Let’s assume that Trump (and his campaign) DID in fact collude with Russia.
All of it is true, is the starting point for this discussion.
How should the FBI have handled it and what should be done?
No, let’s NOT assume Trump did anything. The investigators have to PROVE it.
If and when they do, he’ll deserve impeachment. Not until then.
You don’t seem to understand the premise, here.
It’s called a “hypothetical”. A hypothesis is “a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.”
The thing I propose to discuss here, the hypothetical, is: what would be the proper way to investigate a presidential candidate who is actively colluding with Russia? And if said candidate won the election and was sworn in, what should be done about it?
I don’t understand what you mean by “How should the FBI have handled it.” They are handling it. Right now
And apparently there’s quite a bit of controversy over how they are handling it.
How should it have been handled that would have avoided controversy?
There is no possible way that any government department, office, or agency can operate any more that avoids controversy.
The Steele dossier is fully factual? Then the FBI’s reliance on it to obtain FISA warrants was proper and not controversial.
Controversy? Try a Republican conspiracy theory/fairy tale.
So how could/should it have been handled to avoid that?
I don’t know everything the FBI did, as some of that is above even my pay grade, but from what I have seen, I don’t know that they did anything wrong, or even suboptimal, given the circumstances.
I am not sure that there is anything they could have done to avoid the ones who are being investigated from complaining that they are being investigated and trying to gin up a “controversy” over it. Short of just not investigating the compromises in our election, there is nothing I can think f that the FBI could have done.
In your hypothetical, it is proven that there was collusion, so the FBI really has no more work to do, and now it is congress’s turn to show their colors. What should be done at that point is to get the russian plant out of the oval office, sadly, I don’t think that there are enough congresscritters with enough integrity to do so.
So we all have it straight, you’re asking we could have gotten Republicans to calmly accept that their Presidential win was the result of a crime?
The only way I can imagine is if the FBI had managed to keep it completely secret until they had irrefutable evidence.
With Nunes a clear Trump toady and the Republicans in control of every branch of government? Nothing whatsoever.
So, an actual secret society.
Well I would call it a police force that exercised discretion. But potato-potStasi.
Even then, in a sprawling investigation involving foreign nationals and dozens or more people, there are search warrants, FISA warrants, information to/from allied foreign intelligence agencies, subpoenas and ultimately indictments of low-level individuals in order to get them to provide information on higher-level individuals. All of this means that prosecutors from DOJ are going to be involved sooner rather than later in addition to CIA and/or NSA officials for the FISA/sig-int/foreign intelligence agency portions.
Given all of the intra- and inter-agency coordination that would be involved, it would likely be almost impossible to keep it concealed from any executive agency political appointees, let alone Congress.
To follow up on this thought, there’s an implicit obligation by democratically-elected representatives who possess the power of institutional oversight to use that power judiciously and responsibly. In reality, it’s true that there is always political influence exerted on these institutions, depending on the majority overseeing them. A right wing DoJ might have different prosecutorial and law enforcement priorities than a leaning government – this can exist within certain boundaries of political and legal norms.
What the Republicans have done going back to the Clinton investigations of the 1990s, however, is to use the rule of law as a weapon to influence elections, and now they’re going beyond that to influence criminal investigations. And in the process they’re destroying those boundaries of political and legal norms. What the Republicans are doing is what authoritarians in other dysfunctional governments do, trying to make truth and the rule of law more subjective than objective.
Why would it make any difference in the investigation if Trump is guilty or not? Are you saying that there are ways of handling the investigation that are OK if he is guilty but not if he is innocent?
Cliven Bundy got off because the feds were quite sure he was guilty, and so they didn’t think they had to do things properly. I don’t think that’s OK - proper procedures should have been followed. Cutting corners because you don’t think Trump should be President is serious. Very serious. More serious and more damaging to the country than electing Trump.
Regards,
Shodan
As a hypothetial Trump supporter, I’m not going to be able to answer this question until I first hear what Sean Hannity and Kellyanne Conway- geniuses both- have to say. Have you asked them?
There’s basically zero evidence at this point that any corners actually were cut. So far as anybody outside right-wing conspiracy nuts can tell, the FBI is doing the investigation right. Things like the Nunes “memo” are pure fictional works designed to give cover to Trump to end the investigations into (given the hypothesis of the OP), actual wrongdoing on a scale never before seen in our country.
But the idea that our elections were not fair, and that one side violated numerous laws and conspired with foreign enemies to CHANGE THE RESULTS OF AN ELECTION, putting a criminal with the stated goal of dismantling large parts of the US government and rolling back civil rights for millions into power is less serious than whether or not a specific dossier was part of a large collection of evidence used to get a warrant for something? Seriously?
Given the whole “fighting ignorance” thing, can we try to be a little more precise with our language here? The Russians aren’t accused of changing the results of the election. People voted, the votes were counted and the numbers properly reported. They are accused of influencing the electorate with fake news and hacking/releasing emails.