# Can someone summarize this Trump campaign/deep state/informant kerfuffle? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [May 22, 2018, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-summarize-this-trump-campaign-deep-state-informant-kerfuffle/814595 "2018-05-22T00:04:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2018, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-summarize-this-trump-campaign-deep-state-informant-kerfuffle/814595/1 "2018-05-22T00:04:36Z")
My immediately assumption is that it’s just a Breitbart/Fox/Trump Administration talking point with no substance at all. They’re trying to present legitimate FBI investigations into the Trump campaign and its links with Russia, based on actual information, as something done for partisan campaign advantage. Is there any evidence that suggests I’m wrong? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2018, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-summarize-this-trump-campaign-deep-state-informant-kerfuffle/814595/2 "2018-05-22T00:12:08Z")
I think it’s an attempt to “both sides do it” away Trump ties to the KGB. Because, you know, KGB, FBI, they’re both equally bad, right? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2018, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-summarize-this-trump-campaign-deep-state-informant-kerfuffle/814595/3 "2018-05-22T00:25:25Z")
With any other administration, we could assume there was a master plan behind this all. But with Trump? Despite all the lying he does, he’s really bad at it. He just tells whatever lie has passed through his head within the last hour without thought to how it matches up with the lies he told yesterday. And he has no plan for what lies he will tell tomorrow. He’s like a four year old trying to tell you he didn’t break the lamp. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2018, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-summarize-this-trump-campaign-deep-state-informant-kerfuffle/814595/4 "2018-05-22T00:30:15Z")
There’s probably a guy who joined the campaign out of a legitimate belief that trump was a viable candidate who would make a good president. Said guy started seeing a bunch of freaky shit that not only made him question his original judgement but was sufficient to induce him to inform TPTB about what he saw. Said guy is now being portrayed has having been an FBI plant from the beginning. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2018, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-summarize-this-trump-campaign-deep-state-informant-kerfuffle/814595/5 "2018-05-22T00:38:54Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > My immediately assumption is that it’s just a Breitbart/Fox/Trump Administration talking point with no substance at all. They’re trying to present legitimate FBI investigations into the Trump campaign and its links with Russia, based on actual information, as something done for partisan campaign advantage. > > Is there any evidence that suggests I’m wrong? No, which is why Rosenstein immediately agreed to let the Inspector General investigate it. The FBI was not trying to help Hillary. It is to laugh. The FBI has nothing to fear from this, assuming that they trust the IG, which they do. So, sure, Donald - let’s get a second investigation looking into events around in your campaign. No way that can backfire on you, can it? ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2018, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-summarize-this-trump-campaign-deep-state-informant-kerfuffle/814595/6 "2018-05-22T06:53:27Z")
IG? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2018, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-summarize-this-trump-campaign-deep-state-informant-kerfuffle/814595/7 "2018-05-22T07:02:04Z")
As a general rule, anytime there’s a White House scandal, just assume the administration is guilty. You’ll be right nearly every time. I’ve barely bothered to follow the Trump scandals because in his case, I’m 99% sure he’s guilty of everything he’s accused of. And plenty of things we don’t know about. I have no problem with a policy of “guilty until proven innocent” when it comes to politicians. They serve us and we entrust them with great power. They must demonstrate to us that they have integrity, the burden isn’t on us to prove they don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2018, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-summarize-this-trump-campaign-deep-state-informant-kerfuffle/814595/8 "2018-05-22T09:26:08Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > IG? Inspector General, I imagine ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2018, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-summarize-this-trump-campaign-deep-state-informant-kerfuffle/814595/9 "2018-05-22T11:43:02Z")
I find that reading the HQ of Never Trumpism, National Review, gives you the most unbiased look at Trump: > **[A Thought on the Trump-DOJ Scandal | National Review](https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/donald-trump-department-of-justice-scandal/)** > > We Americans have a habit of putting fundamental social and political questions out of our minds by turning them into technical legal questions. > [@](#): > > 1. The FBI investigation into the Trump campaign began on flimsy foundations, and quite possibly improper ones, and was at least at first carried out by some people who openly expressed disdain for Donald Trump. > 2. The answer to the original question driving the investigation—was there criminal collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia?—is pretty much “no.” > 3. The investigation has been undermined, impeded, and obstructed by Trump and those around him, including through demands by the president for personal loyalty from law-enforcement officials and firing or causing the dismissal of a director and deputy director of the FBI. > 4. This has led the investigation to increasingly focus on the question of obstruction itself, and therefore to become an investigation about itself. The investigation seems likely to arrive at the conclusion that it has been obstructed. > 5. At the same time, the investigation has also expanded to consider other compelling evidence of wrongdoing by people associated with Trump and his 2016 campaign revealed in the course of the narrower investigation and its extension into the obstruction question. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2018, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-summarize-this-trump-campaign-deep-state-informant-kerfuffle/814595/10 "2018-05-22T11:55:18Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I find that reading the HQ of Never Trumpism, National Review, gives you the most unbiased look at Trump: > > [https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/donald-trump-department-of-justice-scandal/](https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/donald-trump-department-of-justice-scandal/) 1 is complete bullshit. 2 is TBD, but we know that the Trump campaign asked Russian spies to illegally help them, and then the spies did, and then the Trump campaign attempted to change policy to help Russia. So if that’s a pretty much ‘no’" then I don’t know what to say. 3 is accurate. 4 is accurate. 5 is accurate. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2018, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-summarize-this-trump-campaign-deep-state-informant-kerfuffle/814595/11 "2018-05-22T12:01:23Z")
I disagree with 1, but I think 2 is accurate because as Lindsey Graham said, “trump couldn’t even collude with his own campaign”. But I also agree that the Trump-Russia narrative is “truthy” in the sense that Trump is very pro-Putin and there were contacts between members of his campaign and Russia. But none of it was probably illegal. Just scandalous. It’s more of a political question than a legal question. Is it right for campaigns to work with foreign governments, and under what circumstances is it wrong? Because foreign interference in our elections is not new nor is it unusual for us to interfere in foreign elections(including a Russian election). ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2018, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-summarize-this-trump-campaign-deep-state-informant-kerfuffle/814595/12 "2018-05-22T12:22:15Z")
In some ways, the Republicans may have already won. If Rosenstein is repeatedly bending to political pressure to reveal what the government has in an investigation of the party’s chief, then the Republicans have, to some degree, already succeeded in politicizing the justice department and casting doubt on its ability to function independently and objectively. ---
**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:** [May 22, 2018, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-summarize-this-trump-campaign-deep-state-informant-kerfuffle/814595/13 "2018-05-22T13:43:18Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > With any other administration, we could assume there was a master plan behind this all. > > But with Trump? Despite all the lying he does, he’s really bad at it. He just tells whatever lie has passed through his head within the last hour without thought to how it matches up with the lies he told yesterday. And he has no plan for what lies he will tell tomorrow. > > He’s like a four year old trying to tell you he didn’t break the lamp. More like a guy who grew up in New York/New Jersey real estate where corruption is endemic. He’s used to not being held to account because everyone around him was also on the take. The rules are different in Washington - at a minimum the scrutiny is magnitudes higher - and he’s not be able to adapt to his new conditions. In truth, he’s not the first person to go through something like this. That bullshit the Clinton’s pulled with the White House Travel Office right at the beginning was some bush league nonsense you could pull off in Little Rock. In Washington things went sideways on them. But they learned pretty quickly. ---
**Author:** ![LAZombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b38774/32.png) [@LAZombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LAZombie)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2018, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-summarize-this-trump-campaign-deep-state-informant-kerfuffle/814595/14 "2018-05-22T14:07:10Z")
Obama implanted FBI informants into the Trump campaign to destroy his political opponent. He used similar third world tactics when he had Lois Lerner and IRS attack Tea Party groups. I hope this helps you understand this current matter. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2018, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-summarize-this-trump-campaign-deep-state-informant-kerfuffle/814595/15 "2018-05-22T14:12:33Z")
> [@LAZombie](#): > > Obama implanted FBI informants into the Trump campaign to destroy his political opponent. They were not FBI informants, they were Lizard People who sought to control the precious bodily fluids of the healthiest man ever elected to the Presidency. Get your conspiracy theories right. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2018, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-summarize-this-trump-campaign-deep-state-informant-kerfuffle/814595/16 "2018-05-22T14:43:36Z")
> [@LAZombie](#): > > Obama implanted FBI informants into the Trump campaign to destroy his political opponent. He used similar third world tactics when he had Lois Lerner and IRS attack Tea Party groups. I hope this helps you understand this current matter. Now that is a dead argument that is resurrected many times… and it is still dead. 🙂 > **[The Debunked IRS Targeting Scandal Shows There Is No Sane Wing of the GOP](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/10/debunked-irs-scandal-shows-theres-no-sane-wing-of-the-gop.html)** > > A new report proves the “scandal” Republicans are certain of never existed. > [@](#): > > The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration reviewed a decade of IRS handling of political organizations. It found that scores of liberal groups were subject to the same heavy scrutiny that conservative groups faced. This merely certified what had been perfectly clear all along. Within months of the “targeting scandal” breaking, evidence was already available to show that the IRS was giving political activists on the left the same treatment as those on the right. (The New York Times reported on this as early as June 2013.) Subsequent hearings turned up no evidence Obama had ordered the IRS to target conservatives because the IRS did not in fact target conservatives. The fact some conservatives had a hard time dealing with the IRS did not prove the IRS is targeting conservatives any more than some conservatives having a hard time renewing their driver’s licenses would prove the DMV is targeting conservatives. > > And yet the scandal has lived on and on in the conservative mind. House Republicans have demanded the impeachment of the IRS commissioner; The House Republicans’ website continues to insist “The American people deserve answers”; last month, Republicans expressed outrage that the Department of Justice declined to prosecute former IRS official Lois Lerner, whose name has become a right-wing trigger-phrase akin to “Benghazi.” > > Nobody has ever told the Republican base there is no IRS scandal. Pro-Trump and Never Trump Republicans are united in their fixed belief in this unicorn. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2018, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-summarize-this-trump-campaign-deep-state-informant-kerfuffle/814595/17 "2018-05-22T14:53:48Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I disagree with 1, but I think 2 is accurate because as Lindsey Graham said, “trump couldn’t even collude with his own campaign” If TRUMP did not personally conspire with Russians or other foreign adversaries, that doesn’t mean people in the Trump campaign didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2018, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-summarize-this-trump-campaign-deep-state-informant-kerfuffle/814595/18 "2018-05-22T15:09:57Z")
> [@LAZombie](#): > > Obama implanted FBI informants into the Trump campaign to destroy his political opponent. I totally believe you! It makes perfect sense that Obama, who wasn’t running for office and was, in fact, about to exit public service, would consider Trump his “political opponent”. Now, where’s your evidence of this, so we can show the world? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2018, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-summarize-this-trump-campaign-deep-state-informant-kerfuffle/814595/19 "2018-05-22T15:17:36Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > As a general rule, anytime there’s a White House scandal, just assume the administration is guilty. You’ll be right nearly every time. I’ve barely bothered to follow the Trump scandals because in his case, I’m 99% sure he’s guilty of everything he’s accused of. And plenty of things we don’t know about. > > I have no problem with a policy of “guilty until proven innocent” when it comes to politicians. They serve us and we entrust them with great power. They must demonstrate to us that they have integrity, the burden isn’t on us to prove they don’t. I’m not agreeing with the “all politicians do this so it doesn’t matter who you vote for” line. I’ve noticed that Republican politicians commit a significantly larger share of political crimes. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2018, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-summarize-this-trump-campaign-deep-state-informant-kerfuffle/814595/20 "2018-05-22T15:32:35Z")
Lovely discussion, but I don’t think anyone has actually bothered to answer the OP’s question yet. Here goes: During the campaign, the FBI became aware of Russian interference in the election, and the large number of Russian contacts that seemed to be part of the Trump campaign. As part of investigating this they had an English professor who was occasionally used by the FBI as an undercover informant talk to three members of the Trump campaign about possible ties to Russia. Trump morphed this story to say that the Obama had ordered (false) the FBI to plant a spy in their campaign (also false) to leak campaign secrets to the Clintons (yet again false) and so this is bigger than Watergate (guess what, false). Now he has asked the Justice department to publicly reveal the identity of the “spy” (presumably to make his life hell because Trump is a vindictive ass) and launch a full investigation (because Trump is desperate for anything to distract the Mueller investigation). Rosenstein went through the motions, but shoving it off to the Inspector General where it will get the cursory examination which is more than it deserves and come back with a verdict of “nothing to see here”. This probably won’t satisfy Trump and may be used as an excuse to launch a Saturday Night Massacre. The obvious proof that this wasn’t political is that if Obama had really wanted to derail the Trump campaign he would have made all the allegations about Russian Interference public before Novemeber. Instead he got criticized for remaining silent precisely because he wanted to avoid interfering. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-summarize-this-trump-campaign-deep-state-informant-kerfuffle/814595.md?page=2)