OK, but is that lawyer actually a “Russian Official”, or just a Russian who may have some very close connections to bona fide Russian Officials. Would Kushner be required to report the meeting with her? Does anyone here actually know this, or are we just assuming at this point? I’ve got CNN on in the background, and it’s been on for about 30 minutes, and I’m not hearing anything definitive.
I don’t know her exact job title, but she represents several state owned businesses and is/was lobbying against the Act in DC on behalf of the Kremlin.
“Russian Officials” and “just a Russian who may have some very close connections to bona fide Russian Officials” is virtually a distinction without a difference. If you’re on the inside of Putin’s Russia, then you’re an operative. This is what a lot of Americans don’t understand. Russia does not have a government in the way we understand government. They have a government of Putin and his chosen oligarchs. Very similar to what Trump hopes to set up here, in fact.
If you haven’t seen it, Richard Engel has done a very excellent in-depth piece airing again tonight at 5:00 p.m. PST on MSNBC that explains how Russian “government” works these days. I recommend it to anyone who can watch it to do so.
But, per the law in question, is she a “Russian official”? I can see where she might be one, but it’s not clear that she must be one. It would be nice if one of our legal experts would weigh in.
Anyway, the contents of the meeting is, I think, going to be a lot more important. If they talked about damaging info about Hillary, then this puts the whole collusion thing in more realistic play.
So, the official Trump story is that DJT was there to gather illegally obtained information from Russians, but was disappointed that he wasn’t able to.
Presuming stupidity over malevolence, the reason would be that when one has a half dozen meetings per day every day, with people from all over the world, about a wide variety of political and financial topics, it can become difficult to remember them all.
Of course, that’s why you don’t answer the question yourself. You ask your secretary to go back through your schedule and check.
Of course not - because the Clintons are professional politicians. They don’t take meetings with nameless strangers on the advice of some dude from Moscow that they met at a Miss Universe pageant.
I’m sure all celebrities - even the Trumps - get dozens of calls a day from sketchy randos flogging all sorts of garbage. Those sketchy randos never get in the same room with their A-List targets. The Clintons and their close advisors, especially their campaign staff, do not rush into meetings with people, without even learning their names, no matter what priceless object they claim to have for sale. The Clintons and their staff undoubtedly have a whole process for dealing with setting up meetings for their campaign staff.
That Junior agreed to this meeting without bothering to ask who he would be seeing - but still thought it was important enough to include Kushner and Manafort - is actually not very credible. I assume he’s lying about that part. But if he is telling the truth then it’s yet another example of the Trump Amateur Hour.
In spite of the feeding frenzy, no one seems to have answered my question, so I will repeat:
Can you elaborate, what exactly is wrong with Trump campaign officials meeting with someone who claims that she “has information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Ms. Clinton”?
It would be a dereliction of duty NOT to meet with such a person. And if that information actually checked out, it would be a dereliction of duty NOT to publish it.
No jokes. It’s all fairly standard stuff for Washington, too. Fusion GPS is like a mercenary “private spy” agency, they sell intel and research to everybody who pays.
They weren’t meeting with someone who said they had information about the Russians, the DNC and Clinton. “I was asked to have a meeting by an acquaintance I knew from the 2013 Miss Universe pageant with an individual who I was told might have information helpful to the campaign.” It was after Jr. decided to collude with this person that he found out the information was bullshit. Which I’m sure made him very sad. And everyone present decided to forget it.
“Eagerly accepting help from a foreign power by being given information–likely obtained illegally–that would damage your opponent in a national election” is collusion.
Their defense right now is “Well, we thought we would be colluding but they didn’t have the dirt they promised”, which doesn’t matter. The meeting was attended with that specific intention in mind.
Who better than Russians would know whether “individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Ms. Clinton”? And why would that information be “obtained illegally”? Illegally by which country’s laws?
Mother Jones has an article out right now about the possible legalities of colluding with the Russians in the illegal hack of the DNC and RNC (which - yeah, “individuals connected to Russia” knew all about, including the Presidential individual openly egging them on by public encouraging the hackers to go after Hillary.)
The article is long and quotes by name the various attorneys who were interviewed for their thoughts on the illegality of colluding with Moscow.
The article also points out how Fox News has pivoted from denying that Trump’s people ever colluding to asking, “Well, what’s the big deal if they did, anyway?”
So apparently this whole “Collusion - so what if we did?” line of questioning is the new Republican playbook.
I was not asking about the “hack of DNC and RNC” was I?
We were talking about information that “individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Ms. Clinton”. What exactly would be illegal about receiving and disseminating that information?