For what? In your mind, what will a special prosecutor uncover and what will be the significance of it?
Let’s say that in the Summer of 2016, Trump and Putin met in a hotel in Berlin. After a few vodkas (for Putin, Trump doesn’t drink) Putin tells Trump that the Russians want Trump to win and will do everything in their power to ensure that happens. They shake hands and leave.
What law has been broken? Many leaders of other countries talked about how dangerous Trump was and all but stated that they wanted Hillary to win. Why is that different?
Follow the money. It’s not just Russia “wanted him to win.” They’re free to want him to win and to commit crimes to help him, without Trump necessarily doing anything wrong. On the other hand, I can imagine many ways Trump or his top associates crossing all kinds of lines during the election. Maybe it happened, maybe it didn’t. Firing the guy in charge of finding out sure makes me think there’s something there.
As do “why is this different.” We have to stop asking that. Putting a man like Trump in the Oval Office will always be different. It is a disgrace, and embarrassment, and and outrage.
I can see there being a quid pro quo- “help get me elected and those sanctions get removed”, that sort of thing. Or “we’ll look the other way while you annex Crimea”.
We also need to know if the campaign and the Kremlin were working in concert. Did the Kremlin tell the campaign “here are some emails from the DNC that we’re going to make public next Tuesday, be prepared to make your talking points now”.
Or is the Kremlin in position to blackmail members of the administration? If so, who is under their thumb and why, and what are they doing for Moscow?
This doesn’t even begin to take into account the cover up. I think there is a wealth of things to investigate here and depending how it goes, a wealth of possible outcomes. We can’t, as Chucklebee’s daughter would have it, just say “we’ve talked about this form months, let’s just forget about it.” There most definitely is a there there.
Is any of that illegal? I’m not being snarky, but honestly asking. Can a candidate meet with a foreign leader and say, “If I’m elected, these sanctions go away because I think they are unfair.” or “If I’m elected, I will change the policy of the current administration to allow you to go to war with East Asia.” ?
I don’t see why a candidate should not be able to have such frank discussions with other countries. Should a candidate have to keep his desires secret until after the election?
Perhaps if it was limited to statements like “I don’t think the sanctions are right and if elected I’ll end them”, that’s ok in my book. But if it’s “if you help me win the election with hacking and fake news I’ll help you out on sanctions”, then that’s wrong. If it’s a crime, I don’t know but it certainly seems improper.
Not necessarily so. For instance, if one’s job is to oversee child slaves in an African diamond mine, and one occasionally pockets a diamond rather than hand it over to the mine owner (which he strongly suspects but can’t pin down), both the slaves and the owner will have reason for resentment. However, it is clearly not impartial to enforce a system that benefits the master at the expense of the slaves, nor it it doing a bad job to pilfer a bit while otherwise being efficient to the point of harvesting more diamonds than an honest but less ruthless overseer might obtain for the boss.
Of course that last part is different. Do you think, or otherwise have evidence that the Trump campaign coordinated the email hacking? It seems like a remotely possible thing, yet still a fishing expedition.
Of course I don’t know any more than any other common person. But there certainly seen to be close Russian financial ties with many members of the administration and plenty of opportunity for mutual back scratching. Truly this seems to be a raw nerve with the White House. Much of the damage is self-inflicted due to Cheeto’s refusal to release his taxes. Without knowing what side of the bread his butter is on, we can’t pronounce guilt or innocence without a proper investigation.
Instead of letting him watch the news, they should just prop him up in the White House screening room and let him watch Patton over and over.
You know, I was going to make a joke about inviting Kissinger over to shed some crocodile tears with him. And I wanted to make sure Kissinger was still alive, and so I Googled him, of course. And I learned that just today Trump met with Kissinger in the Oval Office. Sure. Why the fuck not?
Maybe he truly didn’t know but I find that hard to believe. Surely he has people who inform him of stuff like this before he meets with U.S. officials?
If he did know, it’s hard not to see that reaction as sarcastic and dismissive, which would seem to indicate that he feels secure about Russia’s relations with the U.S. to the point that he can be dismissive of public opinion. I find that disturbing.