# 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:** 1\ **Showing post:** 4522
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/4522 "2018-05-18T17:15:29Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > If I were DTjr and I was offered “official documents and information” from someone connected to the Russian government, which purported to “incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia”, my assumption would be that these were Russian government documents that the person had acquired via their government connections, and not hacked DNC emails. > > But even if we were to speculate that DTjr somehow assumed that this was related to hacked emails, that only relates to what his expectations were going into the meeting. The point is that once that meeting started it seems to be agreed upon by all participants (Americans, Russians, translator) that nothing was said about hacked emails, and there was just some vague stuff about Russian funding. So unless there was a “cleverly coordinated campaign of deception” in which all participants coordinated their story on this point (though they were inconsistent in some other more minor areas) then it seems unlikely that the topic actually came up. You aren’t making reasonable inferences from the evidence, which is what people do when they try to make a neutral decision. Instead, you’re arguing like a defense lawyer. That’s fine, but those of us trying to judge the evidence don’t have to sit in that posture. In particular, it is a totally reasonable inference that Papadopoulos told the campaign about the hacked emails. That is what almost any campaign staffer would do with such explosive information. Maybe it didn’t happen, of course. But if we don’t know either way, the natural assumption is that it did. Similarly, the idea that DJT is told that Russia has dirt on Hillary and he doesn’t naturally think of the hacked emails, just because the offer (which is on its face badly translated with reference to crown prosecutor, etc.) uses the word “official,” is not a reasonable supposition about how human minds work. What you call speculation and suggest is wild speculation is actually just the kind of reasonable inferences from known facts that people make all the time. ETA: None of that requires that the hacked emails were discussed at the meeting. Instead, what appears to have been discussed was the quid and not the quo. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799)._