# Assume that Trump colluded with Russia **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [February 2, 2018, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assume-that-trump-colluded-with-russia/808060 "2018-02-02T20:16:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![proudfootz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b9e5f3/32.png) [@proudfootz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/proudfootz)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2018, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assume-that-trump-colluded-with-russia/808060/61 "2018-02-06T16:27:07Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > A house of cards built on sand. Exactly - American oligarchs upset that Russian oligarchs are poaching on their turf? Neither gives a tinker’s damn about the integrity of the elections. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2018, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assume-that-trump-colluded-with-russia/808060/62 "2018-02-06T16:28:09Z")
> [@proudfootz](#): > > Exactly - American oligarchs upset that Russian oligarchs are poaching on their turf? > > Neither gives a tinker’s damn about the integrity of the elections. No. I was describing your post. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2018, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assume-that-trump-colluded-with-russia/808060/63 "2018-02-06T16:32:19Z")
Weirdly I came home to a letter in the mail yesterday that stated that my voter registration had become inactive (Jefferson County, CO). I don’t think it’s a Russian plot or anything, but is was weirdly disconcerting. As far as I can tell though this phenomenon is limited geographically to my residence. I was able to reactivate online but I have to wait 72 hours to see if it takes. ---
**Author:** ![proudfootz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b9e5f3/32.png) [@proudfootz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/proudfootz)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2018, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assume-that-trump-colluded-with-russia/808060/64 "2018-02-06T17:02:47Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > No. I was describing your post. Not a very _accurate_ description, but whatever. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2018, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assume-that-trump-colluded-with-russia/808060/65 "2018-02-06T17:27:35Z")
> [@proudfootz](#): > > It seems there isn’t much interest in any investigation into _actual_ hacking of our elections. > > Gore and his party dropped the ball in the 2000 election. > > That neither party seems eager to open this can of worms is a pretty good indicator they don’t care much about whether your votes are counted or not. I don’t follow. What does the middle paragraph refer to? ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2018, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assume-that-trump-colluded-with-russia/808060/66 "2018-02-06T17:39:56Z")
> [@proudfootz](#): > > Did Putin and Trump reach an explicit agreement that The Kremlin would ‘hack’ or ‘rig’ the recent election in the US? Assuming that was true I suspect that NSA with its vast powers to collect information on everyone and everything would already have evidence of it. Then I suspect law enforcement would make efforts to secure that evidence. Yet it took news media to reveal the June 9 meeting with Veselnetkaya. How did that happen, if the NSA knows it all? Maybe it has something to do with legal prohibitions against monitoring American citizens. > [@](#): > > If the suggestion is that The Russians changed votes in our eminently hackable voting machines, then it would have been a good idea to look into it. That no one seems to be interested in doing so indicates to me that no one _really_ believes the ‘Russian Hack’ story. > > If anyone _really_ believed The Russians hacked the DNC servers, then the DNC would have allowed their servers to be examined, and law enforcement would have forced them to surrender this evidence rather than allowing it to be destroyed. Do you mean organizations that _really_ believe it, like the CIA, FBI, and Office of National Intelligence? > [@](#): > > It doesn’t look like the ‘all of its’ that require The Russians to do anything extraordinary don’t have much traction. Not with those who have a vested interest in Trump not being found to have been involved, that’s for sure. > [@](#): > > It would appear the goalpost has been moved to The Russians ‘influencing’ the election somehow through social media. But then, no formal or explicit agreement would be needed for that. The person who sits in the White House exerts enormous power over the lives of billions of people who don’t get to vote on who will be the Leader of the World. How would you know what intel organizations are doing about it? Do you have access to sensitive information that none of us do? (Not that I’d lay that at the door of Trump, anyway; he’s done everything he can to ensure that nothing is done. It would be people just doing their jobs, protecting their country as they swore to do, unlike Trump.) > [@](#): > > If it comes down to wanting ‘dirt’ or ‘opposition research’ from Russian sources, then no doubt some sort of dossier on Clinton will turn up like the dossier on Trump we already have in hand. The Russians already have a dossier. Problem is, the best stuff has already been disseminated. All they have left are monitored conversations while she was in Russia, and nothing particularly incriminating, or it would have come out by now. Not sand. Quicksand. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2018, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assume-that-trump-colluded-with-russia/808060/67 "2018-02-06T20:58:06Z")
> [@proudfootz](#): > > … I assume like most multi-millionaires Trump is corrupt … I suspect you don’t realize that you gave yourself away, there; the idea that ‘most multi-millionaires’ are ‘corrupt’ is profoundly Russian. It’s not something one would expect an American to post, let alone one who’s purportedly from “Left Coast USA”. (!) If you want your dezinformatsiya to have an effect, you need to try a little harder. ---
**Author:** ![proudfootz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b9e5f3/32.png) [@proudfootz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/proudfootz)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2018, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assume-that-trump-colluded-with-russia/808060/68 "2018-02-06T21:31:49Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > I suspect you don’t realize that you gave yourself away, there; the idea that ‘most multi-millionaires’ are ‘corrupt’ is profoundly Russian. It’s not something one would expect an American to post, let alone one who’s purportedly from “Left Coast USA”. (!) - Really?\* No other people on Earth are capable of sussing out for themselves that, as that great Russian novelist Honore de Balzac said, “Behind every great fortune there is a great crime”? Unlike your stereotypical ‘American’ I read other things besides Twitter. > [@](#): > > If you want your dezinformatsiya to have an effect, you need to try a little harder. Fascinating that you are so deep into your paranoid CT that you immediately assume I’m not an American who lives in the United States. :smack: It’s _exactly_ this kind of over-the-top reaction that undermines the credibility for any further making-stuff-up-as-you-go-along you have to offer. You’re the only one who seems to speak Russian - shall we take that as ‘evidence’ you are a Putin agent at some troll farm her to spread division? ---
**Author:** ![proudfootz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b9e5f3/32.png) [@proudfootz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/proudfootz)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2018, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assume-that-trump-colluded-with-russia/808060/69 "2018-02-06T21:33:05Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I don’t follow. What does the middle paragraph refer to? There was widespread concern about the actual vote count in the 2000 Presidential election. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2018, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assume-that-trump-colluded-with-russia/808060/70 "2018-02-06T21:37:45Z")
Everyone will immediately stop the accusations back and forth. Any personal cracks will be sanctioned from this point forward. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2018, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assume-that-trump-colluded-with-russia/808060/71 "2018-02-06T21:49:45Z")
> [@proudfootz](#): > > There was widespread concern about the actual vote count in the 2000 Presidential election. I thought it was more about the hanging chads. The only significant complaints I heard about were the Diebold machines, and that was 2004, and Ohio, in terms of actual hacking of the vote tallies. And I wouldn’t say Algore dropped it - he took it all the way to the Supreme Court. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2018, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assume-that-trump-colluded-with-russia/808060/72 "2018-02-06T21:51:17Z")
> [@proudfootz](#): > > There was widespread concern about the actual vote count in the 2000 Presidential election. Well not really. There was a close vote in one state and the recount was closely watched but in the context of this discussion “Gore and his party dropped the ball in the 2000 election.” is kind of a non sequitur. Also, you are misinterpreting the Balzac quote, which isn’t actually a real quote anyway. ---
**Author:** ![proudfootz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b9e5f3/32.png) [@proudfootz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/proudfootz)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2018, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assume-that-trump-colluded-with-russia/808060/73 "2018-02-06T21:52:39Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > Yet it took news media to reveal the June 9 meeting with Veselnetkaya. How did that happen, if the NSA knows it all? Maybe it has something to do with legal prohibitions against monitoring American citizens. It’s been widely reported that the NSA spies on Americans. I read about it in the newspapers and remember stuff from even months back! > [@](#): > > Do you mean organizations that _really_ believe it, like the CIA, FBI, and Office of National Intelligence? They seem to claim to believe it. As I pointed out one convincing evidence that they actually believe would be acting as if they believed - things like obtaining access to the servers that were supposedly _hacked_, or examining the voting machines that were supposedly _rigged_. As has been pointed out, they are unlikely to find the hard evidence they need if they don’t look for it. But those who have a vested interest in Trump’s being accused seem willing to skip this step and go straight to shrieking about ‘treason’. > [@](#): > > Not with those who have a vested interest in Trump not being found to have been involved, that’s for sure. Yes, I am looking for what is the purported ‘all of this collusion’ is supposed to actually entail, not just some vague handwaving. It doesn’t appear the ‘hacking’ and ‘rigging’ narratives have been taken seriously and are being walked back to some financial shenanigans. > [@](#): > > How would you know what intel organizations are doing about it? Do you have access to sensitive information that none of us do? (Not that I’d lay that at the door of Trump, anyway; he’s done everything he can to ensure that nothing is done. It would be people just doing their jobs, protecting their country as they swore to do, unlike Trump.) If you really want to cite the absence of evidence as a compelling argument to believe your story, I’m not sure that will work as well with me as it might for others. > [@](#): > > The Russians already have a dossier. Problem is, the best stuff has already been disseminated. All they have left are monitored conversations while she was in Russia, and nothing particularly incriminating, or it would have come out by now. Where can I read this dossier you seem to believe Putin handed off to Trump? > [@](#): > > Not sand. Quicksand. It _does_ seem to be quicksand - you can’t tell me what the secret agents know so we have to take their word for it. Some people who may or not have been Russian nationals wrote mean things about Clinton on FaceBook - that’s ‘proof’ of collusion? This _is_ taking longer than we thought! ---
**Author:** ![proudfootz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b9e5f3/32.png) [@proudfootz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/proudfootz)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2018, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assume-that-trump-colluded-with-russia/808060/74 "2018-02-06T21:59:51Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I thought it was more about the hanging chads. The only significant complaints I heard about were the Diebold machines, and that was 2004, and Ohio, in terms of actual hacking of the vote tallies. > > And I wouldn’t say Algore dropped it - he took it all the way to the Supreme Court. > > Regards, > Shodan Well, it was a multi-faceted circus. Chads, confused ballots, registration, voter suppression, etc. But there was some criticism that Gore didn’t push hard enough for the voters: > [@](#): > > Vice President Al Gore’s failure to ask the Florida courts for a manual statewide recount has emerged as one in a series of pivotal legal miscalculations that may have doomed his 35-day battle to wrest Florida’s 25 electors from George W. Bush, legal experts said today. > > While acknowledging the clarifying benefits of hindsight, these lawyers and professors said that this failure unnecessarily raised constitutional obstacles that made it far more difficult for Florida’s courts to fashion a timely remedy that the Supreme Court might have found tolerable. That error, they said, had been compounded by an earlier misstep by Mr. Gore’s lawyers – a decision to seek more time to complete the first phase of the counting process. That decision, one on which even Mr. Gore’s lawyers disagreed, greatly shortened the time available in the second phase to seek a statewide manual recount. > > ‘‘He has nobody to blame but himself,’’ said Thomas W. Merrill, a professor of law at Northwestern University, who criticized the Gore campaign for elevating hardball tactics – seeking immediate hand recounts in Democratic strongholds – over a strategy of demanding that all votes be counted regardless of the political consequences. > > [http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/13/us/contesting-vote-strategy-gore-s-failure-ask-for-manual-statewide-recount-may.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/13/us/contesting-vote-strategy-gore-s-failure-ask-for-manual-statewide-recount-may.html) Yes, the 2004 election highlighted part of what I called our eminently hackable electoral system. We’ve known for a long time our system is broken as seen from the voters’ point of view. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2018, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assume-that-trump-colluded-with-russia/808060/75 "2018-02-06T22:03:50Z")
> [@](#): > > There was widespread concern about the actual vote count in the 2000 Presidential election. > [@CarnalK](#): > > Well not really. There was a close vote in one state and the recount was closely watched but in the context of this discussion “Gore and his party dropped the ball in the 2000 election.” is kind of a non sequitur. > > Also, you are misinterpreting the Balzac quote, which isn’t actually a real quote anyway. Yes to both. (The ‘Balzac quote’ ploy was pretty poorly-handled by the poster.) The message being sold by that poster is rather unsubtle: ‘both your parties are corrupt and no one cares about your concerns, and your vote is worthless, and historically your vote has been worthless and voting has been futile and pointless, so you may has well check out and stop voting and just let the corrupt elites do whatever they want.’ Pass. ---
**Author:** ![proudfootz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b9e5f3/32.png) [@proudfootz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/proudfootz)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2018, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assume-that-trump-colluded-with-russia/808060/76 "2018-02-06T22:11:36Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Well not really. There was a close vote in one state… Actually, all over the map as I correctly remember: > [@](#): > > It’s no secret that the 2000 elections did not go smoothly. For months after Election Day, the nation’s attention was riveted on Florida, where charges and countercharges flew between election officials furious over lost, misplaced, or uncounted votes. > > But **while voting irregularities in the Sunshine State may have garnered the bulk of our attention during those strange days, ballot problems weren’t specific to Florida. According to a new study by social scientists at MIT and Caltech, as many as four to six million votes were lost in the 2000 presidential election** , all thanks to voting machine problems, ballot confusion, lost absentee votes and failed voter registration. > > [http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,167906,00.html](http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,167906,00.html) > [@](#): > > and the recount was closely watched… Yes, I watched and have some memory of what happened as it unfolded in the news. > [@](#): > > but in the context of this discussion “Gore and his party dropped the ball in the 2000 election.” is kind of a non sequitur. In my opinion Gore was very relevant to the 2000 Presidential race and its outcome. Not sure how you managed to think he’s some kind of non sequitur. > [@](#): > > Also, you are misinterpreting the Balzac quote, which isn’t actually a real quote anyway. In the context of being distrustful of the purported moral excellence of the millionaire class it’s perfectly apropos in demonstrating that rational skepticism is some sort of exclusive province of The Russians as was being suggested ---
**Author:** ![proudfootz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b9e5f3/32.png) [@proudfootz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/proudfootz)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2018, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assume-that-trump-colluded-with-russia/808060/77 "2018-02-06T22:16:12Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > Yes to both. (The ‘Balzac quote’ ploy was pretty poorly-handled by the poster.) Unlike the “you’re a damn Commie… er. Putin puppet” ploy? > [@](#): > > The message being sold by that poster is rather unsubtle: ‘both your parties are corrupt and no one cares about your concerns, and your vote is worthless, and historically your vote has been worthless and voting has been futile and pointless, so you may has well check out and stop voting and just let the corrupt elites do whatever they want.’ How you got that out what I actually wrote must require a level of pretzel logic that would seem to be superhuman. But you coudn’t quote me saying anything crazy like that, so you pretend to interpret my ‘real’ message for the benefit of those not quick enough to accuse me of being a Kremlin spy. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2018, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assume-that-trump-colluded-with-russia/808060/78 "2018-02-06T22:38:13Z")
Russians are Communists? Say what? As for my interpretation of your ‘don’t bother voting’ message, we’ll see how much traction either your message or my interpretation of it gain. ---
**Author:** ![proudfootz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b9e5f3/32.png) [@proudfootz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/proudfootz)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2018, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assume-that-trump-colluded-with-russia/808060/79 "2018-02-06T22:49:47Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > Russians are Communists? Say what? > > As for my interpretation of your ‘don’t bother voting’ message, we’ll see how much traction either your message or my interpretation of it gain. Why you insist on misrepresenting me is something only you know. But it seems you prefer to argue with a strawman of your own devising rather than engage in a rational discussion. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2018, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assume-that-trump-colluded-with-russia/808060/80 "2018-02-06T22:52:54Z")
So you believe that all Americans should vote, and that their votes count? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assume-that-trump-colluded-with-russia/808060.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assume-that-trump-colluded-with-russia/808060.md?page=5)