In this case, we don’t need to speculate. I started a thread on this very subject many months ago, and many dozens of posters weighed in. So you can go read where I stood and where everyone else stood on the subject.
OK, but I think people are using that as shorthand for “conspiring with” or “working with in an illegal manner”. That is to say, that he engaged in some activity with a foreign agent or agents, specifically a Russian or Russians, that is a criminal offense. So, did he admit to that? It’s possible to have all sort of contacts with someone without “colluding” with them.
He admitted to communicating with at least three Russian agents and discussing with them transferring illegally obtained information from the Russian government to the Trump campaign.
Not to mention failing to report the crime and foreign espionage, thus becoming a collaborator.
What I said was that it’s common for foreign officials to meet campaign people. I’ve seen this reported in any number of reputable sources, e.g. this NYT article which popped up in a random Google search just now.
Why they would want to do it is not really relevant once the point is established that they do. But it’s not hard to imagine why, e.g. to establish friendly contact, to make a good first impression , to get their viewpoint across etc. (The Times article discusses this a bit.)
That thread was about “what would it take for you to support impeachment?”, not “what do you think most likely happened?” (You could be completely convinced that Trump himself had actively spied for Russia, but still support impeachment at a much lower level.) But even at that, most posters in that poll did not support impeachment for knowing about Russian election crimes.
43% of posters said it was sufficient collusion for impeachment that Trump or his stff was told about Russia’s efforts, but didn’t tell the FBI. So your suggestion that “The notion that ‘knew and failed to inform’ is collusion seems tailored to the GP plea stipulation” is quite obviously false. A huge percentage of people on this board believed that was exactly the kind of collusion that would justify impeachment prior to the GP plea.
I, for one, don’t think it is enough. Nor am I making any claim about what in fact happened, so I don’t know why you mention that. My point was merely about shifting expectations based on where the evidence goes. It doesn’t seem to me that folks on this board are especially guilty of that, based on that poll. On the contrary, very few people on this board took the position you take on what is necessary for collusion. I expect more of the conservative posters will eventually take that position.
I don’t think so. You can impeach for things other than collusion. I assume those alleging collusion were using what I believe to be the more commonly accepted use of the term.
Also, FWIW, I think “knew and failed to inform” has different gradients as well. There’s a huge difference between failing to inform about something if you have detailed and actionable information, as compared to having heard from a connected guy that the Russians had unspecified emails from some unspecified source.
I don’t get what you’re saying here. In your own linked poll thread, no conservative posters would have impeached for anything less than Option #4: “Trump knew/caused his associates to give information to Russia to aid in Russia’s efforts”. What’s the “eventually take that position” about?
No, they won’t, because they will never hear about it, because FOX won’t report it.
There’s a level of disconnect here that I do not understand, F-P. You seem to be completely misreading me or misreading the thread I linked, twice now. I don’t feel like unraveling where the miscommunication is right now, so I think I’ll just leave it there.
OK. But in case anyone else is interested and similarly unclear, I would add the following.
There were/are any number of people who would answer the following questions thusly:
[ul]
[li]Do you think Trump and/or his campaign colluded with the Russians? Yes.[/li][li]Do think a fair and rigorous investigation will uncover this collusion? Most likely.[/li][li]What do you mean when you say or think of collusion? That he/they assisted the Russians with their efforts to interfere with the election.[/li][li]What if he/they did not “collude” but merely knew about the Russian efforts and did nothing about them, would you still support impeachment despite no “collusion”? Yes.[/li][/ul]
Following up on a loose end from earlier in this thread . . .
I realize this is the Pit and insults are permitted and all that . . .
But calling Trump a shitgibbon is an insult to real shitgibbons.
This is where you’re making a mistake. This is not what collusion means and it’s very weird you seem to want to limit collusion to the Trump campaign assisting the Russians. If the Trump campaign assisting the Russians is collusion then surely the Russians assisting the Trump campaign is also collusion.
Is it common for campaign people to meet with accused foreign money launderers?
Following up still further:
I was very impressed by a phrase used back in September by eschereal, and it has stuck in my mind. Searching it today, I find it must be original, as this is the only search hit that comes up:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=20494552#post20494552
Trump as “blorter of noises” is just so very descriptive!
Just so we’re clear, if they knew about Russian efforts and did nothing about them, I would consider that collusion. Lying by omission in this case is flat-out treason.
I’ve got ten bucks that says Vinyl Turnip can do it.
Ya know, collusion is a pretty lame word to describe “traitor” or “treasonous fuckhead”. Ok, maybe there isn’t a crime called “traitor” or “treason” or “collusion.” That said, at a most basic level, this, if proven, is treason. Actively seeking help of a hostile foreign power that we have been at best frennemies (sp?) with for coming close to 100 years now. You wanna spin that as some ill defined collusion be my guest. Again, with the caveat of being proven in a court of law in the US of A, this is treason and traitors that have sold our country to the Russians.
Treason is a crime. It’s not charged very frequently, though, because it is narrowly-defined and comes with some extra requirements.
Fun fact: treason is the only federal crime defined in the Constitution itself:
Can I ask a question of the lawyerly types here? If Trump did indeed fire Mueller, regardless of what political consequences are to him later, what happens with the actual indictments? Thinking particularly of:
a) Manafort/Gates
b) Any sealed indictments still under wraps - if indeed there are any
c) Any indictments that haven’t yet led to an arrest. For instance, if Mueller announces tomorrow that they’re indicting Junior, Jared and Ivanka, and Trump responds immediately with “That’s It You’re Fired!” as we know he’s longing to do.
Can the junior staff of the special prosecutor’s office simply continue without him?
Most smart people would be perfectly happy if Mueller simply handed out enough indictments for other charges to lay the groundwork for Trump’s impeachment. Obstruction of justice, tax evasion, fraud, there’s just so many options. “Collusion” doesn’t have to be the charge (if that’s even the name of a crime.)
Mueller is almost certainly not going to directly indict Trump; I do not believe he will step beyond the line of executive privilege because he knows as well as anyone does that such a thing would be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court and they’d rule in favor of executive privilege.
The optimistic scenario is simply that Mueller’s investigation indicts enough of Trump’s family and supplicants that it becomes apparent Trump is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors and the pressure on Congress is such that they must impeach. If he arrests enough of Trump’s scum, he’ll have done as good a job as anyone could hope for. Congress can still refuse to impeach but there’s nothing Mueller can do about that.