Again: you’re not even wrong.
And still: not even wrong.
Well, now just a second! Steele got the info from his sources, and now we all know lots about it. The DNC lives here too, so now they know! So, yeah, he got the info and then the DNC knows about it, so that’s a “conduit”! Case closed! Closed, I said! Its closed!
We may have to agree to disagree!
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Here are the facts:
[ol]
[li]The DNC and Clinton campaign paid Fusion GPS to do opposition research [/li][/QUOTE]
Yup. The idea is to get information that will help your candidate by hurting the other candidate. No one was denying that. So if Dems or Pugs sought dirt on each other that is par for the course.
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[li]In the course of conducting this research Fusion found that Trump had a lot of shady Russian ties[/li][/QUOTE]
I wouldn’t doubt that - Trump seems to have shady ties to people everywhere he goes.
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[li]Fusion hired a Russian expert, Christopher Steele, to dig a little deeper into Trump’s Russia ties[/li][/QUOTE]
Yes, Fusion hired Steele, a foreign national, to help supply this thing of value in connection with the Federal election.
[QUOTE]
[li]Steele gathered intelligence, some of it from sources inside the Russian government working against the interest of the Russian government, that led him to believe that crimes were being committed[/li][/QUOTE]
I question whether the things you wrote here are actual ‘facts’ or spin.
I agree that some of the sources of this valuable information intended to help the DNC win the election came from sources inside the Russian government.
But I am interested in how you think you know these sources were Russian traitors.
…and the dossier was circulated among the media in the fall of 2016, and the ‘story’ that Trump was cultivated by Russia was publicly discussed mere days before the election. Talk about your October Surprise!
DNC helps Russians spread salacious stories about US Presidential candidate to influence US Federal election.
Except in your one-sided theory, Russia would be aiming to help Hillary damage or even defeat Trump. From everything we know from the recent indictments and recent history, Russia disliked Hillary the most out of all the primary and then general election candidates from 2016. Russia willfully spreading a story, especially in such a roundabout fashion, about their own clandestine involvement in the U.S. election just prior to that election would not make Russia look good and would risk turning all of the political establishment of both parties against Russia as well as whoever the winner might be. It doesn’t make sense.
What does make sense is that Russia disliked Hillary due to her involvement in the Obama administration and its sanctions and rhetoric against Russia following its invasion of Crimea, its proxy war in eastern Ukraine, and its actions supporting mass murderer Assad. Russia seemed to view Hillary, as many Republicans did, as a likely continuation of Obama’s existing policies. Whereas Trump has had prior financial dealings with Russia and seemed much more sympathetic, hinting that he might recognize Russia’s rule of Crimea as legitimate, the Trump campaign’s efforts to water down the RNC platform of providing arms to Ukraine, and Trump’s direct compliments towards Putin himself. Given these facts, of course it makes sense that Russia would not only dislike Hillary but actively prefer Trump. Best case scenario, as is what happened, Trump wins and a new, more accommodating president comes into office that recognizes Russia for the great power it wishes to be. Worst case scenario, Hillary is still elected, but the U.S. electorate is polarized and she is largely ineffective due to sharply partisan tensions that Russia helped exacerbate.
With the infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between regime-connected Russians and senior members of Trump’s campaign for the purpose of sharing dirt on Hillary, the various meetings and connections between Russian officials and Russians with ties to Putin and Trump’s campaign, the information contained in the indictments/guilty pleas of Flynn and Papadopolous and now the indictments of the Russians, there is far more evidence of likely Trump collusion with Russia than of any Hillary or DNC collusion.
Let’s go to the quarry and throw stuff down there! Keep this up; you’re a real pro at being not even wrong!
nm
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The Dossier wasn’t circulated to the media until after Steele had talked about it to the FBI, which happened in July.
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The reason Steele went to the media is because the FBI released a report to the media saying that they had found no evidence of collusion between Trump campaign and Russia. In reality, the FBI was already looking into the Trump campaign and its Russian connections, they just wanted to downplay it in the news. Steele, not realizing that the FBI was playing coy, went public out of desperation.
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Steele was subcontracted by Fusion GPS. He was not told who Fusion’s client was. Therefore, nothing he did was done with the goal of helping the Clinton Campaign or the DNC.
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It is inaccurate to say that the “DNC helped Russians spread stories in order to influence the election”. There’s no evidence that Steele’s Russian contacts even knew that Steele was working for the DNC. He was not told that himself. Given that Steele is a British citizen there would have been no reason for the Russians to connect him to the American campaign.
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It is inaccurate to characterize Steele’s work as “spreading salacious stories.” Steele believed he’d uncovered evidence of a crime. That’s why he went first to law enforcement. This is what people should do anytime they uncover criminal behavior.
FTR - While I don’t recall when I heard about the Dossier, exactly, by the time it had gone public we’d already been discussing Donald’s Russian connections here on this board for months -
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=799418
Donald Trump’s Russian friends & their Russian money, plus his reverence for Vladimir Putin were already public knowledge before Steele even approached the FBI.
All of the above was known to the Republican shitwits who referred the matter to the DOJ to investigate the Democrats.
The election was held in November, so as I correctly pointed out the dossier was being circulated and discussed just in time to influence the election using stories emanating from the Kremlin.
Steele seems to have been desperate to harm Trump and/or help Clinton using the ‘dirt’ coming from his Russian friends.
Really? In an election campaign reported worldwide Steele gets a note to ‘look into Trump’ and he had no way of knowing it was to the benefit of Trump’s enemies?
:smack:
The DNC did help spread these salacious Kremlin stories - you may think both Steele and the DNC are too stupid to realize what they are doing, but there is no denying the fact that witting or unwitting the conduit was from the Russians to Steele to the DNC whose intent was to use ‘dirt’ on Trump to influence the election.
It is completely accurate, as I am including the so-called ‘pee-pee tape’ in my argument since Steele included it in the Kremlin stories he was passing along.
Everybody loves the Russians, and their money.
Given your defense of Steele that he’s not a Democrat, didn’t know he was working for the benefit of the Democrats, and the Democrats had no idea that who was acting as the conduit for these stories about Trump how is is this is somehow a conspiracy against the Democrats?
Hear Proud W. Footz on his new Fox News podcast, “I swear! It’s true!”
One-sided theory? What is that supposed to mean?
Having Clinton beholden to The Russians wouldn’t be a bad thing from the Russian point of view.
In your theory the Russians allegedly collaborated with Donald Trump, the blabbiest blabbermouth living. If the Russians were ever worried about keeping secrets then your theory collapses of sheer improbability.
Obviously everyone is interested in having a President who is more suited to their interests -Russians, Canadians, French, Britons. Likewise the US takes a great deal of interest in who gets to be in charge of countries in every far corner of the globe.
If, as you claim, Russia would consider discord to be a win then it makes sense to feed the DNC valuable information as they apparently did, so that whoever won the winner would be beholden to the Russians and vulnerable to blackmail.
Is there any idea exactly what this alleged ‘dirt’ the Russians gave to Donald ‘The Tweeter’ Trump was?
Because this whole conspiracy theory of yours seems to vague and hand-wavey to be very compelling.
Gee, the quality of your trolling is slipping.
Everything all right at home?
Just like a Republican…more projection than a multiplex theater.
This is the crux of it and understanding this is why we know the story you’re telling as a fairy tale. We know the Russians giving information to Steele were working against the Kremlin because the information they were giving Steele exposed the illegal things the Kremlin was doing on behalf of the Trump campaign.
People working on behalf of the Kremlin don’t expose secret Kremlin plots. This is where the whole Steele is the bad guy story falls apart. Sure he was paid to dig up dirt, but the dirt he found was the true story of a secret Russian plot to illegally influence the election.
Do not change posters names as a dig in this fashion. If you feel you must, the BBQ Pit is right around the corner.
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This is a warning for accusing another poster of trolling which is not permitted in this forum. I’d you feel you must, the BBQ Pit is right around the corner.
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Sorry, I just don’t take you seriously any more.
Can Steele tell them to piss off?