They influenced it without changing it? :dubious:
They influenced the electorate. Then there was a vote. This isn’t complicated. I have to assume you see a difference between a dirty ad campaign and stuffing the ballot box.
If Rich Whitney couldn’t get a do-over, no one can.
More or less agreed. But if they know there was “collusion”, then the investigation is over. The point of the investigation is to determine the facts. If the facts are known, you don’t need an investigation.
Then by definition any investigation fights the hypothetical in the OP. If they had known there was collusion, they would not have investigated. Since they did investigate, they could not have “known”.
It appears it was done in case Trump won, to use what the Russians gave them to discredit Trump and cripple his Presidency. Which is what Putin wants. So the hypothetical switches to “what should the FBI have done, assuming the purpose of the Russians is to disrupt the elections no matter who won?”
Regards,
Shodan
OK, I’ll play along. Cite away. And not from Fox News, Breitbart, or Infowars.
Oh, sorry, I forgot. You don’t do cites. It ‘appears.’
You’re rather glossing over the fact that the intelligence community has concluded that Russia intervened in order to elect Trump. That’s what Putin wanted. The question is whether the Trump campaign worked with him in some way, wittingly or unwittingly, and of course whether Trump and Company committed any other crimes along the way.
In other words, Putin wanted to sow chaos in the US and Trump by himself has been exceeding all expectations.
Investigations have the function of ‘finding out’ if a crime was committed–but also the function of ‘establishing evidence’ that a crime was committed.
You are ignoring that second function.
OK, but then let’s not fight the hypothetical. How would the FBI “know” Trump is guilty without evidence?
Regards,
Shodan
The OP’s hypothetical makes no such claim.
We, the omniscient third party, know that trump is guilty.
That does not mean that the FBI does.
Have you ever read a book where you, the reader, had access to information that the protagonist didn’t? If so, were you confused by the fact that the protagonist was not operating on information that you possess, but they didn’t?
What makes you think they have no evidence?
…This is one of the less-intelligent tactics Trumpians are using: the nutty idea that
if no evidence has yet been made public that proves there is no evidence!!1!!!1!!!
Perhaps you didn’t realize that this stunningly idiotic ‘reasoning’ is convincing only to extremely stupid people.
But let’s follow that ‘logic’ to its conclusion: All law enforcement-investigation personnel are hereby fired and their jobs eliminated, because ‘unless evidence of a crime is already public then there is no evidence’.™ And no reason to prosecute all those crimes for which ‘there is no evidence’ (since the existing evidence isn’t yet public). So, no reason for any of those tens of thousands of law-enforcement professionals–in local and state police forces; in military police; in the FBI, etc. etc.–to have jobs.
‘If evidence isn’t already public then it doesn’t exist’—this is the position FoxNews and associated Trumpists are taking. And it’s daft.
It’s in the OP. The FBI “knows” somehow that Trump is guilty. How do they “know” that? Either they have evidence, in which case they wouldn’t need to investigate, or they don’t have evidence, in which case they don’t “know”.
No it doesn’t - it proves that no evidence has yet been made public. It also proves that those who are thoroughly convinced of Trump’s guilt are not basing their opinions on evidence.
Although I do rather suspect that the Mueller investigation is going to take a lot - a lot -of very determined spin before the Dems figure out what to do next.
Regards,
Shodan
Actually, that’s not in the OP. It says “let’s assume Trump is guilty” not what you said. Frankly the OP is a tad disjointed, as we don’t need to assume anything to discuss the best way for the FBI to run such an investigation. But you are taking a rather ridiculously extreme and aggressive misinterpretation.
Hey OP, you should start another thread: “What would happen if aliens visited earth?”
You’d get dozens of posts arguing that you can’t prove that the little green men aren’t actually humans.
In addition to the problems with your interpretation of the OP (described in the posts just before this one), you are mixing up “evidence” with “proof.”
They’re not the same thing.
That’s a wildly fine hair you’re trying to split. If a foreign power meddled in such a way that the results of the election were different than if they hadn’t meddled, “changed the results of the election” seems like an entirely fair way to refer to their actions.
Regardless of what CarnalK said, we don’t, in fact, know that the results were affected. The Russians tried to influence the outcome of the election. We can’t really know whether they succeeded in changing the results, though.
Spreading ridiculously false stories aimed at an audience with no inclination or desire to engage in critical thinking would certainly have some effect.
Otherwise, why the attempt?
People attempt things all the time without accomplishing their goal. But if you have some way of measuring that the effect was big enough to flip the election, we’d all be interested in seeing it. In fact, Mueller would probably be interested, too. 
I’m sure he already has it.