That’s hyperbolic (and also a position that you’ll find very few seriously hold here) but reality-based . Trump is not a “spy” in any sense. He doesn’t really need to be, since he can - and almost certainly has - simply hand over sensitive government information directly to the Russians. Note that some of our allies literally consider him to be a security risk.
Conversely, denying that Trump isn’t actively aiding and aided by Russia isn’t a moderate position given the information we actually have at this point.
In much the same way California is an eastern coast of America when viewed from Guam.
And good luck on demonstrating that the uranium deal, which didn’t involve either Clinton or the person who donated to her foundation (who wasn’t even with Uranium One at the time of the deal) and didn’t involve “uranium production leaving our shores”, demonstrates that Clinton is corrupt. Do be sure to provide evidence for the “hundreds of millions dollars in bribes and kickbacks”, the “dozens of major felony laws [that] were broken” and the “countless congressional subpoenas [that] were ignored”. Because I suspect you’ll find that these are as imaginary as the three million illegal voters that voted for Clinton in the last election.
That’s what they said about Trump winning there Presidency. ( 1 & 3 )
We might see some procedural issues. The Christopher Steele dossier is fishy. The unverified Trump-Russia collusion charges made their way into election news stories and Clinton talking points. Some say it was bought and paid from by the Clinton campaign.
As for Mueller charging Trump with someone flimsy, I would say that is the least likely of the four options, however, given the political pressure on him, I would not rule it out.
Whatever the report says, Trump’s legal team who we have not heard from outside of the media talking points, can and will shoot it down the BS.
My educated guess is there is no collusion the the Mueller report will be a significant disappointment to the left. If there were, we would have heard of it long ago. Trump met with the Russians. So? Lots of successful people and politicians meet with the Russians too. In the end, a rat like Cohen goes to prison. Mueller seemed to shift his focus away from Trump to go after others who did not pay their taxes. I suppose if there is a sizeable investigation on any political fund raising, you’ll see the same regardless of political party.
I choose 5: Mueller has hard evidence on collusion, including emails, and recordings. Republicans refuse to acknowledge it, blame Hillary for everything, and do nothing.
So…if I’m just one of nine people responsible for transferring shares of a uranium company to Russia and i get my campaign info from actual Russian spies Then I’m factually innocent and definitely not colluding?
Because I claim " I didn’t know"
Same excuse for breaking national security protocols.
But getting business financing from rusian investors definitely makes you a Russian spy.
These all seem right around the same degree of party bias to me.
Guys… It’s been two years since this scandal was completely debunked. It’s a big fat stupid hoax that never made any sense. I don’t think it makes any sense to repeatedly go over this nonsense over and over again. Clinton was not “one of nine people”. She wasn’t even involved. Someone working beneath her in the state department was someone from one of the nine federal agencies (not people, agencies) who signed off on the deal, along with the US nuclear regulatory commission and the nuclear regulator of the state of Utah.
Are you aware that Donald Trump Jr. met with Russian intelligence to discuss dirt on Hillary Clinton?
Are you aware that Giuliani has moved from “no collusion” to “collusion isn’t a crime”? (Ancient Erudite clearly isn’t.)
Are you aware that Trump has been acting really weird towards Russia since his campaign, and that we know full well that Russia was responsible for hacking Clinton’s email servers, and that they started doing so around the same time as he asked them to? Are you aware that Trump has repeatedly denied the claims of his own intelligence agencies that Russia was behind that hack, and instead opted to take Putin’s word for it?
People saying that Trump is a Russian asset are not simply going off his business deals. They’re going off his continued behavior.
You’re coming into this discussion without really understanding the basics or the background. While there’s nothing wrong with that, maybe it would be better to ask questions, rather than act like you already understand everything about it.
I think regardless if there’s a mountain of evidence or not, If Trump is charged with a crime, many of the right wing types out there (including posters on this board) will immediately claim #3 and declare victory. All evidence will be discounted and rationalized away as either:
“manufactured by Mueller and his 27+ angry democrats, part of a deep state conspiracy!”
“perjury trap! Is lying to the FBI really a crime when the FBI already knows the answers ahead of time?”
“Hillary did the same thing, she was never charged!”
“evidence was FRUIT OF POISON TREE, since it relied on the dodgy dossier!”
Mueller has hard evidence of Trump business-related crimes but no evidence of collusion or even hints of Trump being “asset” of Putin.
Mueller will nonetheless weave Russia into the narrative of his case, though he will have to prove none of it. Media will fixate on the narrative elements and casual observers will really think Trump is being charged with having illegal or nontoward Russian connections.
I vote -
[list=A][li]No matter what the report says, Republicans will claim it exonerates Trump[/li][li]No matter what the report says, Democrats will claim it proves criminal collusion beyond any shadow of a doubt, and[/li][li]Democrats will open another investigation.[/list][/li]Regards,
Shodan
And yet many things in it have been verified as true and nothing in it has been shown to be false. I suppose if you define “fishy” as “unfavorable to Trump” then yes, it’s fishy. If you define it as containing suspect information, then no, it isn’t.
“Some say”. Some also say that quite a lot of the charges have been verified, and have found actual evidence of it.
We hear quite a lot from Trump’s legal team. Rudy Giuliani - who is on that team - can’t seem to shut up, and keeps openly admitting that his client has been engaged in all sorts of questionable behavior.
We did. That’s what triggered the investigation in the first place. Were you unaware of this?
Do they then lie about having met with the Russians? Do they remove and hide or destroy all records of their meetings?
The word “rat” usually applies to someone who gives information to law enforcement on illegal activities by people they know well. Good to see you admitting that Trump is guilty of illegal behavior.
You keep claiming this is about non-payment of taxes. It really isn’t, but I can see why you’d prefer to keep saying it is. Otherwise you’d have to acknowledge that most of the charges have to do with lying about interactions with Russia, or about actual Russians interfering with the elections. There are quite a lot of them who are under indictment at the moment.
I suppose you’re as right about this as you’ve been about everything else in your post.
The options were faulty, in my opinion. Mueller isn’t going to indict him, he’ll merely advise Congress as to its findings (if the AG allows it). I think better options would have been:
1- Mueller finds that DJT was the most innocent man in the history of civilization
2- Mueller finds out that the entire campaign and most of the administration was corrupted by Russia, but somehow through sheer ignorance DJT was not involved.
3- Mueller finds criminal activity that warrants impeachment, conviction, indictment, trial, conviction, and imprisonment
4- Mueller finds that DJT should immediately be placed before a firing squad.
No point. If Barr is AG by then, he’d have the authority (Whitaker does not) to suppress the report. But that immediately would start the howls of “What’s Trump’s guy hiding?”, and the HJC would immediately subpoena the thing. That possibility is what’s holding up Barr’s confirmation, apparently.
I’d have to say a variant of #2 is the most likely. Mueller will not indict Trump - though he’s guilty of something and the investigation is too thorough not to have found it* - because he’ll defer as the Watergate investigation did. He may name Trump as the classic ‘unidicted co-conspirator’ but will leave that part to others.
At that point we begin more yelling at each other here. Nothing gets resolved, both sides harden their positions and we lose our fucking minds heading into 2020.
How do I know Trump is guilty of something? He’s a fucking real estate developer from New Jersey and has been for 40 years. There’ll be something to hang him on. That’s just the way the world works.
The decision to admit Montenegro into NATO was not made under Donald Trump. It was made under Barack Obama.
In what way has the United States built up its military commitment to NATO recently?
But, you know, not NATO ally Montenegro.
Well, that sure explains the dropping of sanctions. Trump, good buddies with Oleg Deripaska, has been anti-sanction from his first day in office, and you know it.
I agree. And I don’t think the Senate is going to convict on impeachment unless either there are “tapes” or their base wants it (there would have to be “tapes” for that to happen). Printed word just doesn’t provoke reaction the same way (no matter how strong the actual evidence is), we have Fox News now, unlike the Nixon era, and unfortunately the American people seem to have very short memories.
Actual results of the probe - I expect Democrats to say they is sufficient evidence of collusion, Republicans to say there isn’t. There will be (and already has been) plenty of evidence of illegality on the behalf of the campaign and by its participants, but I don’t know there will be any “smoking gun” for collusion - partially because I don’t know what everyone could agree qualifies for the title. And “collusion” is so not legally defined. Definitely Trump’s guilty of obstruction and some financial crimes, but even though I think that should merit impeachment/conviction, it will not not happen if that’s all that can be put on Trump personally (rather than others in his circle).
It hasn’t. But it has been haranguing other NATO members about their military commitment publicly and in very undiplomatic language, with the outcome of pissing them all off. To Russia’s benefit.