# Trump associates may have coordinated with Russians, according to US officials **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [March 23, 2017, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799 "2017-03-23T00:28:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 129
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/2564 "2017-10-10T22:50:22Z")
> [@Okrahoma](#): > > There are no goal posts moving, it was a theoretical for the sake of the argument, there is absolutely no evidence of any collusion, it is all in the realm of fantasy. > > But it is fun to see liberals claim that Russians are evil marketing geniuses, supported by Trump campaign’s amazing (and genius, too) targeting machine, running circles around hapless Democrats who spent three times the money Trump did (and more than a thousand times the money Russians supposedly did). Oh and of course Trump is dumb as a rock, and so are most of the people who work for him. The cognitive dissonance is just hilarious. Do we have a number for how much money was spent on click farm and false content creation? Seems the spending on Facebook etc is just a piece of it. ---
**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 10, 2017, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/2565 "2017-10-10T22:57:27Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > I’m not sure I’m understanding you correctly–you’re saying that you believe that most news items on Facebook are created by the _mainstream media_?? They are not, in the majority, created by Russia. Republicans generate more nonsense on their own than Russia does. ---
**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 10, 2017, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/2566 "2017-10-10T22:58:40Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > You might have a point if a single $1million ad buy was all they did. > > They also posted fake stories, sometimes using ad money to promote them, but often just letting them go viral on their own. > > They paid people to go to social media sites and start and control narratives from there. > > They were not supernatural at all. We just had a population that was primed for being manipulated by negative and deceptive advertising, along with creating a leverage system that we didn’t really understand. > > As I said to a friend the other day, “We spent billions of dollars building and running the VOA stations throughout the cold war to put propaganda into the Soviet’s backyard. Then we spent billions of dollars building the internet, letting them return the favor for free.” And your argument is that neither Trump’s campaign nor the Republican party, nor the Republican base, nor the Republican media are doing these things? ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/2567 "2017-10-11T00:10:43Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > They are not, in the majority, created by Russia. Republicans generate more nonsense on their own than Russia does. I think you’re underestimating the scale of the operation. Between ad buys, troll farms, twitter bots, etc. they made it so that more than half of the news shared on social media in swing states was fake news. > [@](#): > > (1) nationally, Twitter users got more misinformation, polarizing and conspiratorial content than professionally produced news. (2) Users in some states, however, shared more polarizing political news and information than users in other states. (3) Average levels of misinformation were higher in swing states than in uncontested states, even when weighted for the relative size of the user population in each state. [Link](http://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/89/2017/09/Polarizing-Content-and-Swing-States.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/2568 "2017-10-11T02:14:42Z")
> [@Okrahoma](#): > > …But it is fun to see liberals claim that Russians are evil marketing geniuses… Maybe they didn’t know how well it would work. Maybe they just got lucky. The actual effectiveness of propaganda spread by social media and the like is _terror incognita_, so I’m afraid I don’t know. But does anyone else? How much difference would it make if you got a nugget of political poison from a “news source”, compared to shared by someone you already know and trust? I, myself, as I’ve said, was the “target” of many “news releases” fanning the flames of the Bernie/Hillary dispute. It appears that is because I am a lefty, and my friends are lefty, and you can tell by what I click on what I care about. Now it looks like another person would see stuff about how Hillary and Bernie both are conspiring to bring in Mexicans, Muslims and bears, oh my! Somebody else sees how BLM wants white teenagers for reparations, how Hillary wants the Koran and free condoms in middle schools. Print media and tv ads are wounded animals crawling away to die. This is a grave new world, and we don’t really know how this shit works yet. Me, I’m of the opinion that we better find out. It may be more important to know how it was done rather than who exactly did it. ---
**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:** [October 11, 2017, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/2569 "2017-10-11T03:04:34Z")
> [@Okrahoma](#): > > ROTFLMAO. Fantasies. The left’s sustenance. Ah, denial. The right’s sustenance. ---
**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 11, 2017, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/2570 "2017-10-11T05:46:57Z")
> [@Lance\_Turbo](#): > > I think you’re underestimating the scale of the operation. Between ad buys, troll farms, twitter bots, etc. they made it so that more than half of the news shared on social media in swing states was fake news. > > [Link](http://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/89/2017/09/Polarizing-Content-and-Swing-States.pdf) Your cite puts Russian and Wikileaks content as 22% of the 20% of content that was “Polarizing and Conspiracy Content”. That would be 4.4% of the total, overall. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/2571 "2017-10-11T13:20:25Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > And your argument is that neither Trump’s campaign nor the Republican party, nor the Republican base, nor the Republican media are doing these things? That would be an extremely poor summation of my argument. So, your argument is that Trump and the Republican party were paying facebook to put out false news stories and offensive and divisive memes? You don’t even comprehend how having a different party altogether to put out lies and hate speech benefits them? That they get deniability of these posts and stories that are influencing voters, because it was not in fact the Trump campaign or republican party putting these out? Tell you what, I saw quite a bit of racist, homophobic, and anti-islam ads during the campaign on my facebook, and I don’t even really do much with facebook. If you can show me that the republican party was officially putting out ads like [this](http://media.philly.com/images/408*450/dixon-190433-e-wp-content-uploads-2017-10-Heart-of-Darkness-01.png), [this](http://media.philly.com/images/442*450/dixon-190433-e-wp-content-uploads-2017-10-Heart-of-Darkness-02.png), [or this,](http://media.philly.com/images/dixon-190433-e-wp-content-uploads-2017-10-Heart-of-Darkness-05.png) (just as some quick examples that were quite easy to find) then you can claim that the russians weren’t doing anything that the republicans weren’t doing. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/2572 "2017-10-11T13:57:42Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Your cite puts Russian and Wikileaks content as 22% of the 20% of content that was “Polarizing and Conspiracy Content”. That would be 4.4% of the total, overall. Exactly. A wise man once said, “In many races a 4% boost in advertising doesn’t mean much, but in an extremely close race a 4% boost can change the outcome.” That wise man was me earlier in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/2573 "2017-10-11T14:48:38Z")
So, Carter Page, Mr. “I can’t wait to testify so I can clear my name” will now take the 5th in his Committee testimony. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/2574 "2017-10-11T16:18:04Z")
When do we get to find out how deep Pence was into it so we know who the next President is? ---
**Author:** ![Anny\_Middon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bc79bd/32.png) [@Anny\_Middon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anny_Middon)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/2575 "2017-10-11T17:05:54Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > My understanding is that the tape doesn’t show Trump urinating. Allegedly, it shows Russian prostitutes, which Trump had hired, urinating on a hotel bed that had once been slept in by the Obamas. That’s my understanding, too. Presumably the tape has audio as well as video. If the audio has Trump moaning, “Oh, yes, yes… Pee on the bed that n----r president slept in” then I think the Deplorables would cheer. If they had a bazillion dollars, they’d want to do that. OTOH, if the audio has Trump moaning, “Oh, yes, yes… Pee some more. That yellow stream is so exciting. I love the way the pee flows down your legs. That’s soooo sexy” accompanied by the sound of him obviously jerking off – well, I dunno. Even some of the Deplorables might find that disturbing. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/2576 "2017-10-11T17:06:12Z")
Paul Ryan [was aware of the collusion](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/house-majority-leader-to-colleagues-in-2016-i-think-putin-pays-trump/2017/05/17/515f6f8a-3aff-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html?utm_term=.64a377644f2d), we already know that. Can’t imagine it somehow skipped over Pence. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/2577 "2017-10-11T17:44:28Z")
Get ready for the Orrin Hatch Administration, folks! ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/2578 "2017-10-11T18:19:48Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Get ready for the Orrin Hatch Administration, folks! I dunno, at 83 years old, he might be one of the one’s being discussed in [this article](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/11/16458142/congress-alzheimers-pharmacist) this morning! \*" Mike Kim, the reserved pharmacist-turned-owner of the pharmacy, said he has gotten used to knowing the most sensitive details about some of the most famous people in Washington. ``` “At first it’s cool, and then you realize, I’m filling some drugs that are for some pretty serious health problems as well. And these are the people that are running the country,” Kim said, listing treatments for conditions like diabetes and Alzheimer’s. “It makes you kind of sit back and say, ‘Wow, they’re making the highest laws of the land and they might not even remember what happened yesterday.'”* ``` ---
**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:** [October 11, 2017, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/2579 "2017-10-11T18:22:43Z")
Pence was Paul Manafort’s suggested VP. We also know he lied about being in the dark wrt Flynn’s lies. If Trump is taken down, I don’t think either of those is a big enough stone to sink Pence too. ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/2580 "2017-10-11T18:41:29Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > When do we get to find out how deep Pence was into it so we know who the next President is? I doubt he’s going to be implicated much (if at all) in the Russian hacking part of the investigation, but he’s already committed obstruction and likely broke a few other laws. Pence claimed in March 2017 that he had “only just learned” about Mike Flynn’s lobbying activities for Turkish interests during the campaign and beyond. But we know that’s not true. Pence received and subsequently publicly acknowledged receipt of a letter sent to him by Elijah Cummings on November 18, 2016, specifically warning Pence and the transition team of Flynn’s ongoing lobbying activities with Turkey. [House Oversight Committee Letter to Flynn Warning of Flynn Conflicts of Interest](https://democrats-oversight.house.gov/news/press-releases/cummings-requests-documents-relating-to-michael-flynn-s-apparent-conflicts-of) In late November 2016, Flynn told senior Trump transition national security members – _ **of which Pence was the chairman** _ – that he has scheduled a meeting with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Then on December 29th, the same day as Obama announces sanctions against Russia in retaliation for their interference in the US election, Flynn calls Kislyak _ **5 times** _. Interestingly, on December 30, 2016, Putin announces that Russia will do nothing to retaliate against the sanctions imposed by Obama. Nevertheless, on January 15, 2017, Pence appears on Face the Nation and with a straight face, says that Flynn’s calls to the Russian ambassador on the same day President Obama announced new sanctions was “strictly coincidental.” Also on January 15, 2017, Pence appears on Fox News Sunday and denies contacts between Russia and the Trump campaign. Responding to Chris Wallace, Pence says, “All the contact by the Trump campaign and associates were with the American people.” All this is before Trump and Pence are even inaugurated, and thus if true, illegal to negotiate with a foreign government. Later, in mid-February 2017, Flynn says he “can’t remember” if he spoke to Kislyak about Russian sanctions or not. On January 4, 2017, Flynn advises transition team chief counsel Don McGahn that he is under federal investigation for his lobbying activities on behalf of Turkey. Kind of defies credibility that McGahn would fail to mention this to the chairman of the Trump transition team, Mike Pence. Similarly, in January 26, 2017, Sally Yates, acting AG at DOJ, warned Don McGahn that, based on recent public statements of White House officials including Vice President Mike Pence, Flynn had “lied” to Pence and others about his late-December conversations with Russian Ambassador Kislyak. According to Sean Spicer, Trump and a small group of White House advisers were “immediately informed of the situation.” Given the information we know about what Flynn shared with the transition team – of which _ **Pence was the chairman** _ – in late November 2016 (see above), it seems that for once, Sean Spicer was telling the truth. Moving forward, Pence was yet again caught in a lie about the motivation for Trump’s firing of James Comey. On May 8, 2017, Trump meets with senior White House officials, including Don McGahn and Pence. They work out their talking points about the official version of why Trump is firing Comey. On May 10, 2017, Pence repeatedly says on the record that Comey’s firing occurred because Sessions and Rosenstein recommended it. This was a lie and Pence knew it, based on his attendance at the meeting on May 8th. Of course, Trump himself made this painfully clear in his interview with NBC’s Lester Holt on May 11, 2017, when he stated unequivocally that he fired Comey because of “the Russia thing.” Oops. Pence used to deny he ever spoke to Russians. Now he is mum on the subject. I think Pence is vulnerable to obstruction charges, as well as conspiring to act with a foreign government against US interests, if his actions – or knowing inactions – had anything to do with promises to Russia prior to assuming office that Obama sanctions would be lifted. That’s a pretty big deal. ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/2581 "2017-10-11T18:52:03Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Your cite puts Russian and Wikileaks content as 22% of the 20% of content that was “Polarizing and Conspiracy Content”. That would be 4.4% of the total, overall. You’re aware that they also instigated protests around the country, such as the anti-Muslim march in Twin Falls, Idaho? [Russia Orchestrated Anti-Immigrant Rallies in the US Via Facebook](http://fortune.com/2017/09/12/russia-orchestrated-anti-immigrant-rallies-in-the-u-s-via-facebook-last-year/) (Fortune) They also pushed Trump rallies in 17 US cities, including in New York, Pennsylvania and Florida. [Russian Facebook Trump Rallies](http://fortune.com/2017/09/20/russians-facebook-trump-rallies/) (Fortune) Maybe you heard of some of those. I know I did. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/2582 "2017-10-11T22:37:14Z")
Trump is m[issing the deadlines](http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/355000-sens-mccain-cardin-scold-trump-for-missing-russian-sanctions-deadline) for the Russian sanctions, for some reason. ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/2583 "2017-10-11T23:04:16Z")
> [@Fiveyearlurker](#): > > Trump is m[issing the deadlines](http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/355000-sens-mccain-cardin-scold-trump-for-missing-russian-sanctions-deadline) for the Russian sanctions, for some reason. I’m shocked!! Are you? Hmmmm… Eric Swalwell of the House Intelligence Committee just said in an interview on MSNBC that Cambridge Analytica is under (flaming liberal) Mueller’s microscope and that the investigation in this direction is proving “fruitful.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799.md?page=128) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799.md?page=130)