# Now that the dust has settled on the Trump's Russia Hoax **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 21, 2021, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-the-dust-has-settled-on-the-trumps-russia-hoax/952952 "2021-10-21T22:50:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2021, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-the-dust-has-settled-on-the-trumps-russia-hoax/952952/63 "2021-10-23T17:01:40Z")
I guess the Dodgy\_Dude didn’t find the comments here to his liking. After his one reply he hasn’t commented to anything said here. Too many facts and not enough fanboy. What a great screen name for this topic! ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2021, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-the-dust-has-settled-on-the-trumps-russia-hoax/952952/64 "2021-10-23T18:22:56Z")
> [@Dodgy\_Dude](#): > > What does it look like actually happened? Who does it look like the major players and what does it appear they did? I believe that there may still be ongoing investigations into the Trump inauguration fund, so more revelations are still possible but the current state of the art are that: 1. Manafort was working with a Russian agent based out of Ukraine, passing him info about how the campaign was going, polling numbers, etc. What the agenda was is unknown. Whether Trump was aware of this is unknown - though he kept talking with the guy after he was prosecuted and pardoned him so it doesn’t seem like Trump felt that there was an issue if one of his top campaign members was working for Russian interests. 2. Roger Stone was directly working with WikiLeaks which was commonly known to be funded by the Russian government. Trump seems to have known about this and to have been strongly in favor of working with them. 3. Steve Bannon went to the Seychelles to meet with members of Alfa Bank and members of the Qatari government. It’s unknown what the purpose was and whether it was more a _Qatar_ thing or more a _Russia_ thing. 4. But, similarly, there was a separate outreach from Alfa to the Trump campaign after Putin, purportedly, asked all of his oligarchs (dozens, hundreds, of people?) to try and make contact, to form a channel to start discussing relations with the Trump government early. So far as we are aware, zero of these oligarchs reached out except Alfa. See previous. Fishy, but we don’t know what it means. 5. Some years later, Rudy Giuliani goes to Ukraine several times, meeting with Russian backed politicians and agents, bringing back “evidence” of criminal dealings by members of the Biden family. Lindsey Graham tells him to come in and give testimony on what he found, under oath, to Congress - qualifying that **he better stay away** if his materials come from Russia. Giuliani never comes in. 6. Michael Cohen received at least one text from a Russian acquaintance saying that he had destroyed all the compromising tapes that he had of Trump. We have no context on what those were though given popular reports of Trump’s libido, inclination to do things like walking into the changing rooms of Miss Teen America (e.g girls 13-17), and that he was in Russia a bit in the 90s, we do have genuine need to be concerned about the sort of person that he is. Now, all of that said, we should also note things like how Elliott Broidy was getting his crime on in Romania, Flynn was working with Turkey, Papadopoulos may have been working with Greek intelligence, etc. Saying that Trump was specifically working with Russia or was specifically infiltrated by Russia may be a bit of missing the forest for all the trees. In general, Trump attracts unethical incompetents and often has to take whatever trash he can get because no one wants to work for him. The parts of general criminality that emanated from his people that intersected with Russia got the most publicity. Some of that may have been unrelated to Trump, some of it may never have been discovered. We’ll never know but, ultimately, you just can’t have a man as liable to be deeply compromised as Trump in the Executive chair nor someone who brings in so many others who are compromising. ---
**Author:** ![Wrenching\_Spanners](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecb155/32.png) [@Wrenching\_Spanners](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wrenching_Spanners)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2021, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-the-dust-has-settled-on-the-trumps-russia-hoax/952952/65 "2021-10-23T19:29:03Z")
And in that whole tirade, you didn’t mention Russia, the subject of the OP once. I hope you don’t mind if I ignore your response when you haven’t replied to the subject listed in the thread title. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2021, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-the-dust-has-settled-on-the-trumps-russia-hoax/952952/66 "2021-10-24T03:55:51Z")
> [@Wrenching\_Spanners](#): > > I hope you don’t mind if I ignore your response when you haven’t replied to the subject listed in the thread title. You replied to a post just to tell someone you are ignoring their post? Okay, then I’m ignoring your post too. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2021, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-the-dust-has-settled-on-the-trumps-russia-hoax/952952/67 "2021-10-24T13:25:18Z")
I’m ignoring your post and so is my wife. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2021, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-the-dust-has-settled-on-the-trumps-russia-hoax/952952/68 "2021-10-24T13:43:49Z")
Added “ignore post” to my things-to-do list. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2021, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-the-dust-has-settled-on-the-trumps-russia-hoax/952952/69 "2021-10-24T13:48:50Z")
21M North Koreans don’t even know your post exists. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2021, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-the-dust-has-settled-on-the-trumps-russia-hoax/952952/70 "2021-10-24T15:39:09Z")
> [@Wrenching\_Spanners](#): > > And in that whole tirade, you didn’t mention Russia, the subject of the OP once. Of course, @Tristan was responding to YOUR post in which you didn’t once mention Russia, the subject of the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2021, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-the-dust-has-settled-on-the-trumps-russia-hoax/952952/71 "2021-10-24T17:01:55Z")
For the record, I did mention “Russia” AND answer the OP. I see that @Ann_Hedonia also did so. In general, this thread doesn’t seem to be very high on the topic-to-answer-relevance chart. 🤨 ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-the-dust-has-settled-on-the-trumps-russia-hoax/952952/72 "2021-10-25T08:25:11Z")
I mentioned Russia once, but I think I got away with it. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-the-dust-has-settled-on-the-trumps-russia-hoax/952952/73 "2021-10-25T08:36:11Z")
This OP is hilarious. - Waltzes in, posts utterly ambiguous question based as best anyone can tell on an utterly ambiguous background assumption - gets asked to clarify - doesn’t - waltzes out while the room explodes behind. That whole meme tough guys never looking at explosions comes to mind. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-the-dust-has-settled-on-the-trumps-russia-hoax/952952/74 "2021-10-25T08:47:40Z")
So you’re saying the dust hasn’t settled on the OP? ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-the-dust-has-settled-on-the-trumps-russia-hoax/952952/75 "2021-10-25T12:04:03Z")
Much less dust settles on those with things above them such as umbrellas, roofs, or in OP’s case, a bridge. ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-the-dust-has-settled-on-the-trumps-russia-hoax/952952/76 "2021-10-25T12:20:02Z")
Not that I think you actually care or are interested in forthright discussion, but: The post was started with an already inflammatory assumption, which has been pointed out numerous times as false. Any attempt to address the false foundational statement is poorly ridiculed by you, while you continue to berate folks for not addressing the overall OP. As for the OP, I will attempt to reply. > What does it look like actually happened? It looks like there were multiple attempts by the Trump campaign to coordinate disinformation, and illegally access information offered by a foreign entity. Several people have gone to jail over this, as well as attempts to interfere with the investigation. Per Mueller, while the efforts were made, overall ineptitude of the Trump camp meant that most of those efforts failed. Still an actionable offense, in normal circumstances, but this was not a normal circumstance. > Who does it look like the major players and what does it appear they did? A variety of Russian agents, both inside and outside the government (several of whom have been indicted, but they are outside the reach of the US Federal government). As well, several of Trumps camp were indicted, charged, convicted, and a few of those later pardoned or commuted by Trump (a reminder here that to accept a pardon is to admit guilt, and strip away your 5th amendment rights in regards to the crime you are guilty of. It has been made clear to anyone that is not a partisan hack that the Russian government sponsored a campaign of disinformation, set up false social media accounts to sow discord and confuse the political landscape, and otherwise undermine faith in the US electoral process. This is something that the intelligence apparatus of the US all agree happened, as well as a general favorable stance towards Trump from the Russian government as well. Unknown at this time is why Russia favored Trump over Clinton, but there is ample evidence to indicate some form of leverage over Trump specifically, and key actors in the GOP, given very, very unusual behavior from both Trump and the GOP when dealing with Russian government agents, as well as their changing behavior towards sanctions and other punitive measures against Russia. Pure opinion here: _The fact that you, and others in this very thread, continue to handwave away the investigation into the interference with the US electoral process, and the acceptance of a proven false statement by Trump and his allies, as well as by a large, large segment of the GOP voting base, shows that the Russian efforts to undermine US Democracy, and further divide our nation have worked astonishingly well. You and others should think on why you have such a strong reaction, and why you will refuse to accept the claims of every intelligence agency in the US government over the words of a repeatedly bankrupted reality show host who is known to lie, cheat, and has repeatedly shown disdain for the working class. That benefits those who are not friendly to the US or our goals, and harms the US overall._ ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-the-dust-has-settled-on-the-trumps-russia-hoax/952952/77 "2021-10-25T12:25:15Z")
Some small number of Democratic no-names (and a few back benchers) said dumb things about past elections. At the same time, the former Republican President, along with most Republicans in Congress, and most of the party voters, refuse to accept that the 2020 election was legitimate and Trump truly lost, and continue to spread dangerous anti-democratic conspiracy theories. There is nothing remotely close to equivalency here, no more than saying that because a Civil Rights protester might once have broken a window that that makes CR protesters equivalent to Sheriff Bull Connor. Your both-sides-ing is despicable, vile, and anti-American bullshit. Disgusting and shameful. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-the-dust-has-settled-on-the-trumps-russia-hoax/952952/78 "2021-10-25T13:14:16Z")
By the way, @Wrenching_Spanners, this post from you explains why your both-sides-ing is complete nonsense and even dangerous. > [@The takeaway lesson for Trumpers will be: "Violence works; next time do it harder"](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-takeaway-lesson-for-trumpers-will-be-violence-works-next-time-do-it-harder/929937/39): > > I think the OP is right. The Republican Party leadership (excluding Trump) needs to call for everyone who broke a law during the invasion of the US Capitol to be pursued by the FBI and prosecuted under federal law to the maximum extent possible. Make it clear that anybody who was involved in the violence is a criminal and will be pursued as a criminal, and anyone who was trying to break into the legislative chambers will be charged with terrorism. Denounce anyone who called for violence agai… There is nothing remotely equivalent, in size, influence, and level of harm, that compares to this. You were right in this post, you’re very, very wrong in the post I responded to previously. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-the-dust-has-settled-on-the-trumps-russia-hoax/952952/79 "2021-10-25T15:00:11Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > This OP is hilarious. > > - Waltzes in, posts utterly ambiguous question based as best anyone can tell on an utterly ambiguous background assumption > > - gets asked to clarify > > - doesn’t > > - waltzes out while the room explodes behind. > > That whole meme tough guys never looking at explosions comes to mind. @Dodgy_Dude is quite the Artful Dodger. ---
**Author:** ![River\_Hippie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/river_hippie/32/26_2.png) [@River\_Hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/River_Hippie)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-the-dust-has-settled-on-the-trumps-russia-hoax/952952/80 "2021-10-25T21:21:28Z")
I listen to podcasts all day at work. I listened to this one a while back and found it helpful. It goes back to TFG’s early dealings with the Russians and up through the election and presidency. I found it interesting and helpful. I’d recommend starting at the beginning. > **[The Asset Podcast](https://theassetpodcast.org/)** > > Breaking down Trump's ties to Russia and his effort to extort the Ukrainian government for political gain. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2021, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-the-dust-has-settled-on-the-trumps-russia-hoax/952952/81 "2021-11-01T17:14:33Z")
> [@solost](#): > > @Dodgy_Dude is quite the Artful Dodger. Is he really a Doper, though? He may consider himself one of us, but I don’t…. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-the-dust-has-settled-on-the-trumps-russia-hoax/952952.md?page=3)