Ditto Kim, Duterte, and Bolsonaro.

If Trump is ever charged with an actual crime, it's going to be something financial: fraud, money laundering, etc.

I ABSOLUTELY believe that Putin has compromised Trump. Trump has his nose so far up Putin's ass, there must be a reason. I also believe that Russia was assisting the Trump campaign and Trump knew about it. Do I think the Russians had weekly
Conference calls with the Trump campaign to discuss strategy? I do not.

 

[portlandatheist]

I ABSOLUTELY believe that Putin has compromised Trump. Trump has his nose so far up Putin's ass, there must be a reason. I also believe that Russia was assisting the Trump campaign and Trump knew about it. Do I think the Russians had weekly
Conference calls with the Trump campaign to discuss strategy? I do not.

The knowledge that we already have in the public domain is enough for impeachment. Sadly, the political will just isn't there...yet (and probably never will be). The report will never exonerate Trump, only add more to the pile of information we already have.

 

[acbytesla]

The knowledge that we already have in the public domain is enough for impeachment. Sadly, the political will just isn't there...yet (and probably never will be). The report will never exonerate Trump, only add more to the pile of information we already have.

Yep.

 

[BobTheCoward]

The knowledge that we already have in the public domain is enough for impeachment. Sadly, the political will just isn't there...yet (and probably never will be). The report will never exonerate Trump, only add more to the pile of information we already have.

You generally don't charge people if you can't get a conviction.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Given that the report will almost certainly leak, I believe that Mueller put in everything "that's ok to be released", not the whole story.
And it will be as a-political as possible.

But the Mueller investigation is still ongoing, with open court cases and grand juries.
I doubt this is going to be wrapped up before 2020.

 

[portlandatheist]

You generally don't charge people if you can't get a conviction.

True. and that is unfortunately the case with Donald Trump: guilty but not convictable.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I am glad the investigation is over, though. No one, not even ol' Dirt Bag himself, deserves to have something like this hanging over their heads for close to two years.

I need some perspective.

Remind me, did you give one drop of empathy for the years and years Clinton was harassed by the GOP?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Trump has lost a bogeyman to blame the witch Hunt on. Now he can try to play whack-a-mole with many investigations from many sources.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

You generally don't charge people if you can't get a conviction.

The GOP had no trouble charging Bill Clinton.

 

[smartcooky]

Projection highlighted in red.

What are you getting all excited about? Nothing has changed. Today is just like yesterday. There was never any chance that the Trump family would be seized by the "deep state" and hauled off to Gitmo the moment the report hit the AG's desk.

THIS

The real Deep State still resides in Russia, and comes as naturally to them as breathing.

The reading material you provide us is still as bogus as a North Korean promise.

And THIS

It is still true that (if) there really was a "deep state" here, Trump would have been in Gitmo taken out by a deep-state sniper a long time ago.

FTFY

 

[cmikes]

I ABSOLUTELY believe that Putin has compromised Trump. Trump has his nose so far up Putin's ass, there must be a reason. I also believe that Russia was assisting the Trump campaign and Trump knew about it. Do I think the Russians had weekly
Conference calls with the Trump campaign to discuss strategy? I do not.

I have a cousin that ABSOLUTELY believes in UFOs.


On a more serious note, this result is not a surprise to anyone paying attention. The indictment of Roger Stone was a strong indicator that Mueller had no evidence of any direct Russian ties to Trump.

The order of events was alleged to be a "senior campaign official" (rumored to be Steve Bannon) contacted Roger Stone, who contacted Jerome Corsi, who contacted Ted Malloch, who had contacts with Wikileaks to learn what they were receiving from Russian hackers to release before the election.* The problem with this theory is that if Trump actually was the Russian Secret Agent Man of progressive fever dreams, this whole chain of deals was completely unnecessary, since Trump could simply call up Putin and say "Hey, boss, what do your people have that's coming out on Hillary before the election?"

*And to make it even clearer that there was no collusion, Malloch's sources weren't as good as a he apparently thought. According to what Malloch told Corsi, who told Stone, who told (allegedly) Bannon, there was going to be a massive document dump from Wikileaks revealing some of the corrupt inner workings of the Clinton Foundation in October, which obviously never happened.

 

[Bogative]

Meanwhile, Deceitful Donny kept what he and his cronies were doing a secret, and when they got found out, they lied about it and fabricated stories to try to cover up what they did.. and they are still denying it the face of mounting evidence.

That is the difference between honesty and corruption.

Of course Trumpists have long conceded that there's dirt on Trump

Remember when there was the idea floated that this meeting was about Russian orphan adoptions? How ridiculous does that sound now?

I don't get how that wasn't an admission. IIRC, Russia is refusing adoptions into the US in retribution for the sanctions in the Magintsky Act. So it was always about sanctions relief, right? The plausibly deniable take comes as negotiating sanctions relief for the relief of the counter-sanctions (a minor violation of the emoluments clause), instead of a quid pro quo for stolen information (a felony).

That's a major element to always bear in mind in campaign operations I'm rapidly discovering.

Every interaction or exchange of value has to be at parity (paid for, equal exchange of consideration, whatever) or a piece of paper tracking the "donated" in-kind contribution needs to be filed (with limits per individual, per election).

This is not an "oops golly gee" at this level of the game.

Getting something of value to the campaign for nothing is literally a crime . . . .

You just said he went in expecting and intending to commit a crime.

And this brings up 2 problems for Trump and the republicans:

- The Russians spent money to dig up dirt on Clinton, which means that it was an undeclared donation to the election (and one from a foreign source to boot!) Both of which are election no-nos.

These two facts are totally relevant, but they kinda prove the opposite of what you intended. They are evidence that the DNC was acting consistently with the law and the Trump campaign (as represented by Jr.) was not.

The email stated that a Kremlin connected lawyer had damaging dirt on Hillary, offering it to help Trump. Taken at face value, in so many words, a foreign government offered campaign assistance. It's illegal to even *arrange a meeting* in this circumstance. No need to exchange anything. Act number one is to say, "No thanks." Act number two is to immediately inform the FBI.

This is like two or more guys getting together to plan a heist, or a hit. A crime has been committed before entering the bank or pulling the trigger. That's conspiracy, commonly called collusion.

The Special Counsel and his team of lawyers disagree.

 

[Aridas]

Admittedly I'm a little disappointed.

Even if Trump himself had insulated himself enough to not get charged, I figure others in his family (Trump Jr. for example) would have been arrested, given what we know. (i.e. his "love it" about the Trump tower meeting.)

I'm willing to withhold judgement, as it is, until seeing Mueller's reasoning in the Report. It had better be some pretty good reasoning, though. Admittedly, I fully expect Barr to do what he can to remove parts like that from public view after his statements about protecting the unindicted from the public eye.

We don't know what is in the report..yet. That CNN description is just rehash of what we already know.Most legal experts expect some more indictments to come down.
If you were expecting Trump to be led from the White House in handcuffs, that was never in the cards.

It would have been satisfying and good theater, but yeah, it was never more than an extremely remote possibility.

Even if nothing more happens respective to this investigation after today, with 37 indictments, 7 guilty pleas and one trial conviction so far, this has been the most productive and effective Special Counsel investigation in US history.

Not even remotely a "witch hunt," in short, despite the blather of Trump and so many Fox News contributors and watchers.

Seeing lots of tweets trying to work out whether there are actually sealed indictments, even though we know Mueller won't be actually issuing/filing any more indictments.

For the moment, the most direct answer may be 'No.' There may still be an... unusual number of sealed indictments, but sealed also means that we don't know who filed them or what they're about, so we really can't say much about them.

Agree. Given the events that took place, given the way Trump behaved, the matter had to be investigated. I'm still not convinced there weren't some contacts between Trump and the Russians. That there wasn't at least some implicit quid pro quo. Too many people who were close to Donnie pleaded guilty and are headed for prison for me to believe there was nothing there. It just couldn't be proved. Maybe someday we'll know for sure.

It still pretty clearly looks like there was, of course, given that this changes nothing about the information already in the public domain.

 

[Orphia Nay]

Trump has lost a bogeyman to blame the witch Hunt on. Now he can try to play whack-a-mole with many investigations from many sources.

Indeed.

Trump has been silent for hours, last tweeted 9 hours ago. It's now 1:04 am in DC.

Normally he goes on a rampage at around 11 pm when he's in bed with his hamburders.

Why hasn't he been gloating frantically if there's nothing bad about him in the report?

 

[Venom]

So what's the narrative control going to hang on to now?

Mueller is done. That is the close of the desperate Hail-Mary pass to unseat a stitting president with vague handwaving about "Russian Collusion".

..................

He wouldn't be able to overthrow tin pot dictators, who he views as such anyway,without their help. As a modern day James Monroe. Probably looks at himself that way.

Nothing vague about it. There was a Russian influence scheme, the president was exceptionally friendly, and multiple hidden efforts to contact the Russians. That is enough for an investigation.

This. Don't look too far beyond that.

 

[CapelDodger]

The Special Counsel and his team of lawyers disagree.

Suddenly you put great store by what that pack of angry Dems thinks?

 

[Orphia Nay]

Suddenly you put great store by what that pack of angry Dems thinks?

People shouldn't be angry about corruption, deception, and bigotry?

 

[CapelDodger]

Trump has lost a bogeyman to blame the witch Hunt on.

He's actually lost the Witch Hunt itself. The point about witch-hunts is that they always find witches. The (apparent) fact that Trump isn't being indicted shows that the Mueller investigation wasn't a witch-hunt. Of course, Trump and his semi-literate brethren never understood the metaphorical import of Witch Hunt, they just know vaguely that it's something bogus.


Hopefully we'll get to see just how little the Steele Dossier has ever had to do with the investigation. That's another prop the moron's lost.

 

[CapelDodger]

People shouldn't be angry about corruption, deception, and bigotry?

I was being ironic. It's a habit I just can't kick.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

I read some of it. Frankly, any analysis that doesn't begin with the admission that this is not a positive development for those who think he is guilty is ... delusional

Why? Just because we know he's guilty doesn't mean we aren't happy with this development. It's full of positives.

Did you think we were all hoping to see him dragged away in chains? That would be the worst possible development. Getting rid of Trump now would be doing republicans a favor, as they could pretend he was an anomaly while keeping the spoils.

...all the convictions around trump hurts trump.

Enough for republicans to stop voting for him? I hope not, because he hasn't dragged them down far enough yet.

What I would like to see is endless investigations, preferably with no definite conclusions but each one making him look more guilty. And all the while republicans should continue to support him no matter what. Where will it end? Who cares, so long as we get payback for Benghazi, Her emails, Pizzagate and Obama's birth certificate.