There is no good evidence, but I can think of at least 6 items to cast reasonable doubt, so your statement that there isn’t any is simply untrue. And, fundamentally, no one has yet been able to get access to look at Trump’s financials so any citation of “no evidence” seems like pretty weak sauce.
But mostly, I think you need to note that there’s no amount of money that someone can’t blow through, given sufficient ineptitude. Trump has a certain vision of himself and how he is supposed to live. Minus business acumen, it’s completely conceivable that he’s continued to run himself into the ground any number of times since the 90s and had to take out loans to keep his gold plated condo, finance his wife and girlfriends, etc. There’s no requirement that he be a genuine real estate mogul in order for him to be living beyond his means.
I would amend this to “nothing for the country at large” in return.
Which leads to:
Money for the US? No. Money for him? different question with a different answer.
To the extent that he’s negotiating, I don’t think he’s negotiating on behalf of the country - I think it’s for himself. And yes, I do think there may be enough potential money for Trump&Co. to make him promise pretty much anything that doesn’t directly hurt him to get it. And as president he as a lot of access to things that do not directly hurt him.
Also remember that he values things on the way he feels at the time, not by more traditionally accepted methods. (cite) If he feels a casino in Yekatarinaburg is worth 4 billion dollars, to him, it is. So while you (and the entire economic community) may look at trade with Russia and think that it’s not worth all that much - who knows what it’s worth in Trump’s head. And based on some of his & his sons’ previous statements, it is credible that they think Russian business relationships are worth a lot.
Those are the only reasons for which a President might want to conduct diplomacy with a country that has thousands of nuclear warheads, controls much of the energy of eastern Europe, and is dangerously close to an accidental shooting war with America in the Middle East?
I’m no fan of Trump, but if you honestly can’t see any non-nefarious reason for an American President to engage in diplomacy with Russia, you need to get out of your bubble.
The press is offering flimsy articles with no sources or proof named.
Trump interests in Russia start and end with what’s best for America.
Russia does have a lot of natural resources, and the 2nd most powerful armed forces group in the world. So it makes sense to understand each other.
I think Putin gets it on Radical Islam. I just wish he leave the the rest of Eastern Europe alone. Putin is on quote saying the fall of the Soviet Union was the worst thing he saw.
So you have NO evidence, other than speculation about his character. Is that about it?
Quick hint: Speculation is not evidence. It’s not even ‘weak evidence’. This chain of reasoning you have concocted sounds suspiciously like the type of nonsense the “Obama is a secret Muslim” loons used to justify their belief.
The evidence that we DO have contradicts what you said. The only tax return we’ve seen comes from 2005, and it shows that in that year Trump earned $67 million dollars from real estate, $42 million in business income, $32 million in capital gains, and $10 million in interest on investments. He paid $36.5 million in taxes on that money. Suspiciously absent are payments to Russian banks or Oligarchs.
Of course, that page came from Trump himself, most likely, so it’s entirely plausible that he cherry-picked the best year he could find. But still, it is evidence that he actually makes a significant income. I would call it ‘weak evidence’, since it’s not dispositive. But that’s different than guessing, even if you think it’s a really informed guess.
I buy all but numbers 2 and 5. He doesn’t give a fuck about a potential WW III as long as he can make a buck off of it. He hasn’t the patience to do any actual spying.
Money is the key. We know his credit was shit. We know he borrowed heavily from the Russians. We know they grossly overpaid for some of his properties. They had a nice little money laundering scheme going. The Russians own him.
Bob Mueller will get to the bottom of this. I’m sure he has thought of all of these and dozens more.
Heh speaking of flimsy evidence…two pages of the most basic tax return possible is proof of his holdings or against his being involved with the Russians? Please.
You keep talking about how there’s no evidence, as if you were inside the Mueller investigation. Do you have some special, super-double-secret knowledge that the rest of us don’t? Otherwise, you’re WAY jumping the gun, and your theory that there’s nothing is no less crazy.
Try reading for comprehension. At no point did I say that it said anything about Russia. I was specifically responding to the ‘weak evidence’ based on exactly no actual evidence but rather pure speculation that Trump is a lousy businessman, maybe doesn’t make any money, and is therefore being bankrolled by the Russians.
I don’t know if there is evidence or not. If there is, I’ll be happy to see it. Until there actually IS evidence, you don’t have evidence. I think that’s pretty clear, don’t you? Speculation about motives and suppositions about his finances are not evidence. They aren’t even ‘weak evidence’.
I can’t believe that I seem to have to explain this to anyone. Try going to court without any actual evidence, but with a chain of deduction you built up in your head about the accused. It can be the most clever chain of deduction ever devised by a human, but it’s not evidence. Because evidence is actually a thing, and you don’t get to redefine it to ‘get’ someone you really, really don’t like.
Putin doesn’t care about “radical Islam” (BTW I hate that term and I think it’s essentially meaningless: what’s a 'radical Christian?"). One of the world’s most prominent enthusiasts of honour killing, execution of homosexuals, and everything else that ISIS believes in is Ramzan Kadyrov who is bankrolled to the tune of millions of dollars and given free rein to operate by the Russian government. Incidentally this is one of the few areas where Putin is actually unpopular with his people and would be vulnerable to a political challenge: most Russians think the close relationship between Putin and Kadyrov is outrageous.
Putin isn’t ‘tough’ on Muslim immigration to Russia either, in fact he just banned the most prominent ethnic-nationalist publication, Sputnik i Pogrom, which was criticizing his liberal immigration policies. (Amusingly I believe he banned them for being sympathetic to ISIS).
Putin was, you know, correct in that comment about the Soviet Union. Purely at the level of things like GDP per capita, life expectancy, self-reported happiness, etc., the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major disaster, causing huge decreases in net welfare. (Look at the 50% economic contraction in the Russian economy between 1991 and 2000 if you don’t believe me, or for that matter the 20% contraction in the east german economy in a single year.)
Unpossible! We sent our brightest young acolytes of private property, the free market and the miracle of compounded interest! The Russians took to these notions with wild-eyed enthusiasm, especially that part about private property. Oddly enough, it seems to have evolved into placing absurd wealth into a few elite hands. So very unlike the American experience! Top men are still trying to figure that one out.
That’s embarrassing, Sam. You’re talking about evidence is if it had the same standards as proof. Even flimsy evidence is evidence, it just isn’t proof. Better and more reliable evidence is more like proof, but not quite. And then there’s proof.
C’mon, you know this stuff. Now, proof may result from investigations inspired and prompted by evidence that is not sufficient for proof. But, of course! Pretty much standard, isn’t it? See the smoke, look for fire? If the evidence were proof, there would be no cause to investigate.
Speaking for myself among others, I await an objective and thorough investigation “with the calm confidence of a Methodist with four aces.”
So, in Trump’s meeting with Putin, the only U.S. official who accompanied the President in the closed door meeting was Rex Tillerson, current Secretary of State but former Exxon CEO. Secretary of Defense? Director of National intelligence? Nah…
(I also saw it mentioned last night on the news that it was unusual not to have a note taker, to ensure a clear record of the discussion).
Exxon, of course, was squelched in its plans to drill in the Arctic on behalf of the Russians by the current sanctions put in place by the Obama administration. Do you think that came up in conversation during the 2 hour discussion? It’s worth several billion dollars.
This is the kind of thing that’s going on. Trump doesn’t need some specific plan with Putin to enrich himself, he caters to the rich and powerful. He sees the success of Exxon as an opportunity for him to make more money down the road. He sees the removal of sanctions from Russia as a way for others to make money in Russia and stay at resorts there with his name on them. He may not even want to own those resorts, just make sure his name is on them and he’s collecting some kind of steady royalty on that basis. It’s about opportunism without regard to who is affected by the results other than the rich and powerful.
How much money do you think Putin paid Trump to ship US natural gas to Poland and Lithuania?
Poland just took a symbolic step forward in wresting itself from Russia’s energy dominance.
*
On Thursday, the first ever liquefied natural gas shipment from the United States arrived in Poland, a landmark of sorts in Europe’s continuing drive to diversify the sources of its energy imports. The gas came from an export terminal in Louisiana that was first out of the gate to exploit the U.S. shale boom to supply the global market.
As Europe diversifies its gas supplies — from the United States, Norway, and other gas exporters like Qatar, Russia will face a choice between losing its big share of the market — and the political clout that comes with it — or lowering prices to stay competitive.*
You might ask yourself why the “innocent people” of Poland were chanting “Donald Trump, USA, USA” if they thought Trump was influenced by Putin.
LNG exports were a major priority for both countries in Trump’s Thursday morning visit to Poland. Poland relies overwhelmingly on Russia for natural gas supplies, as do other eastern European nations. Russia can use the reliance to push its geopolitics priorities.
Those countries and the United States see American LNG as a viable substitute for Russian natural gas, even if it is more expensive. Duda said he wants to make sure the area is no longer subject to “blackmailing” by Russia.
from the first cite above: “It’s very important, it’s a milestone,” one Polish diplomat told Foreign Policy. The diplomat said energy diversification is a top priority for eastern Europe countries in Russia’s shadow, a safety net if Moscow ever decides to cut supplies in geopolitical ploys against its neighbors — something it has repeatedly done in the past.
Between competition for natural gas and attacks on the Syrian air force I’m not seeing a lot of influence by Putin over Trump.
Ah, someone in the Shodan mold. Speaking of reading comprehension, the argument is that Trump has burned his bridges with NY banks (which, if you do the research, he pretty much has) and Russia offered easy money. But your incorrect interpretation is a nice distraction.
I am neither a prosecutor nor a defense attorney. I don’t have to prove it in court. (Neither does Congress, btw.) I also don’t have to take your complete skepticism against anything presented as gospel. Guess what? I don’t. What I do is notice how there sure are a lot of things that point toward the possibility of that theory that don’t fit with the ‘explanations’ provided by those very people who just happen to have the most to gain by lying.
Meanwhile, you spend your time sounding very like a defense attorney. What, exactly, is ‘good enough’ evidence for you? I notice, somehow, that you seem to come down quite a lot on the Trump side of things, for all that you claim how much you dislike him.
You could have asked for the six items of evidence that I explicitly referenced. I was not vague that they existed, and that seems like a quicker course than writing out your post.
Trump has been blackballed from every American bank and so has been working with Deutsche Bank, which was fined for money laundering.
While Trump was still running a casino, it was accused with providing a safe haven for money launderers and fined for it.
Felix Sater - convicted of fraud, FBI informant on Russian oranized crime, and strung through Trump’s history from 2004 to 2016.
Several references by his family that they are receiving money from Russia.
The Steele Dossier
Trump claims to be a billionaire, but makes most of his money hosting on daytime TV.
Overall, that’s not evidence enough to say that he is a Russian money launderer or in debt to Russia, but neither would be surprising. Given that for nearly every other American citizen you cannot say that, that it wouldn’t be surprising if this person was working with or in debt to Russia, I think it’s fair to call the above “evidence” even if it is not conclusive. If you want to classify it as not evidence, then I would ask that you explain why you think any other random American is just as likely to be financially linked to Russia as Trump.