Trump associates may have coordinated with Russians, according to US officials

[Defensive_Indifference]

@Crotalus

I suppose the motif of tweets going forward will change from “no collusion” to “no collusion by me, directly”.

Or maybe just more cries of “fake news” and “witch hunt”.

“Collusion is not a crime, and every politician would do what I did!”

[Blue_Blistering_Barnacle]

@Defensive_Indifference

“Collusion is not a crime, and every politician would do what I did!”

This is indeed how these guys think.

I saw a recent interview of conspiracy monger Jerome Corsi where the interviewer repeatedly pressed him on the question of the truthfulness of his prior statements; the interviewer repeatedly asked if he was lying in previous statements.

While admitting that his statements were untruthful and not denying that they were lies, he objected to the interviewer characterizing them as lies, saying (paraphrased) “it’s just politics”. Basically saying that a lie in the service of politics is not a lie.

It’s possible that Trump looked at Washington and decided that the swamp needed draining because it was too clean by his standards. Wouldn’t be the first wetland he’d “improved”.

[Lance_Turbo]

@Crotalus

According to Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo, the collusion debate ended last night. Manafort and Gates provided polling data to “Konstantin Kilimnik, a man who US intelligence believes is himself tied to Russian intelligence. Given that Manafort had also told Kilimnik to offer briefings on the campaign to Russian oligarch Oleg V. Deripaska, it was a reasonable surmise that handing over the polling data was meant for Deripaska as well. Then yesterday mid-evening, The New York Times confirmed as much.” Quote is from the linked article. I suppose the motif of tweets going forward will change from “no collusion” to “no collusion by me, directly”.

Or maybe just more cries of “fake news” and “witch hunt”.

We have already seen how they would react to this information back in October 2017 in this very thread. Emails where Manafort was offering inside campaign info were leaked ad that prompted this exchange (along with many other posts on and around that page of the thread).

@Lance_Turbo

Yeah, he was offering inside campaign information to Russia while Russia was actively interfering in the US election. You don’t think that’s a crime?

@Fotheringay-Phipps

I doubt it. (I suppose it could depend on what type of inside information. But if it’s “here’s the state of the race”, as his email suggests, meaning the likely outcomes and possible ramifications for an Russian oligarch with international interests, then I very much doubt it.)

And even in the unlikely event that it is a crime, I highly doubt if a Russian oligarch with ties to the government would have the status of “Russia” for that purpose.I’m not sure what you’re looking for in terms of an “example”.

@Lance_Turbo

This is a bizarrely favorable view of what was going on.

Sure he was giving campaign info to Russia while Russia was actively interfering in a US election, but it’s not like he gave info to Putin. It was Putin’s friend, and the info was probably boring old stuff you could look up on the internet.

[JohnT]

I don’t think anyone in the history of the internet more consistently self-owned themselves than F-P did in this and the Mueller pit thread.

[Lance_Turbo]

e.g. (also from October 2017)

@Lance_Turbo

There are still open questions as to what extent Trump officials coordinated with Russians and to what end, but I think we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg of the Mueller investigation. Insisting that there’s nothing to see here ignores the fact that what I see is that Paul Manafort is almost certainly going to jail.

@Fotheringay-Phipps

Re Manafort going to jail, I think your confidence is misplaced. Mueller’s team has some pretty aggressive prosecutors, and the fact that they’re playing hardball with Manafort isn’t a good indication that he’s legally guilty of anything. Of course, it’s very possible that he is. But insisting at this point that this is “almost certainly” the case suggests partisanship and hubris.

[Lance_Turbo]

This is the article from the Atlantic from October 2, 2017: Did Manafort Use Trump to Curry Favor With a Putin Ally?.

The article discusses several leaked emails between Manafort and Kilimnik including one where it appears that Manafort is offering inside campaign info to Deripaska via Kilimnik. Now we know he followed through with this idea.

Collusion confirmed (again).

[wguy123]

@JohnT

I don’t think anyone in the history of the internet more consistently self-owned themselves than F-P did in this and the Mueller pit thread.

It looks like F-P has disappeared. I guess the goalposts finally got too hard to move.

[Crotalus]

@wguy123

It looks like F-P has disappeared. I guess the goalposts finally got too hard to move.

Those things are heavy!

[OttoDaFe]

Not to mention that getting them through the tunnel and out into the stadium parking lot is a real pain.

[JohnT]

It’s when F-P was faced with the bill to take them out of the country, that’s when he gave up.

[jasg]

In other news, the Jr. Senator from Oklahoma weighs in…

@Senator James Lankford

…says he doesn’t think Trump’s campaign boss giving polling data to person connected to Russian intel is collusion because Manafort knew the intel agent previously.

“This is an ongoing relationship that Manafort had…I don’t see this as deliberate contact w/Russia”

[Gyrate]

@jasg

In other news, the Jr. Senator from Oklahoma weighs in…

“It doesn’t count because he was already a Russian asset” is not what I would call one of the more compelling defenses.

[DCnDC]

This is pretty funny:

Yesterday, federal prosecutors unsealed a new indictment against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. The indictment contains new evidence that Manafort hid millions of dollars in overseas income from US authorities, and it charges Manafort and his associate Richard Gates with numerous counts of tax and bank fraud.

[snip]

One reason prosecutors were able to build a paper trail against the pair: Manafort needed Gates’s help to convert a PDF document to Word format and back again.

Suddenly I kind of like Acrobat.

How Manafort’s inability to convert a PDF file to Word helped prosecutors

[CoolHandCox]

The thread title seems so quaint now, “Trump associates…”

[JohnT]

“… may have…”

[Chisquirrel]

The shitshow just got shittier.

There are no words to express how ill I feel to know that the top law enforcement agents in the country have been actively investigating whether the President is actively working at the direction of a foreign power.

[BenedictusXIV]

@Chisquirrel

There are no words to express how ill I feel to know that the top law enforcement agents in the country have been actively investigating whether the President is actively working at the direction of a foreign power.

“Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.”

I think they can dismiss the first option. If the Russians were hiring, they would have gone with a better candidate.

[DigitalC]

@BenedictusXIV

“Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.”

I think they can dismiss the first option. If the Russians were hiring, they would have gone with a better candidate.

Not if their goal is to cause as much damage to the US as possible.

[crucible]

@Crotalus

Those things are heavy!

I’m working on a virtual goalpost, completely with ‘doink’ noises when the ball is incepted by the laser beam. I am stumped by how to create the crossbar without blinding someone in the seats near the endzone.

[crucible]

@Chisquirrel

The shitshow just got shittier.

There are no words to express how ill I feel to know that the top law enforcement agents in the country have been actively investigating whether the President is actively working at the direction of a foreign power.

I would be even more distressed if I learned that the FBI became aware of the possibility and FAILED to investigate it, failed to get a FISA warrant, failed to try to put a mole into the Trump campaign. Think this through, Trumpies, isn’t it terrifying you could be complicit in helping destroy our democracy?