Directed, no. Manipulated by -absolutely. He was manipulated into delaying foreign aid to Ukraine, which absolutely benefited Russia, and if the “Deep State” hadn’t been so strong, he might have gotten away with it.
Besides, he was manipulated in a way that would’ve been incredibly apparent to anyone that wasn’t a malignant narcissist, the Russian agents pulled the equivalent of “Hey, that guy is screwing your wife, you should beat him up!” And it worked.
Now, is that worse or better than saying “Here’s a hundred bucks, go beat that guy up!”? I say it’s basically the same thing. The end result is the same, the only difference is the agents figured out that revenge was a stronger motivator than cash.
Now, if Trump were still in office, I believe Russia would still be using these techniques to turn Trump against Ukraine. I think there would’ve been a parade of Trump cronies trying to convince Trump that the territories in question belonged to Russia. Now, if this had happened during his first term, I think the guardrails would’ve held, he would’ve tweeted praise for Putin and hate for Ukraine, but he would’ve been pressured into signing bills giving aid and assistance to Ukraine.
Second term, we’ll never know, but I think he might’ve been manipulated into vetoing aid and refusing to work with NATO. He would done this because he was convinced Ukraine helped Hillary cheat in 2016 and helped Biden win, not because someone handed him a sack of money.
I think it’s unreasonable, if you look at the actual obstruction instances and what they “accomplished”.
But that’s not germane to the point here, which is about whether the document explicitly said it did not exonerate Trump from collusion charges. It did not. You want to argue that Mueller failed to find collusion because Trump successfully obstructed him, then go for it, but someone who disagrees with you about that is not contradicting an explicit statement in the Mueller report.
Could you quote this explicit statement in the Mueller report. I think I know which one you are talking about, but it doesn’t say anything close to what you are saying.
I think you have this backwards. It was the pro-Trump forces who immediately started insisting that Mueller’s report “exonerated” Trump, when it did no such thing. Failing to find evidence is in no way an exoneration, particular when the report specifically makes it clear that obstruction of justice was a serious issue.
We’re just pointing out that this report, because of the obstruction, cannot possibly exonerate Trump. As annoying as it would have been, there should have been a second investigation that had the powers needed to overcome that obstructionism, but with the political realities of the time, such a second investigation was a non-starter.
I quoted a poster who said that the “document […] quite explicitly, did not exonerate Trump”, and I observed that the document was explicit in not exonerating Trump as regards to obstruction but it did not quite explicitly not exonerate Trump as to collusion.
Whether or not it exonerated Trump from collusion could be a matter of opinion, I suppose, but someone who believes that it did exonerate Trump from collusion is not contradicting anything “quite explicit” in that document.
This all seems pretty straightforward to me, and I don’t intend to engage any further on this matter.
You do understand that “collusion” is not a legal term in any way, there is no crime of “collusion,” and it was therefore not within Mueller’s remit. Right?
I can’t believe I’m still explaining this after all these years.
What you apparently don’t understand is that Mueller’s purview was not just about prosecuting crimes, and his report reflected what he was able to find out about collusion, regardless of whether it was a crime or not.
Mueller specifically states, up front, that the report will not comment on collusion one way or the other because, “[C]ollusion is not a specific offense or theory of liability found in the United States Code, nor is it a term of art in federal criminal law.”
Then in Vol 1 Section IV he describes “Russian Government links to and contacts with the Trump Campaign” many of which satisfy any reasonable definition of collusion.
It’s simply a right wing myth that Mueller didn’t find any collusion.
There’s literally over 100 pages of collusion contained in the Mueller Report.
You are distorting and misrepresenting what Mueller said.
Mueller did not say “the report will not comment on collusion one way or the other”. He said that “in evaluating whether evidence … constituted a crime” they would not use “collusion” as the standard because collusion is not a crime.
But his mandate was to investigate the matter, including but not limited to what constituted crimes.
He simply doesn’t comment on collusion one way or the other and explicitly states that he will not.
He does describe several interactions between members of the Trump campaign and people involved in the Russian effort to interfere in the 2016 election that satisfy any reasonable definition of collusion.
I submit it is you who are distorting and misrepresenting. I also notice you avoided answering my question, which is a simple one: Did you read the actual report?
Russia has gone all in and it is so effin sad to watch!
I have opened this thread half a dozen times at least to make comments, but the truth is that I feel silly making speculation about this situation like it was a ballgame while people are fleeing their homes and many are dying. I do remain committed to the belief that the whole invasion was avoidable and is the result of the small mind and fragile ego of Vlad Putin.
I had always assumed that with modern globalization, instantaneous communication, and an evolved and higher minded sense of statesmanship that the Impaler of Wallachia would be the worst Vlad the world would ever see. Watching the pain and suffering Mr. Putin is causing for no good reason makes me doubt that fundamental belief
Speaking of fundamental beliefs, I do want say very briefly that I do believe Wrenching_Spanners is being sincere (and possibly others are are as well) despite arguments which seem… maybe unusual(?) to some of us. I will say this, I do recognize the situation where one is asking questions and considering answers . . . . but still comes up with an ultimately different answer than might be suggested or expected or that we consider obvious. I was very much like that a few years ago when I thought I was completely open to any reasonable argument.
In my case, it turned out that I was very steeped in conservative talking points and beyond that Evangelical Christian presuppositions. I accepted as true and factual things that I had to question once I really looked into the details of my own claims. Once I started reading to the bottom of articles instead of cherry picking facts that supported my already made up mind and ignoring the other points entirely. I also read several books that both supported and challenged my preconceived notions and judged them upon their merit- not my preference. Even recently I had a gilrlfriend whom I had to sever ties with because she was so simple minded. She would insist upon some “truth” she actually believed, Google the subject and send me the first article that came up without reading it. In almost every case, despite having a shocking headline that SEEMED to support her views-- upon reading the article one could easily see it made the point of the exact opposite of what the headline indicated.
I could never get her to read the entire article or even if I would quote paragraphs then comment upon them. She flat out refused to read them because she was literally afraid she might learn something that would challenge her fragile world view. I do not believe Wrenching_Spanners is guilty of any such thing. I believe Spanners is sincere and eager to learn and be heard as well as hear others. (But perhaps has some suppositions that are based more upon ideology than fact – or perhaps I am just projecting my own experience here??)
I do believe there are some wise posts in this thread I would like to discuss further. Hopefully soon we can resume this discussion.
So I haven’t been on the Dope for a while, and the reason is because I’ve stumbled on to a couple of trumpist and white supremacist forums (shockingly there’s 100% correlation between these things) and I’ve had my hands full trying to fight the ignorance.
Indeed, if the Dope’s mantra is fighting ignorance, then I’ve been serving on the front lines.
Anyway, predictably, the trumpists are sure this couldn’t have happened under trump. However, the reason why is somewhat confused. They can’t say it’s because trump sucked up to Putin and Biden should suck up more (which would at least be consistent with reality) because Americans wouldn’t like that as a tactic even if it worked.
So they argue that he was tough on Russia because of 1. sanctions and 2. fighting a proxy war with Russia in Syria.
Only problem with these arguments is:
The sanctions had bipartisan support in Congress then trump took a whole 6 months to sign them in, dragging his feet in every conceivable way.
Aiding the Syrian insurgents happened mostly in Obama’s term and the assistance stopped not long after trump took power, to focus more on ISIS. This wasn’t particularly trump’s doing but he could hardly have credit for it either.
Total horseshit. I think Trump would have been played even harder, probably looking like Macron, as I could see him trying similar stuff and getting similar results. In the end, Trump would have had the same calculations to make…our options were go to war (which he wouldn’t have done either) or sanctions. I actually think that under Trump the US and west would be in a worse position, as I don’t think Trump could or would have been able to get the other Europeans, especially the Germans on board with threatening sanctions and things like Nord Stream II early on, before the invasion, so we would have been behind the curve when it happened. I could also see Trump being in denial about the imminent invasion, kind of saying the same stuff that Ukrainian officials were saying (i.e. nothing is going to happen, it’s all hype, blah blah blah).
Trump had dozens of advisors who he yelled at, belittled, and ultimately fired. People such as Bannon, Priebus, Bolton, and several generals who he appointed to cabinet level positions. These advisors, who were in actual positions of influence, had limited success in guiding the agenda of the Trump administration. But your theory is that foreign influencers were more successful to the level that they manipulated US foreign policy? And somehow this was mostly kept quiet other than occasional allegations? I’m fully aware that Trump tried to get the Ukraine government to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden for corruption, and that Trump was impeached for that. I’m sure he’s no fan of Ukraine. But you’re more or less alleging that Trump was steered into anti-Ukrainian positions by Russian agents. I’m not buying that. Trump, when making a decision, was supposedly most influenced by the last person he spoke with before making the decision. And even then, he often had his own agenda which he would pursue regardless of the advice he was receiving. And most of his decisions were focused on the short-term benefit to Trump. But somehow Russian agents were successful in guiding Trump on policies that would hurt Ukraine in 2022? I don’t believe that anyone had a long-term ability to influence Trump, least of all Russian agents he only wanted to see when he wanted something from them.
Yes. Trump likes dictators, and he thought he would have all of the power as President. He’s always sided with Putin because he wanted to be like Putin. And the fact that Russia bailed him out to the tune of around $100 million in the '90s doesn’t hurt. And that, as Donny Jr. said, Trump got all of the money he needed for his businesses and campaign from Russia when no one else would lend him a dime means he’s beholden to Russia. Everything Trump did while in office benefitted Putin. Remember that Trump told Putin that he was going to talk tough to him while on camera, but they’d talk for real when the cameras were off. And remember that Russia has been cultivating Trump for 30 years or more. Their intelligence agents said that Trump was easily manipulated through flattery. They didn’t know back in the '80s or '90s that Trump would be President, but they did see him as an influential person they could manipulate – a ‘useful idiot’.