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Mueller Report 'Summary' Delivered to US Congress (cnn.com)
America's recently-appointed Attorney General William Barr has submitted to Congress his summary of the main conclusions from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, CNN reports.
"While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him," special counsel Robert Mueller says, as quoted in Barr's summary.
It does, however, reiterate that there was clear Russian interference in America's 2016 election: The Special Counsel's investigation determined that there were two main Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election. The first involved attempts by a Russian organization, the Internet Research Agency, to conduct disinformation and social media operations in the United States designed to sow social discord, eventually with the aim of interfering with the election.... The second element involved the Russian government's efforts to conduct computer hacking operations designed to gather and disseminate information to influence the election. The Special Counsel found that Russian government actors successfully hacked into computers and obtained emails from persons affiliated with the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party organizations, and publicly disseminated those materials through various intermediaries, including WikiLeaks.
Based on these activities, the Special Counsel brought criminal charges against a number of Russian military officers for conspiring to hack into computers in the United States for purposes of influencing the election.
Barr also writes that the report leaves it to him to determine whether president Trump is guilty of obstructing justice, then adds "I have concluded that the evidence...is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense."
CNN has the complete text of the four-page summary. Barr's letter concludes by saying he's still "determining what can be released."
"While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him," special counsel Robert Mueller says, as quoted in Barr's summary.
It does, however, reiterate that there was clear Russian interference in America's 2016 election: The Special Counsel's investigation determined that there were two main Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election. The first involved attempts by a Russian organization, the Internet Research Agency, to conduct disinformation and social media operations in the United States designed to sow social discord, eventually with the aim of interfering with the election.... The second element involved the Russian government's efforts to conduct computer hacking operations designed to gather and disseminate information to influence the election. The Special Counsel found that Russian government actors successfully hacked into computers and obtained emails from persons affiliated with the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party organizations, and publicly disseminated those materials through various intermediaries, including WikiLeaks.
Based on these activities, the Special Counsel brought criminal charges against a number of Russian military officers for conspiring to hack into computers in the United States for purposes of influencing the election.
Barr also writes that the report leaves it to him to determine whether president Trump is guilty of obstructing justice, then adds "I have concluded that the evidence...is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense."
CNN has the complete text of the four-page summary. Barr's letter concludes by saying he's still "determining what can be released."
"While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him
"While the ball did not go through the goal posts, it clearly would have if the goal posts had been somewhere else instead."
Your tears of unfathomable sadness are delicious
I'm disappointed but not surprised. In order for anything to be pinned on Trump he'd actually have to have done something. I don't mean something criminal, I mean anything at all.
He doesn't seem to be involved at all in day to day governing let alone campaigning. He's a figurehead. It becomes obvious when he has to interact with world leaders. In that case he can't just hand it off to folks really in charge since it's expected to be him. The most telling example was that phone call with Turkey where he got talked into pulling out of Syria. He backed down on the pledge as soon as his handlers got ahold of him again.
He's still openly flaunting the emoluments clause. And that bit with Deutsche bank where they loaned him $2 billion but there's an email chain showing he likely couldn't pay it back stinks to high heaven. That said it looks like nobody cares enough to bother with those. A few attorney generals will sue but I don't think anything'll come of it. Ultimately, we here don't spill the blood of kings.
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I guess it is because that dead man left a knife in the back of our president.
it's more like there's a couple hundred different posts. There's emoluments. There's campaign finance. There's tax evasion (lots and lots of that).
The reason nobody ever thought Trump would run for real is that he's been breaking the law his entire life and getting away with it because we don't punish the very wealthy. As it stands we're not going to punish Trump unless the American people at large change their minds. Right now he could shoot a man dead in Time Square and get away with it. Hell, some of his supporters want him to take over and become a dictator.
Will that change? Who knows. I know either way the rule of law has been significantly eroded by his presidency. Do his supporters love him enough to overlook that? Probably.
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Actually, Manafort and Cohen both been convicted of cheating on their taxes in cases unconnected to Trump and his campaign.
As for the rest, here, directly from the report:
and
and this
Wow! That's the exact opposite of what you said! There was no underlying crime of "collusion" or "conspiracy", AND there was no evidence that Trump attempted to obstruct any investigation even if there had been one.
The real question is why did our president just have a Twitter fight with a dead man?
Because it's only now that they're intellectual equals?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
They simply determine whether the evidence indicates a person committed a crime or not.
Not quite. They determine whether there's enough evidence to punish someone for having committed a crime. The evidence might still indicate that they've committed a crime, but there might not be enough of it.
A good con man makes sure nothing can be traced back to him. Can you prove this? Maybe. But there are details in the report the public will never see, which will lead to a lot of speculation.
My take-a-way from this is simple: Trump is a con man. The very reason this investigation was necessary at all speaks to this, along with his juvenile behavior. That he was apparently so stressed out is also telling. What does he know that we don't?
Getting this clown and his associates out of office would be a larger priority for this country. What a disaster.
Schadenfreude.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The Trump officials were convicted of lying to the FBI. That is something separate from collusion, which sadly for you Mueller says there wasn't any evidence of. The lies were related to non-collusion stuff, much of it pre-election stuff, personal business and contacts stuff.
Actually Trump jokingly encouraged hackers to release truthful information about Hillary, her emails. Yeah, the truth revealed by authentic emails, how dare Americans allow such things to come to the public light.
Sadly for you, Mueller says there is no evidence of obstructions.
Please seek help, as your fantasy further evaporates into smoke you will likely experience even more emotion stress.
After two and a half years of liberal russophobia and accusations of treason, we arrived to this? Did anyone actually with at least half a brain believe this was going to end somewhat different? Anyways, it's hard to believe that Congress and the corporate news media will leave the President alone after this. So watch the news echo chamber closely over the next few days as Russia investigation now morphs into "obstruction of justice" and "campaign finance" investigation.
Because the media uses said dead man as a cudgel against the president.
The evidence might still indicate that they've committed a crime, but there might not be enough of it.
This is not a "shades of grey" issue. Either a crime was committed or not. If there is sufficient evidence to support a criminal conviction then a crime was committed. Anything short of that constitutes "not a crime."
You're getting into a very dangerous area when you want to classify people as "criminal but without sufficient evidence to support the claim." This is a nation of laws, not a mob. How would you respond if someone called you a criminal in a public forum with intent of destroying your character or livelihood but lacked evidence to support it? I doubt you'd like anyone entertaining the idea that you were a criminal despite there being insufficient evidence.
The lesson here is never allow fudging just because it takes down someone you don't like The gun can easily point the other way, and it's inevitable that sooner or later someone who does not share your views will do exactly that. If you don't want it done to you, don't do it to someone else.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
From Barr's summary: "The Special Counsel states that 'while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him'"
Now picture Homer Simpson watching that soccer game: "A tie? Everyone's a loser".
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
The report actually goes beyond a lack of collusion. it did not find that Trump's campaign or affiliates conspired or coordinated with the Russian government "despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign." Implication is that Russia offered but was turned away.
Also specifically states that the decision not to seek indictments was done "without regard to" the constitutional considerations that surround the indictment and criminal prosecution of a sitting President.
They simply determine whether the evidence indicates a person committed a crime or not.
Not quite. They determine whether there's enough evidence to punish someone for having committed a crime. The evidence might still indicate that they've committed a crime, but there might not be enough of it.
Technically there is a difference if a person gets paid for killing people or does it for fun, but the result is still dead people.
Trump may not actually be a paid Russian asset, but really, that doesn't change the fact that the money Vladimir spent to help get him elected was probably the best money he has ever caused to be spent.
As far as obstruction of justice goes, I disagree with the conclusion that Trump's appointees made about whether Trump obstructed justice. There is no requirement of an underlying crime. If this was the real standard everyone could obstruct justice as much as they wanted, and the cost to find anyone guilty would explode. I suppose, once again, the little people get different standards.
Finally nothing changes the fact that Donald J Trump is truly a horrible person not worthy of any position of authority or trust.
Now its time to release the report publicly so Dems can nitpick over every phrase and drag this out until the end of Trumps term
It does, however, reiterate that there was clear Russian interference in America's 2016 election:
Just like America's CIA and various other [3] letter agencies have done to legitimately elected governments over the decades.
Nothing to see here...move on.
There are plenty of other places people can go to argue about this kind of stuff.
the report didn't conclude anything, positive or negative, in regards to collusion. For any other president that would be the end of it.
Trump's supporters seem willing to excuse anything in exchange for what he gives them. I don't think it's going to turn out to be worth it, but to be blunt a lot of the folks voting for him are older and, well, they'll be dead before the problems he's causing come home to roost. Doesn't help that the right wing of the Democratic party has pretty much abandoned working class America.
Long run I'm hoping this turns out to be a good thing. The right wing Dems were counting on this to shut Trump down so they could put Biden or Beto in office. The effect would have been the same as Trump without the pointless trade wars. It'll be harder to do that now. Hopefully that means we get a populist like Bernie or Warren who will make actual, positive changes.
It's going to be interesting if we get another 4 years of Trump. He'll invade Venezuela once he's not worried about reelection. Also he'll overturn Roe v. Wade for the same reason. Both of those are things the extreme right want but 70% of Americans don't (could be 90% for invading Venezuela, the Trumpers I know want to spend that money securing the borders here). Still, they got away with it with Iraq. Bush jr has a positive approval rating...
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4 pages is a long summary in the post-twitter society.
Actually, Manafort and Cohen both been convicted of cheating on their taxes in cases unconnected to Trump and his campaign.
Cohen was convicted of making an excessive contribution to the Trump campaign, "for the principle purpose of influencing the election," at the request of Individual 1.
> Trump encouraged Russian attacks on America on TV.
Hillary's famous email server that was run out of the bathroom of someone's private residence. I remember Trump joking that since those emails were seemingly lost. That the entire US government had lost access to the records of Hillary's stint as Secretary of State, and only had what she voluntarily turned over before illegally wiping the server, then perhaps the Russians should release them, since they likely had full copies of everything that had been on that server which our own government did not.
See, its not just a joke about the insanity of the whole situation, it's a reminder that you don't allow important internal government communication to be run out of the bathroom of someone's home as a way of avoiding internal oversight, because then you throw security out the window and end up in the situation where your enemies have more knowledge about the internal going-ons of your government than you yourselves do.
How this got turned into a massive conspiracy and fantasy about Trump conspiring with Putin says a lot about the effectiveness of brainwashing by propaganda. Unplug yourself.
Actually, Manafort and Cohen both been convicted of cheating on their taxes in cases unconnected to Trump and his campaign.
Cohen was convicted of making an excessive contribution to the Trump campaign, "for the principle purpose of influencing the election," at the request of Individual 1.
No, Cohen ADMITTED to this, he was not tried in court. He entered into a Plea bargain deal, he wasn't convicted in court so nobody had to prove he violated campaign finance law. I know there is little practical difference for Cohen, but there IS a difference here.
Further, the "Russian Collusion" angel has nothing at all to do with Cohen and the campaign finance charges taken up by the Southern District of NY.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Trump (not the Republicans) win because the Democrats ignored the "little people" on their quest for "progression". You know, the "little people" that work and pay taxes and wonder what the hell is it in for them? The Democrats don't even pay them lip service anymore. And no, I'm not a Republican or a Trump fan. But Hillary was a "progressive" idiot. And her husband was a shyster who should be selling used cars somewhere.
The report was delivered as a PDF.
Also, Trump's campaign manager, son, and son-in-law met with an agent of the Russian government for the purpose of coordinating campaign assistance. I can believe that there isn't enough evidence of a specific crime to charge them with anything, but it's still collusion and it should still be an enormous scandal.
So.. That's the point here. Mueller clearly investigated this "evidence" and found nothing that showed that there was any behind the scenes coordination between Trump's campaign and Russians. This was Bob Mueller's focus, his mandate, the whole purpose of his efforts. So He didn't find that this meeting was what many have claimed for the last 2 years.
In short, Mueller doesn't agree. Mueller is saying this meeting wasn't Trump and the Russians coordinating their campaign efforts. The Trump Tower meeting is apparently not evidence of what you've been told.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
After all, courts never truly exonerate people. They simply determine whether the evidence indicates a person committed a crime or not.
They don't deal in "innocence".
Which is why the "innocent until proven guilty" concept is an important part of our justice system.
You cannot prove a negative...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
The real question is why did our president just have a Twitter fight with a dead man?
Because he thought he'd finally be able to win an argument with him.
He was wrong.
Team Blue wants the entire report so they can comb through it line by line searching for
something, ANYTHING they can use to continue to push as much negative ( factual or otherwise )
information about Trump as they can before the next election cycle.
( Personally, this tells me they're desperate and concerned about their chances in 2020. It would
surprise me NOT to see a leak of the report soon. )
They could give two shits about justice or doing the right thing.
They're simply looking for an advantage. If you believe any different, you're naive.
( Disclaimer: Team Red pulls the same shit when it's to their advantage as well. )
I suppose it's karma coming back to bite them in the ass.
If the Department of Justice decided against bringing charges against Hillary, why would they
expect / demand anything different this time around ?
( Other than because it's Trump ? )
They simply determine whether the evidence indicates a person committed a crime or not.
Not quite. They determine whether there's enough evidence to punish someone for having committed a crime. The evidence might still indicate that they've committed a crime, but there might not be enough of it.
For crimes.. You need enough evidence to prove "Beyond a reasonable doubt" to convict of a crime.
For Civil law, it's "most likely"
Which is why Criminal Juries must be unanimous and why civil juries are majority rule.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
The real question is why did our president just have a Twitter fight with a dead man?
I think George Conway has you covered on that subject: https://twitter.com/gtconway3d...
What has Hillary got to do with Uranium One?
Ezekiel 23:20
Probably you are mixing up evidence with proof here.
Evidence can be (if the case was a murder trial.) you were angry at the person murdered, you made a call to the person in the week before they were murdered and there was an argument that was witnessed between you and them.
Evidence is far from proof and it does not mean he committed a crime.
I wondered if I will get modded down for such a factual unbiased post.
You can't handle the truth! - Because I don't post left all my comments get modded down, bye bye Karma.
on the flip side, innocent people have been found guilty based on "evidence" that indicated they committed a crime.
it's always a gamble. but prosecutors aren't in the business of not prosecuting people. so saying there's not enough evidence is a pretty good indication of innocence.
All of it. Seriously, what business do governments have, keeping secrets from the citizens who create them? With very few exceptions, no secrets should be allowed. They are our employees.
Obviously, there is a problem with most governments...
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Let's remember why the special counsel was appointed by Rosenstein: Rosenstein signed off on a memo justifying to Trump why Comey should have been fired for his threatrics re: Hillary in the run-up to the 2016 election. This was the stated reason to fire him.
What came out after Comey was fired was that:
1. Comey had called up Preibus out of the blue, told him that the Russia-gate stuff being reported in the press about the FBI was nonsense. Preibus then asks if Comey can make a clarifying statement to the press to that effect. Comey says no, AND leaks to the press that he was being pressured by Preibus. Despite having been the one to initiate the conversation and bait Preibus into the ask. Classy.
2. Comey starts leaking his "memos" to the press via his law professor friend with the explicit and expressed purpose of getting a special counsel appointed to probe his firing. Despite some of those memos technically being classified by virtue of the fact that they described a conversation between Trump and Comey acting in their capacities as POTUS and FBI head, respectively and talking over classified matters (because counter-intelligence?). Classy.
3. Turns out that a number of people plead guilty and went to jail for far less than what Hillary was being accused of, but Comey pretty much says he quashed it because of political considerations. Classy.
So now we have the report of the special counsel, who was appointed to probe whether Trump obstructed justice by firing Comey...coming up completely empty on the question of whether a crime even occurred for Trump to have been covering up and absolutely declining to make a decision on whether obstruction occurred. Read that again: the thing he was mandated to investigate...he makes no determination of. Despite failing to find evidence that a crime even occurred.
But it gets better. Since Mueller declined to make a determination to either incriminate or exonerate Trump...it fell to Attorney General Barr to evaluate the evidence and make the call. Except Barr says he consulted with Rosenstein. The same exact Rosenstein who signed off on the memo to justify firing Comey to begin with. So Rosenstein's coming out of this smelling like a rose too: he appoints the special counsel to investigate whether the justification he wrote for firing Comey was actually part of an act of obstruction of justice...and now at the end he gets to make the decision on whether or not the thing he had his name all over constituted a crime.
Yeesh.
Never mind the Pee Dossier, never mind the trickle of less than flattering information about Peter Strzok and Andrew McCabe and Evelyn Farkas and Brennan and Clapper the rest of them trying to tip the scales and leak shit to the press and out-and-out try to bait Trump officials into perjuring themselves. The basic fact is that the assistant AG wrote a memo justifying the firing an FBI head who clearly had it coming to him...then appointing a special counsel to investigate himself...and then declaring himself to have not taken part of a crime. Lovely.
Kids...if you're reading...this is not what accountable government looks like. In fact, this is what an out-of-control Deep State looks like: all court intrigue and a colossal circle-jerk for the purpose of...what for all the world looks like...generating a smoke screen in the press to divert attention away from wrong-doing by the very people claiming the mantle of Protectors of the Republic(TM).
but there's nothing so blitheringly obvious as to force Trump's supporters to turn on him.
On the plus side if Pelosi does her job right it'll keep Trump's administration busy and keep him from doing any more harm until 2020.
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who really, really want that crap to stop, right now. We'd like to get folks like Bernie Sanders or Tulsi Gabbard into office to do just that.
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Actually, Manafort and Cohen both been convicted of cheating on their taxes in cases unconnected to Trump and his campaign.
Cohen was ALSO convicted of campaign finance violations. And lying to congress (about the campaign).
Though to my knowledge you are correct that Manafort's convictions were unrelated to Trump's campaign.
Wow! That's the exact opposite of what you said! There was no underlying crime of "collusion" or "conspiracy", AND there was no evidence that Trump attempted to obstruct any investigation even if there had been one.
Actually, except for the Manafort bit, the AC was fairly on-base your counter is either irrelevant or overblown.
The AC didn't claim collusion, he claimed that Trump encouraged Russian attacks on TV, which is true.
As for the obstruction charge, there's definitely evidence. What Mueller basically said is that he didn't find evidence of collusion in the campaign, and if you don't have proof of the crime that was being investigated it's harder to prove that efforts to kill that investigation were obstruction of justice.
But he explicitly says that it doesn't exonerate Trump, and the AG could decide otherwise (though he naturally won't of course).
And while we're at it, since the Trumpists are so fond of playing this game, lets point out another few things.
1) Mueller established that Manafort lied after agreeing to cooperate, but didn't seem to try for additional info. Manafort had some very fishy ties to Russian oligarchs connected to Putin and very easily could have had more info.
2) Mueller doesn't seem to have tried questioning Trump Jr and Kushner about the Trump tower meeting.
3) Despite the fact there's judicial precedent to subpoena a sitting President for questioning Mueller never tried. Instead he negotiated a list of questions and let Trump and his lawyers craft answers.
4) Papadopoulos was bragging about the emails that Russia stole to the Greek Foreign Minister, do you really think he didn't blab about it to other members of the campaign? Who did he tell? How did they use that information?
5) You had a Republican investigator, reporting to a Republican supervisor, reporting to a Republican AG, investigating a Republican President. I'm not saying that Mueller was trying to cover anything up, but he certainly seems to have treated Trump with kid gloves.
I stole this Sig
I could rob a bank, and say that I did it because Crooked Hillary told me to do so. Would you then go ahead and arrest Crooked Hillary for masterminding a bank robbery?
Bullshit! Buying ads and posting on social media is not "interference". You gotta prove they hacked the machines and fudged the count.
If you want to see interference, look at what the DNC did to Sanders
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
We just found out that McCain was involved with spreading the known to be false rumor that Trump had colluded with Russia - a fact worthy of revealing to everyone.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The evidence has to be admissible in a court of law. That's a roll of the dice the AG has to take.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Prosecutors _never_ exonerate. There are no votes in exonerations.
That line was just a parting shot from Mueller.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I do admit everything I've written only up Thomas Jefferson warning us of fake news at his inaugural address is dipped in hyperbole.
MSNBC kept trying not to read this part:
"The Special Counsel found that Russian government actors successfully hacked into computers and obtained emails from persons affiliated with the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party organizations, and publicly disseminated those materials through various intermediaries, including WikiLeaks. "
2 talking heads on there act like they are on verge of crying, and all solemnly make blatant false accusations by first insinuating Mueller was actually a Trump supporter or paid off. Then on top of that to get even more ridiculous and slanderous, that Joy Reid bitch actually claimed that Mueller could likely be a white supremacist and that there should be more lawsuits and Mueller needs to be investigated by a special counsel for ties into White supremacy.
Haha they are absolutely so stupid.
I wish the government would shut down all the 24 hour news channels by revoking their licenses.
Thomas Jefferson warned us of fake news during his inauguration. He did admit that other more pressing matters weighed on the states but he wanted fake news prosecuted under defamation and slander laws. To quote an excerpt from his second inauguration speech:
March 4, 1805
Excerpt :
"During this course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been levelled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of an institution so important to freedom and science, are deeply to be regretted, inasmuch as they tend to lessen its usefulness, and to sap its safety; they might, indeed, have been corrected by the wholesome punishments reserved and provided by the laws of the several States against falsehood and defamation; but public duties more urgent press on the time of public servants, and the offenders have therefore been left to find their punishment in the public indignation. "
Things were a lot better before the 24 hour news channels began. Even into late 80s in their infancy before Gonzo journalism took hold.
One proof was the yearly NBC tribute to the president gala that aired after awards season wrapped up. Where Hollywood came out to celebrate the president. Seeing Don Rickles many years prior roast Reagan running for governor then again on stage roasting him as president was absolute gold.
But, but Hillary's emails!
it's always a gamble. but prosecutors aren't in the business of not prosecuting people. so saying there's not enough evidence is a pretty good indication of innocence.
No, it just means the prosecutor doesn't think there is enough evidence to obtain a conviction. Prosecutors are not in the business of prosecuting when it appears unlikely they will win.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
I have read up a bit from journalist and book writers that have followed Trump for years, and a common thought he has habitually cheated on his taxes, discriminated against minorities, etc. I have been wondering if his real concern was looking deep into his business that could bring non Russia related collusion crimes. His businesses have been performing less since he has been in office and become this global spectacle. The investigations will continue and already started in places like the SDNY. Trump's real concern might come to light the affect on his wealth
"Probe finds no proof of Trump campaign collusion with Russia, no conclusion on obstruction: Barr letter"
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Muller had two years and achieved a come FAIL!!!
37 indictments, 6 guilty please, and one conviction. That doesn't sound like a fail to me.
If you want to talk about failure, look at the R's obsessive investigations of Hillary before the 2016 election. E-mails? zero indictments. Benghazi? zero indictments. But of course, indictments really weren't the objective. They just wanted to tarnish her because she was the presumptive 2016 nominee for the Ds.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Correction: Cohen was not convicted -- he pleaded guilty. Thanks to others in this thread who pointed that out.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Why? Because he wouldn't cough up the money? That knife?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Obstruction is still very much in play. It was obstruction that brought down Nixon. And need I point out that this is not Mueller's report, rather this is Trump's hired gun's spin of Mueller's report. Let's see what Mueller has to say about that when Congress subpoenas him.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
The real question is why did our president just have a Twitter fight with a dead man?
Because it's only now that they're intellectual equals?
Listen, he spends his weekend obsessing over great men because he knows it, and I know it, and all of you know it: he will never be a great man [...] My father was his kryptonite in life, he was his kryptonite in death. On a personal level, I agree with you, all of us have love and families, and when my father was alive, up until adulthood, we would spend our time together cooking, hiking, fishing, really celebrating life, and I think it's because he almost died [...] And I just thought, 'your life is spent on the weekend not with your family, not with your friends, but you're obsessing, obsessing over great men you could never live up to.' That tells you everything you need to know about his pathetic life right now. -- Meghan McCain
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Because dead man was a notorious scum that traded on propaganda that continues to damage US.
1. Dead man was contributory to almost sinking an aircraft carrier, skated and went on vacation;
2. Dead man aided the coverup of the abandonment of ~600 POWs and long bullied their families;
3. Dead man disgraced himself, aiding the enemy while a POW;
4. Dead man disgraced himself, dumping an injured, faithful wife that stood by him for a rich, newer model;
5. Dead man was involved in scandals that unfortunately didn't finish him;
6. Dead man's career was built on MSM propaganda not allowed to be exposed during his rotten life;
7. Dead man betrayed R voters and didn't relinquish his seat when unable to perform.
> it's more like there's a couple hundred different posts.
> There's campaign finance. There's tax evasion (lots and lots of that).
Yeah there are thousands of different crimes defined by law, thousands of laws. Hundreds that Mueller's team and other investigators looked for. Over two years of investigations found clear evidence that Trump commited how many of the hundreds of different things Dems wish they could charge him with? Zero.
I don't think the conclusion which your post indicates is the one you wanted it to.
You've pointed out that after years of investigations, they've not found evidence of Trump commiting tax evasion, no campaign finance crimes like AOC and Bernie, there's not even evidence of him obstructing justice - you almost ALWAYS get obstructing justice if you investigate someone long enough. So many things they were looking for and they found none of it.
Is that what you wanted to point out? Having accidentally pointed it out, are you intellectually capable of reading your own writing and seeing the point that you made (accidentally), or are you a mindless fanboi for team D?
Trump is very clearly a jackass, though.
The Clinton campaign did the same thing. The difference is, we've had 2 years of investigation into the Trump campaign and it was found to not be collusion. Shall we now do the same with the Clinton campaign and the DNC, who financed the dossier which was written by a foreigner, with Russian influences, to damage their opponent? Or is that not collusion?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Bullshit. On that date it was impossible for anybody to hack into her server. GGP made a specific charge that he knew to be false, but derp.
Trump took a shot at Hillary, pointing out that _everybody_ except the investigators had copies of her entire email server.
The truth is nobody expected Hillary to lose, the Ruskies were just 'stirring the pot'. The majority of their support having gone to fringe left causes.
When a D wins the presidency (perhaps 2024?), expect a four year investigation into a D 'nothingburger'. Turnabout is always fair play.
In the meantime, it's on for Hillary now! Just like you are saying about the Ds reinvestigating, the Rs will now investigate the Clinton whitewash.
Unless the Dirt the Clintons have on establishment Rs is enough to influence Trump. That could break either way.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
That's the AG quoting Mueller directly, you illiterate twat.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Trump is very clearly a jackass, though.
That's the other party. Trump is a pachyderm.
The Mueller commission was started to find collusion. There was no collusion.
The russian facebook campaign is just a clickbait farm doing what clickbait farms do.
The hacking of the DNC and Podesta: maybe.
Russia passing mails to wikileaks: nothing more than wild speculation, contradicted by Assange and Craig Murray(who acted as a contact for Wikileaks).
For analysis see Glenn Greenwald and Aaron Mate, who contrary to the mainstream (including the extremely mainstream BeauHD here) were careful and right all the way.
The role of the press in the story: awful.
I'd like journalists to get around to criticizing the government for the real damage they're doing. If they want to regain some credibility. There is little left.
You mentioned "hundreds of crimes" they looked for.
Here are some more numbers.
Nineteen attorneys and 50 FBI agents "issued more than 2,800 subpoenas, executed nearly 500 search warrants, obtained more than 230 orders for communication records, issued almost 50 orders authorizing use of pen registers, made 13 requests to foreign governments for evidence, and interviewed approximately 500 witnesses".
All that and they found nothing he hasn't posted to Twitter. Why? I have a theory.
Let's compare some other investigations.
Investigating Bill Clinton turned up Gennifer Flowers, Jaunita Broderick, Leslie Millwee, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, etc. In short, it revealed he's a serial sexual predator and that was the bombshell.
Investigating Gary Hart turned up Donna Rice. Bombshell, Gary Hart was a womanizer.
With enough investigation might we find that Trump, too, likes to "grab em by the pussy"? We knew that before the election. He doesn't make any effort to paint himself as the all American boy, a good boy. His jackass is on full display for everyone to see and he likes it that way. Perhaps, investigating Trump reveals that he's exactly the asshole he portrays on Twitter.
There is evidence, but someone decided it wasn't enough to convict the president.
You keep consoling yourself with that delusion sweetheart
I'd like to take this moment to point out that the president has not in fact been convicted of anything. Reality may not agree with your feelings, but it's still reality.
McCain wasn't a great main. He was the son and grandson of Admirals. That was the only reason he even got his wings. He was a silver spoon pilot, and became a silver spoon POW.
All we have at this point is sentence fragments from Mueller's report. Fragments selected by Trump's new Attorney General and faithful heat-shield William Barr. (Just take a look at how obsequious he was to Trump at the recent veto "ceremony" in the Oval Office.)
I suspect we will know more -- much more -- if and when the full report is released.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Please look at Lisa Page testimony released last week.
DOJ told the FBI was not to criminally charge Hillary. They were denied access to laptops with deleted emails. They were told to stonewall the investigation, by Loretta Lynch.
Might be a reason nothing was done there. DOJ was corrupt. Its been found out by Congress and they chose to do nothing about it.
It's important to avoid selection bias. The best example I've seen was a city wondering if subway funding needed to be increased or decreased. They thought measuing how much the subway was used would be good information for making this decision, so they hired someone to poll the city's residents to see how often they rode the subway. The person initially asked people at random in public spaces how often they rode the subway. He grew frustrated that very few people rode the subway, meaning he was collecting very little data for the number of people he was asking. That's when he got the brilliant idea of going onto the subway and asking people there.
The problem is, asking people riding the subway how often they use the subway introduces two selection biases. (1) It eliminates everyone who doesn't use the subway from your sample. And (2) people who ride the subway more often are more likely to be encountered in your polling (you're 10x as likely to randomly encounter someone who rides 10 hours a week as you are someone who rides 1 hour a week), skewing your polling data high. To properly measure subway ridership, you have to do a random sample orthogonal to subway use, which means asking random people in public places was the proper way to do it. A random telephone poll would probably have been best.
Similarly when you target one specific country for investigation, you're introducing a sampling bias. If you accuse a restaurant of being infested with roaches, and that prompts an investigation that finds roaches in the restaurant, that doesn't prove your accusation. All that proves is that the restaurant has roaches, not that it is "infested." Other restaurants may have roaches too. In fact, for all you know, the restaurant you accused may actually be the cleanest building in the city, and even your own house has more roaches than that restaurant. But by limiting the investigation to just that one restaurant, you can misleadingly create the impression that your accusation that the restaurant is infested with roaches is true.
Over and over, I saw this sampling bias being abused by those wishing to push the Russian interference story. e.g. Google and Facebook reported they searched their 2016 records for ads purchased by Russian agents, and found some. But in order for that to mean anything, they should have also searched for ads purchased by anyone else, and compared. I suspect if they had, they would've found attempted interference by China, by the EU, by Mexico, by Canada, by Anonymous, etc. The magnitude of the "Russian interference" (a few dozen to a few hundred people, and around six dollar figures in magnitude ) makes me suspect all these investigations found was the random noise that just happens everywhere all the time.
I didn't vote for Trump and I think is Presidency has been a travesty. But I think the abuse of statistics and manipulation of facts through selection bias by the media and those pushing this story is an even bigger travesty. If you really, truly believe that those few Russians managed to affect the outcome of the election using that little money, then every politician would be tripping over themselves to hire those guys. The amount of money spent in that election was staggering - tens to hundreds of dollars per vote. Trump actually spent close to the lowest at $5 per vote. Yet these people pushing this Russian interference angle somehow believe that these Russians were able to affect the election for pennies per vote.
If this report had found that the Russians had spent tens or hundreds of dollars per vote to interfere with the election, then I'd agree there was something worrying going on. But the amount of interference I've seen reported seems more like just the normal noise that comes from normal people from the sketchy side of the population's bell curve doing their normal sketchy things.
All campaigns gather information about their opponents, and they pay for the research. There's nothing wrong with that, even if the person hired to collect the information is a foreigner. That's not collusion or conspiracy.
On the other hand, if a campaign co-ordinates with foreigners to engage in activities aimed at influencing an election (such as, oh say, hacking your opponent's email servers) then that is collusion. And if a foreign government handed a campaign unsolicited information about its opponent, then that would be an illegal campaign contribution.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
therefore, there are two sets of things that will not be made public:
[A] Any national security stuff. Remember: much of this involved DOJ,FBI,and CIA intelligence gathering, which means sources&methods stuff and persons whose identities are professionally obscured.
[B} Any grand jury materials not authorized for release by the overseeing judge/judges (this is true for criminal cases too).
Most Americans were led to believe that this was a criminal investigation (even though there's no such crime as "collusion"), but it was actually a counter-intelligence investigation looking into the potential corruption of the election by a foreign entity (Russia) so the reality is that large volumes of documents from it cannot be released, much to the unhappiness of Trump supporters who will want it all out to expose the actions of the Obama intel agencies. The Democrats in congress know this material cannot be released and they will use that to further deceive their supporters by pretending Trump is doing a coverup.
His mom shut him down in the cellar with a big bucket of Rit and a pile of her dainties. He's going to Dye in prison.
Trump derangement syndrome doesn't end when the facts are shown. I guess a random twat that spends their day commenting on Slashdot should know everything, not the guy that did 22 months of investigation.
That's a lot of words to say 'legally innocent'. Accept it.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Mutually assured destruction.
Why did Cheney walk? Same reason both Clintons did.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
McCain was responsible for the largest graduating class in Naval academy history.
They just had to get better grades than him.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
What you state didn't happen - at least not for the Trump campaign. We have the Mueller report which explicitly states as much. But we do know - with sworn testimony - that the Clinton campaign and the DNC hired foreign nationals to make shit up. And that is a crime. Would you join in a mutual call to investigate the DNC and Clinton campaign involvement with Fusion GPS, Christopher Steele, and the Russian dossier which was used to justify so much bullshit about the election and afterwards? Yes or no...
You know, Democrats haven't been this mad at Republicans since we freed their slaves...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
You mean the dossier that the GOP initially funded and then abandoned when it became clear that Trump was going to win the nomination? That the DNC provided funding for only after the GOP abandoned it?
Sure.
I am 100% in favor of indicting every member of the GOP and DNC who and throwing them all out of office at this point.
His businesses have been performing less since he has been in office
It's not since he's been in office. His businesses have always not performed. Back in the 80s, he floated his company on the public market (i.e stock exchange). For the ten years he personally ran that company, it never turned a profit even though at the exact same time, everyone around him was making money hand over fist. However, while this was happening, he bled his casinos dry and was proud of it.
In fact, a careful investigation of his businesses show they either fail outright (over one dozen and counting), or simply never turn a profit. Look at his golf courses in Scotland and Ireland. To date, none of them has earned money for him. The have lost money year after year. Even more interesting is he is pouring tens of millions more into his Scotland courses using cash, but no one knows where that cash if coming from since he is already so highly in debt.
Here's something else to consider. Several court cases have held the purpose of a business it to make a profit. Yet, none of the con artist's businesses turn a profit. One has to wonder if the investigations (yes, plural) by the Southern District of New York will find anything about his interesting note.
You seem to pretty clearly be misunderstanding Mueller's job and mandate. Mueller had an explicit and narrow mandate to examine particular issues with the Russian efforts in the 2016 election, issues that directly arose from that in particular obstruction of justice, and a couple other specific things that Rosenstein particularly assigned to his team like Manafort's shady finances and associated dealings with Ukrainians. Mueller's job was not to go after Trump for anything and everything he could find, and the clearest example of this was how the bulk of Michael Cohen's assorted crimes was handed back to the Department of Justice in the Southern District of New York. In particular, Mueller wasn't handling the campaign finance crimes at all, he was investigating Cohen for other things and it was the SDNY who came up with those charges on their own they were the ones who came just short of naming Trump an unindicted co-conspirator. Whatever other assorted crimes Trump did or did not commit, it was not up to Mueller to handle it either way; it'll be up to some other authority to adjudicate, such as the regular DoJ, the congress, or state law enforcement.
And there seems to be clearly evidence of obstruction of justice, just that we aren't being allowed to see it yet, he wouldn't have said the line about it not exonerating Trump if there was nothing there. Instead, Barr decided that it was his duty, for whatever reason, to make the conclusion that there was not a case to be made on obstruction of justice despite Mueller not making a conclusion either way. Given that Barr is a maximalist on executive power in this context and takes a borderline Nixonian position that it is almost impossible for a President to commit obstruction of justice due to his constitutional authorities, you will need to forgive a heavy dose of skepticism of Barr's ability to fairly make an assessment on obstruction of justice without seeing the underlying evidence. The obvious constitutional authority that should be making the conclusions on this particular issue is the congress.
It's almost all they have. This is a miniature version of November 9, 2016 all over again.
Welcome to Fantasy Island. I hope you enjoy your stay.
Absolutely, especially since it was the Free Beacon - and NOT the GOP - that funded the initial research before the DNC and the Clinton campaign turned it up to 11. So let's take the Free Beacon, the DNC, and the entire Clinton campaign to task.
Oh, and while we're at it, let's not forget that all this happened during the Obama Administration, and most of the senior intelligence officials were aware of the Russian influence and just ignored it, let it continue (as long as they thought it benefited "their side"). So let's toss them, too!
But there's one group you won't be touching - the Trump campaign and Administration. It's been exonerated by the Mueller report.
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Right, unless Muller has some strong evidence that the file modification times were modified post hoc to make it look like the files were copied locally to throw off the scent and/or frame Seth Rich we should assume the null hypothesis that they are just mtimes and work from there.
Those forensics say that it was an inside job. That his conclusions are contrary to the data tells me pretty much everything I need to know on where to file the Muller Report (alongside the still-classified sections of the 9/11 report).
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Place your bets. It's the world's greatest casino.
Someone had to do it.
You're claiming Muller didn't investigate Cohen and dig evidence related to the crimes for which he was charged, and hand that evidence over to prosecutors like any investigator does? Muller would be very surprised to hear that! Muller would also be guilty of perjury if that were so, since he submitted sentencing recommendation for Cohe to the court, and in it made statements to the court about him investigating the crimes Cohen was charged with.
Here's the government's sentencing recommendation for Cohen. Notice who signed it as the author:
https://www.documentcloud.org/...
You asked rhetorically whether hiring a foreigner to do research was collusion. It is not. And the FEC link you provided is silent on this matter. There is a mention of volunteer work by foreigners, but the context pertains to unsolicited volunteer work by a foreigner that might otherwise be considered a contribution. When a foreigner's activities cross the threshold of participating in the decision-making of the campaign, then it's a violation.
As for your original comment on both campaigns meeting with a foreign diplomat, there's nothing wrong with that either, unless of course you are engaging them in the strategizing or decision-making of the campaign.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Or is that not collusion?
?? What? What are you talking about? They meant well, therefore they're innocent, pure as the driven [-over] snow. They're the good guys, trying to create a everlasting world of "good perfect feeling" equality where no one is ever hurt by cruel words such as: "truth", "I think that", or "that's not right." If you want to be a airplane pilot then BE ONE. No training is required if you just believe in yourself enough -- ignore the doubters and regulators, they don't understand your glory.
We'll have no eureka moments since everyone will be thinking the exact same way.
Cultural Appropriation? Invert that -- we'll soon have Cultural Imposition where the whole world must think like we do.
The joke used to be: "Play Nice or we'll bring freedom to your country too". Now it's: "Play Nice or we'll cry and hold our breath until you do".
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
if a campaign co-ordinates with foreigners to engage in activities aimed at influencing an election (such as, oh say, hacking your opponent's email servers) then that is collusion
Your words, not mine. Is that a crime or not? Because Mueller said it never happened for the Trump campaign - but we have sworn testimony from FBI agents and other that it DID happen with the Clinton campaign.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Sigh, I'm so sick of whataboutism and fake controversies from the trumpkins. At least they've stopped saying nuclear material was physically transported from Canada/US to Russia. That's progress I guess. Like, a 'getting your kid to stop eating the boogers but not the public nose picking itself" level of progress.
Someone had to do it.
The decision was made by American voters on November 8th, 2016. "The Resistance" refuses to accept it, and tried to use the Deep State to stage a coup..
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
But we have the AG's summary.
It's pretty clear from the summary, nobody in Trump's campaign was colluding with the Russians. This clearly includes the Trump Tower meeting.
I suppose you could invent a wild conspiracy theory to explain Mueller's report... After all it seems this whole thing was based on a conspiracy theory, so why not go whole hog?
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Yes, he did hand over some evidence to other parts of Justice, bringing the total number of investigators into the hundreds.
Mueller's appointment is only about a dozen sentences, so you can read it for yourself, but I'll point out items ii and IV.
Mueller is authorized to investigate'
"ii. Any matters which arise during the investigation, or may arise"
And to prosecute:
"iv. any federal crime"
Nobody limited Mueller's scope, other than whatever Mueller himself decided to offload to others, at the time Mueller chose to do it.
Incorrect. The AG's summary clearly says there was no evidence of collusion; Which includes the Trump Tower meeting.
Mueller cannot prove a negative, nor can Trump. Conspiracy theories are born on such logical errors.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
That was funny!
On a slightly more serious note, #nevertrump is traditional pachyderms.
Trump is the opposite of family values, of slow steady wins the race, making careful, incremental changes, etc. He mobilized a different group of voters, neither red not blue - including, for example, many members of large unions. Those were traditionally solid Democrat. The largest unions are now officially on record decrying AOC's policy proposals.
No, they decided it wasn't even enough to rise to ham sandwich culpability. As in, wouldn't even pass a grand jury smell test.
That true, Flowers came forward on her own.
My point was that Clinton tried to deny it. Even after the tapes were played on national television. Over and over, for decades, various women accused him of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and other similar behavior, and Bill always put on that smile and tried to play completely innocent.
Trump doesn't hide that he's - what the word? A bit of a perv? He and Bill Clinton would get along together well, especially in the company of some Colombian prostitutes. Clinton got busted for lying about it, Trump got some heat for bragging about it.
The truly amusing thing about Cohen is that it's pretty clear that either he's a pathological liar or Adam Schiff performed some serious amounts of witness tampering prior to his second appearance before Congress.
It's been a horrible weekend for the loony left. Between Mueller, Babs Streisand and her excuse for Michael Jackson's "needs", the fall of ISIS and the cop exonerated for shooting an unnamed black teenager, conservatives have had a banner weekend.
Oh, another sky screamer who thinks if he wishes hard enough the big bad orange man will go away to jail and a new age will be ushered in where gays are put upon a pedestal, free speech is outlawed when they disagree with popular opinion and nobody owns guns.
Gays? Another Christian Conservative Trumpkin who thinks everybody else is as insecure in their sexual orientation as he is.
Btw if that's the case, you might want to educate some Stanford law professors and former federal prosecutorsnwho have been writing about the investigation.
David Alan Sklansky, a former federal prosecutor, is the Stanley Morrison Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. He is also a faculty co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center (SCJC). In his article "Mueller Charges Trump Campaign Officials", Sklansky writes:
" The two men were charged with tax evasion, money laundering, false statements, and conspiracy. ... All of these charges stem from the ongoing investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller".
I don't suppose by chance you get all of your information from CNN? If so, is that intentional, you want to hear a fairy tale, or accidental?
Nope. Mueller explicitly stated no evidence of collusion and would not draw charges.
http://saveie6.com/
Obstruction is still very much in play. It was obstruction that brought down Nixon. And need I point out that this is not Mueller's report, rather this is Trump's hired gun's spin of Mueller's report. Let's see what Mueller has to say about that when Congress subpoenas him.
Obvious troll mod with agenda is obvious.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
In the eyes of the law you've only committed a crime if there is proof, direct or indirect, that you did so, otherwise you are 'innocent' which is the same conclusion as if you had not committed a crime.
If a prosecutor determines a crime was committed, they have to prosecute/indict the person that committed the crime. They can't just determine that not "enough" evidence exists, that's what a jury is for.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Not the AG's job. Plenty of prosecutors will try to introduce evidence that's not admissible on the hopes that the introduction sways a jury (eg. if it was collected or stored improperly, but it's convincing) or the judge and defence doesn't notice.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
But we have the AG's summary.
Which is inadequate. We need to see the full report. And congress agreed unanimously.
It's pretty clear from the summary, nobody in Trump's campaign was colluding with the Russians. This clearly includes the Trump Tower meeting.
Then why did Trump and his associates keep lying about it? That certainly didn't help him look innocent.
I'll accept what Mueller found out. But we need to see the full report.
I suppose you could invent a wild conspiracy theory to explain Mueller's report... After all it seems this whole thing was based on a conspiracy theory, so why not go whole hog?
Trump has himself to blame for the conspiracy theories. See above.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
yes, it's a crime despite
Given that Mueller spent two years and tens of millions of dollars checking on things like that with no resulting charges against anyone, the entire U.S. government (including a bevy of Democratic lawyers who fervently hate Trump) very obviously agrees it's not a crime.
You've going to have to come up with something better than a "townhall.com" link yourself, since the evidence YOU posted was (A) Jack and (B) Squat, hey emphasis on the "Jack" since you obviously spent the last two years jerking off to the thought of Trump wearing Prison Orange. Sad.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The deck is stacked and every hand is aces. Whole thing is rotten.
The movies gonna suck too.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
Actually, Manafort and Cohen both been convicted of cheating on their taxes in cases unconnected to Trump and his campaign.
Cohen was convicted of making an excessive contribution to the Trump campaign, "for the principle purpose of influencing the election," at the request of Individual 1.
No, Cohen ADMITTED to this, he was not tried in court. He entered into a Plea bargain deal, he wasn't convicted in court so nobody had to prove he violated campaign finance law. I know there is little practical difference for Cohen, but there IS a difference here.
Further, the "Russian Collusion" angel has nothing at all to do with Cohen and the campaign finance charges taken up by the Southern District of NY.
Cohen also plead guilty to tax evasion charges. And a plea bargain is technically a conviction. Yes they didn't have to prove it in court, the evidence was so overwhelming that Cohen would have been a fool to go to trial.
And the tax charges were ALSO brought by the SDNY.
See the AC was trying to claim "Cohen's crimes had nothing to do with the campaign", which people called BS because Cohen was convicted of a campaign finance violation.
So you tried moving the goal posts by claiming that this is a discussion of the Mueller investigation. But then the AC's statement makes no sense because they're referring to tax crimes which happened the SDNY. The only charges that Cohen was convicted from Mueller's office was lying to congress... about the campaign.
This is just some rhetorical game to make people think that when they hear of "Cohen's crimes" they somehow think it has nothing to do with the campaign. Unfortunately for you the meaningless distinctions that would usually help to confuse people don't actually apply here.
I stole this Sig
The Clinton campaign did the same thing. The difference is, we've had 2 years of investigation into the Trump campaign and it was found to not be collusion. Shall we now do the same with the Clinton campaign and the DNC, who financed the dossier which was written by a foreigner, with Russian influences, to damage their opponent? Or is that not collusion?
Then why didn't they leak that dossier before the election? You know, when it would have actually been useful.
Funny how none of the Trumpists can never answer that iceberg sized plot hole.
I stole this Sig
How this got turned into a massive conspiracy and fantasy about Trump conspiring with Putin says a lot about the effectiveness of brainwashing by propaganda. Unplug yourself.
Russia also started trying to hack Clinton's office the same day.
Yeah, it sounds like a joke, but that's a pretty big coincidence.
It's also evidence that Trump, who famously blurts out incriminating things, had some knowledge or influence over Russia's attacks. Maybe he was giving them a poke to get started, maybe he knew they were starting and was thinking about it so much that it came out in a joke.
Yeah Mueller didn't find evidence of collusion. But all you need is a couple senior people using WhatsApp who know how to delete chat history and you wouldn't have any evidence.
I stole this Sig
This is not a "shades of grey" issue. Either a crime was committed or not. If there is sufficient evidence to support a criminal conviction then a crime was committed. Anything short of that constitutes "not a crime."
You're getting into a very dangerous area when you want to classify people as "criminal but without sufficient evidence to support the claim." This is a nation of laws, not a mob.
What are you even talking about? Parent didn't call anyone a criminal. There is a clear difference between evidence and conclusions you seem to be ignoring.
How would you respond if someone called you a criminal in a public forum with intent of destroying your character or livelihood but lacked evidence to support it? I doubt you'd like anyone entertaining the idea that you were a criminal despite there being insufficient evidence.
This follows from the same faulty assertion.
If someone released evidence in their possession of wrongdoing to the public this is not the same thing as labeling someone a criminal.
If you don't want it done to you, don't do it to someone else.
The problem with this line of argument is nobody wants to be accused or convicted of anything regardless of whether they are guilty or not.
This argument effectively supports the proposition snitches deserve stiches.
Deja vu. Very Clinton-esque concluding that bad stuff was done, but weâ(TM)re not going to prosecute.
It's stupid as shit considering that the parties today have nothing in common with the parties of the civil war era other than the names. Look at which party hosts all of the neo-confederates and white nationalist apologists today. It's far more informative than historical-semantic wordplay.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Then why didn't they leak that dossier before the election? You know, when it would have actually been useful.
Used for what? To make news? Because the story would read like this:
"Someone you never heard of has just given us a file containing a bunch of innuendo and amazing claims with no supporting facts. It's about one of the Presidential candidates. That candidate has denied the allegations in the file."
Soo.... you claim that the dossier, that has generated massive news coverage, wasn't leaked because the press would find it uninteresting???
To which I repeat the question... why write a fake dossier to win an election if you're not going to leak it?
Funny how none of the Trumpists can never answer that iceberg sized plot hole.
Funny how you guys make up stories and decide to believe they're true, and then when they are proven false, you just make up new stories. The real world and what really occurs never seem to matter.
In other words your "fake dossier" narrative is so weak you didn't even bothering to make a story.
Now here's my story. The dossier was a legitimate and entirely normal attempt at opposition research, performed by a former intelligence official. The campaigns who funded the research, both Republicans and Democrats, hoped to learn how to campaign against Trump, and to find provable dirt they could use against him.
The dossier didn't have any provable dirt, at least not anything juicer than was already publicly known about Trump. But it was very unusual in that it had evidence (but not proof) that he was compromised and coordinating with the Russian government. Republicans and Democrats both found this concerning enough that they forwarded it to the FBI, who was already investigating the Trump campaign for collusion.
No one, Republican, Democrat, or FBI, leaked it to the press during the campaign because that wasn't its purpose, and since it could be traced back to the campaign who paid for it and could backfire.
So that's my story, one that makes sense and is consistent with the evidence.
I stole this Sig
The truly amusing thing about Cohen is that it's pretty clear that either he's a pathological liar or Adam Schiff performed some serious amounts of witness tampering prior to his second appearance before Congress.
He's a slimebag, he was a slimebag before he started working for Trump, he was a slimebag when he worked for Trump, and he remains a slimebag after flipping on Trump.
It's hard not to cheer for someone when they're taking effective shots at your enemies, that's pretty much the basis of Trump's appeal, but he hasn't suddenly become a virtuous and honest man.
I stole this Sig
Maybe because right up until Election night, the Democrats were 93% certain to win the whole thing? Why use it and open up the can-of-worms, especially since it did its job to get the FISA warrants to spy in the first place...
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ToughLoveTroll, dude you just argued with yourself and called yourself "a troll".
Those liberal tears must really be burning your eyes.
The campaigns who funded the research, both Republicans and Democrats, hoped to learn how to campaign against Trump
That is a lie, and you know it. It was funded by the Clinton campaign and the DNC, and the Washington Free Beacon - a new site, NOT a campaign - hired Fusion GPS for some intel but it was not the Steele Dossier.
Quit lying.
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The new summary to follow that summary, everyone should be able to guess what that one will be. A summary of costs of the Trump investigation, what the tax payers paid for and whom they paid it to. Who earned what and what were their political party affiliations. The greater the cost, the worse it will lock for the corporate democracts, how much money they wasted and who profited and by how much did they personally profit, every single payment and every possible costs, all audited and put out to the public.
Make no mistake it will look extremely bad and force an investigation of the investigation and you can fucking bet, that investigation will uncover a whole bunch of conspiratorial crimes, attempts to pervert justice, that will result in prosecution (this scam was an all or nothing gambit and they will have broken laws trying to push it through, lots of them).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
You seem to be ignoring the fact that many of Mueller's indictments and convictions came from events that had nothing whatsoever to do with Trump and/or the 2016 campaign and/or Russia. Like Flynn's conviction for lying to the FBI - not for collusion, but for trying to get Russia's support on an Israeli issue and then asking Russia not to retaliate against new sanctions. Or Manafort for ten year old financial crimes.
If Mueller could do that, there's no reason he couldn't have investigated Trump for opening new businesses in Saudi Arabia while running for president, and then giving them a massive arms deal as president.
Soo.... you claim that the dossier, that has generated massive news coverage, wasn't leaked because the press would find it uninteresting???
It wasn't news. Unsubstantiated allegations aren't news. Buzzfeed published it. They have zero standards.
Read Rathergate for the last time someone tried a similar thing before an election. It ended several careers.
To which I repeat the question... why write a fake dossier to win an election if you're not going to leak it?
He wrote it because the Hilary campaign paid him to write it. Maybe they thought they could use it. Maybe they thought they could get an investigation started and the investigators would find something real — they didn't.
Hopefully we will hear testimony under oath about it.
Because it neeeever would have occurred to a foreign intelligence agency to hack an unsecured treasure trove of classified information until Trump made a joke about it on TV.
As much as a photo of Obama eating shawarma is evidence that he really was a Muslim born in Kenya, sure.
That is completely false. Any negative assertion can always be restated as logically equivalent positive assertion, so if it were not possible to prove a negative assertion, you could not prove a positive one either, effectively meaning that you could not prove anything.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
And now you can read the problems with Rathergate:
1) Memos were never proven to forgeries
2) CBS did verify the memos - for the accuracy of their content
3) So even if the memos were forged copies, the forgeries were true
But what makes it all a farce, is this standard was applied to Dan Rather, and only Dan Rather. None of the editors and reporters that spent years parroting CIA talking points on Iraq as fact, without bothering to do any verification of what they had been told, lost their jobs. And if the media doesn't bother to higher fact-checkers, they sure as hell don't hire typography experts to examine everything they've been handed.
I know his businesses had been rather rocky well before the election, but there has seemed to be an affect by the negative association that has caused an affect more recently. One of the journalist described his business model as getting others to put in, and he extracts as much as he can. He didn't care that they failed, he made money by removing it from the business. Seems like some form of embezzling to me. His more recent success was far more licensing his name, with all the negative press since in office that might dry up. I understand international real estate is a good way to laundry money, it is very difficult to have successful prosecutions.
Nope. Still a total fail on your part here, Rooster. Flaming racist sacks of crap like Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond may have started out their political careers as Dixiecrats, but like their brethren, they went to their graves as die-hard Republicans. Your veiled attempts to equate BLM (or whever) the Klan is another pile.
Just stick to pointing out how full of shit Democrats have been on Russiagate for the last two years, something that is based on facts.
Which leads to the questions: are you just dumb? Do you not understand how you sound when you talk about "true" forgeries?
You don't sound honest. You don't sound like a sane person. You don't sound like someone an honest or sane person would take seriously.
You sound like someone talking about how NASA faked the moon landing.
Dembots keep saying that as if it's supposed to mean something. It doesn't mean anything. That Trump's primary election opponents were also sniffing around for dirt does nothing whatsoever to change the fact that Hillary is in fact guilty of what Trump has been baselessly accused of doing: colluding with foreign intelligence agents to swing an election.
The campaigns who funded the research, both Republicans and Democrats, hoped to learn how to campaign against Trump
That is a lie, and you know it. It was funded by the Clinton campaign and the DNC, and the Washington Free Beacon - a new site, NOT a campaign - hired Fusion GPS for some intel but it was not the Steele Dossier.
Quit lying.
Not remembering a secondary detail isn't a lie.
The Washington Free Beacon wasn't affiliated with a specific campaign but they were "anti-Trump", and they were paying for opposition research on Trump.
Steele didn't show up until after the DNC started paying the bills. But he was hired because the research initially funded by the Beacon, and later by the DNC, picked up evidence of Trump/Russia connections.
Maybe because right up until Election night, the Democrats were 93% certain to win the whole thing? Why use it and open up the can-of-worms
Really? Not even when Comey re-opened the email investigation days before the election?
Any why create a fake dossier when there were so many legitimate Trump controversies to dig into? Instead of a story line that keeps supplying dirt and hurting Trump (ie, TrumpU) you end up with a story line that fizzles out with no evidence and discredits all your legitimate dirt.
, especially since it did its job to get the FISA warrants to spy in the first place...
Uhhh, I won't accuse you of lying... but surely you now remember that Carter Page was first subject to a FISA warrant in 2014. He was a target again in 2016 because he kept having contacts with Russian Intelligence recruiters.
I stole this Sig
Trump used his money to payoff his mistress, the campaign wasn't involved.
John Edwards paid off his pregnant mistress while his wife was dying of cancer, all during his Presidential campaign, and SCOTUS said it was NOT a campaign finance violation.
Ken
Because it neeeever would have occurred to a foreign intelligence agency to hack an unsecured treasure trove of classified information until Trump made a joke about it on TV.
As much as a photo of Obama eating shawarma is evidence that he really was a Muslim born in Kenya, sure.
I said evidence, not proof.
We already have Papadopolous, a Trump campaign member, knowing that Russia had stolen DNC emails before wikileaks had ever released them.
That's proof that Trump's campaign knew that Russia was stealing emails from their opponents.
Now Trump is talking about Russia attacking a specific target the same day that Russia attacks that target.
Yes, unlike Birtherism that does count as actual evidence that Trump had inside knowledge that a hack was going to happen.
It's not proof, but it's sure as hell evidence.
I stole this Sig
Except that they should recoup the cost of the whole investigation in the fines and unpaid taxes they uncovered.
On the other hand, if a campaign co-ordinates with foreigners to engage in activities aimed at influencing an election (such as, oh say, hacking your opponent's email servers) then that is collusion.
Yeah, but Mueller stated, and Barr reported, that they found NO evidence (zip, nada, zilch) evidence that anyone in the Trump campaign ever coordinated anything with the Russians, despite the Russian's repeated explicit attempts to do just that.
And if a foreign government handed a campaign unsolicited information about its opponent, then that would be an illegal campaign contribution
But if you pay for the information from the same foreign government it's OK?
Ken
Just give it up, the Russia nonsense is dead
37 indictments, 6 guilty please, and one conviction. That doesn't sound like a fail to me.
"please"?
So a detective, driving to a murder scene, stops and writes someone a speeding ticket. The Detective never closes the murder case - that's a fail. Mueller was investigating collusion and obstruction of justice, he found none of either - so yes, fail.
If you want to talk about failure, look at the R's obsessive investigations of Hillary before the 2016 election. E-mails? zero indictments.
Take a look at the folks that got immunity in the email case, that explains no convictions.
Benghazi? zero indictments.
Congratulations, incompetence isn't a crime.
Ken
Ok can the DNC troll just leave.
See here for what is essentially the same argument, but with a much more detailed explanation than what I provided.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
There's a difference between being an honest man(Not that I think the vast majority of people at that level of politics or money are honest) and colluding with another country or in the Cohen case the only motive for the payoff being politics. Or Trump being stupid enough to directly order him to do so. On the other hand, given his apparently pathological lying tendencies, I can completely believe that Cohen would have used the cheapest and scummiest means at his disposal to accomplish anything he was asked to do. Ask yourself this, do you believe Trump had never paid off a woman to keep silent about sex prior to the election? Because unless the answer is yes, than paying off Daniels was not a crime. It is only if the only reason he had any payments made was because of the election that it becomes a campaign finance violation.
Right, the AG quoted Mueller as Mueller took a lazy parting shot with that language. Regardless, it doesn't matter. It's not indictable. There's never going to be an obstruction case (which requires intent, in connection with a crime) when there's no underlying crime in the first place.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I never understood the focus on Trump by the media and the less astute. For me the investigation was to determine if there was Russian interference in an American election and, if so, who / what / when / where / why / how. I want to know details of interference by one or more foreign states. Was it technical or social? From what IP addresses? Who were the leaders and who were the worker bees? Names, pictures, addresses and telephone numbers please. Not that it will change the outcome -- just for future reference. I can see how the President would want to make the investigation all about himself. Donald Trump's nature is to make everything all about Donald Trump. It's called promoting the brand. That's his job and at least he takes that seriously. Invent some bad guys and it also becomes defending the brand. The media and an army of roving loons comically chase after his admittedly skillful twitter misdirections like rabid weasels.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
You've pointed out that after years of investigations, they've not found evidence of Trump commiting tax evasion, no campaign finance crimes like AOC and Bernie, there's not even evidence of him obstructing justice - you almost ALWAYS get obstructing justice if you investigate someone long enough. So many things they were looking for and they found none of it.
If you include foreign nationals, the Trump camp has more indictments than any other President regardless of party except Nixon. And we're only 2 years in.
Trump admitted to firing the lead investigator, specifically because of this Russia issue. I don't understand how Mueller decided that wasn't obstruction of justice (or was he saying sure, but there's not enough evidence to prosecute and win the case?). But then I realize there were 3 people involved in this decision, and they were all appointed by Trump himself (Barr, Rosenstein, Mueller). Hrm. Mueller didn't even interview the subject of the investigation (after what he admitted to). How can you come to the conclusion the accused is innocent without even interviewing them? Whatever. The point is, the Trump camp has more indictments than any other President in the last 40 years. And we're only 2 years in. This investigation was not fruitless by any stretch of the imagination.
Deferred to the AG on the subject of obstruction, not collusion. The collusion angle is stated flat out - there was none.
So why is he in prison? "No convictionâ means no sentence, yet he's doing time.
Well, I checked, and you appear to be right. I was misled by another post on this.
It appears that a conviction is what happens after you have been found guilty. You can be found guilty after a trial by a jury or judge, or you can plead guilty before the trial is over (or even starts.) In either case, you're convicted. Some online comments say the difference is that you can't appeal a guilty plea.
You are a bit on the dim side, my little Repugnican shite.
If you took the time to look at my other posts, you'd see I am definitely not a Republican. And please, let's not mock the names of parties, no matter what side you're on. It's needless provocation.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
What has Hillary got to do with Uranium One?
OK, I'm gonna solve. John Kerry, with the Freedom Fries, in the Lincoln Bedroom.
If it was Hillary with the Uranium One in the Library of Congress then I owe you a beer.
I suppose if you did it to further Clinton's campaign, then yeah.
Play Command HQ online
Really, you think any expenditure for the purposes of furthering a campaign is *not* a campaign expenditure if you also spent the money for another reason?
Play Command HQ online
Did Edwards pay his mistress not to talk?
Play Command HQ online
Trump first supported Nazis, then denounced them, then walked that back, saying denouncing them was his biggest mistake.
Play Command HQ online
Mueller has already accused Manafort in court of lying about sharing polling data with Russian intelligence.
Barr's letter is simply not good enough.
Play Command HQ online
Did they inform the Obama administration? Did they lie to the FBI about it?
Play Command HQ online
No, it isn't, but you knew that. Whether Clinton's opposition research was burned by Russian intelligence is another matter, but it's not collusion.
Play Command HQ online
What facts, Barr's "summary" of Republican investigation into their own?
Play Command HQ online
Nope, if a court actually finds somebody innocent, that will get them released from prison. This almost never happens.
Play Command HQ online
In a legal system with clearly defined precepts of "Assumption of Innocence"
An inability to prove the commission of a crime *IS* an exoneration.
PERIOD!
Not that it matters.
So many have falllen to the indoctrination of The Church Of Russiagate". Shit that makes InfoWars stuff look like "The sun came up this morning!"
And we all know that if reality differs with their dogma of "Orange Man Bad. Orange Man MUST Be Guilty!", then reality is "microaggressing" against their religion.
And any such microaggression is further proof that there's a conspiracy by "The Far Right Nazis" to "Hide The Truth".
Meanwhile, all the sane people in the country are wilting from Political Bullshit Fatigue.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
SJW tears will be flowing.
Kids...if you're reading...this is not what accountable government looks like. In fact, this is what an out-of-control Deep State looks like: all court intrigue and a colossal circle-jerk for the purpose of...what for all the world looks like...generating a smoke screen in the press to divert attention away from wrong-doing by the very people claiming the mantle of Protectors of the Republic(TM).
If the United States of America wants to continue to promote Democracy over all others it better starts doing something about the DEEP STATE, which is, in all respect, as bad, ir not worse than the dictatorship the United States of America has been ranting against all these years.
In other words, are you Americans gonna do something about this?
Whether a crime was commited may be black and white but the available evidence is always a shade of grey : there may not be enough to convict somebody in spite of a crime. You are conflating the two unduly. Furthermore if for the justice system the evidence were not enough , sometimes due to technicality, that does not mean the general public cannot make such a call. Oj simoson was a murder. He was just not a convicted one. So far from what i saw with cohen manafort and the russian meeting reported, it may not be a high bar enough to convict trump, but it is a high bar enough to condemn him publicly.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Item the first: The SDNY brought charges based on evidence and testimony given to... the Mueller investigation.
Item the second: Cohen pled to several financial charges, one of which was related to paying off Daniels.
However, there's a problem here - that's not a crime, including not a campaign finance violation. We know this with certainty because Democrat John Edwards was charged with having his campaign donors pay off his mistress. The charge was laughed out of court.
So, we have Trump who has a history of paying off mistresses, who did so again (with his own money). But this is supposed to be a campaign finance crime, when someone who had never paid off a mistress before having donors do so for him is not?
Nah, Cohen pled because the Democrat-run SDNY promised him a lighter sentence if he pled guilty to something involving Trump for political reasons, even if they knew they could never have convicted him of it in court.
So, no, Cohen was not guilty of anything involving Trump's campaign. It doesn't even look like he was guilty of anything involving Trump's businesses - all his actual crimes were cheating on his own taxes and reporting.
The Clinton campaign did the same thing. The difference is, we've had 2 years of investigation into the Trump campaign and it was found to not be collusion. Shall we now do the same with the Clinton campaign and the DNC, who financed the dossier which was written by a foreigner, with Russian influences, to damage their opponent? Or is that not collusion?
Eh, no, It was the Republicans who commissioned the 'dossier', the Democrats just picked up where the Republican left off after they decoded Trump was their new god emperor.
Trump (not the Republicans) win because the Democrats ignored the "little people" on their quest for "progression". You know, the "little people" that work and pay taxes and wonder what the hell is it in for them? The Democrats don't even pay them lip service anymore. And no, I'm not a Republican or a Trump fan. But Hillary was a "progressive" idiot. And her husband was a shyster who should be selling used cars somewhere.
Yeah, and Trump is doing sooooooo much to help the little people.
Except that they should recoup the cost of the whole investigation in the fines and unpaid taxes they uncovered.
Same for the Hillary e-mails investigation.
Either a crime was committed or not. If there is sufficient evidence to support a criminal conviction then a crime was committed. Anything short of that constitutes "not a crime."
Even taking this in the context only of the matters investigated by Mueller (necessary to avoid bursting into laughter) it's wrong.
You're getting into a very dangerous area when you want to classify people as "criminal but without sufficient evidence to support the claim."
No, you're acting like normal people.
This is a nation of laws, not a mob
Exactly. The law does not prevent me from deciding you're a criminal. It does prevent me inciting violence against you because of my beliefs.
How would you respond if someone called you a criminal in a public forum with intent of destroying your character or livelihood but lacked evidence to support it?
Depends on context, but I do live in a country with strong defamation laws so I could if needed use the law to respond appropriately.
I doubt you'd like anyone entertaining the idea that you were a criminal despite there being insufficient evidence.
Well, it depends what they want to do about it. My mother is a magistrate and thinks I'm a criminal but knows she's got no direct evidence to prove it. I don't hate her for it.
The lesson here is never allow fudging just because it takes down someone you don't like The gun can easily point the other way, and it's inevitable that sooner or later someone who does not share your views will do exactly that. If you don't want it done to you, don't do it to someone else.
Again I think context is needed. In Trump's situation grandiose claims are being made and a very expensive and very public legal investigation has been undertaken to determine whether those claims are justified. It may well be that the report describes behaviours that are illegal but fail to provide adequate evidence to prove in a criminal court that they took place.
That doesn't mean that they didn't take place, and sadly the US will be full of idiots claiming that they did and idiots claiming that they're lies. Everyone else will be shrugging, deciding Trump probably isn't angelically pure and voting in the next presidential election based on the policies, campaign expenditure and hairstyle of the candidates, because that's what Americans do.
Why the fuck would I give a shit what a historian thinks about current affairs? They're way out of their speciality.
Ask historians fifty years from now where they rate Trump. It may or may not be dead last but with the benefit of objective impartiality I'm betting they disagree with the current crop.
Sadly no, it merely means that prosecutors in the US prioritise conviction rates at trial above justice. If that means they can bully someone into pleading guilty they will, if it means letting someone they can't bully go free because at trial they'd risk losing, they will.
So wealthy or hardened criminals walk free, poor people go to prison. It's not justice.
They can't just determine that not "enough" evidence exists, that's what a jury is for.
just determine that not "enough" evidence exists
They can't just determine that not "enough" evidence exists, that's what a jury is for.
Erm. Sure they can.
It's pretty much the only way to have an affordable and sustainable justice system. Otherwise half the country would be on trial half the time.
E.g. almost nobody that drives has at no point committed an offence such as speeding, driving dangerously or driving without due care and attention (or whatever the US equivalents are). By your logic the police should charge the entire fucking country with driving offences and let juries sort it all out.
In reality the police wait until they have substantial evidence likely to achieve a conviction, because that's a rather more optimal use of resources (and much less likely to cause civil insurrection). In other words, they
just determine that not "enough" evidence exists
(a missing angle bracket broke my previous reply. 20 years of posting on Slashdot and I still don't hit preview)
(Note: IRA = "Internet Research Agency")
To that end the hysterical reaction to Trump did more for them than Trump himself could have ever done. Also most damaging are identity politics and its polarizing effects. Some of the IRAs (still can't get over that acronym) trolling explicitly took extreme positions in identity politics or used misleading/false information to incite identity subgroups, a good example of this is the expert trolling by "LGBT United":
https://medium.com/@sue.donym1...
Note that these actions are not partisan to the "left" or the "right", the intent is to weaken the USA as a whole, to make them less effective in the international arena, to weaken their president and to bog him (or her) down with whatever serves that purpose.
They needn't have bothered though, because others did their work for them. It is highly questionable that this "Troll factory" with its lean funds really made any change to the bigger picture. Most of the hysterical reaction to Trump, the campaigning for his impeachment by whatever means as well as the extremist identity politics were genuine and didn't need any outside "nudging".
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
Here's some more opinions, where some of us noted that the presidential candidate should be in prison at worst, probably fined and stripped of her clearance. But other people (her friends and cronies, mostly) decided to have this other opinion, one which made up elements of the law to suit their opinion...
"Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were “up-classified” to make them Confidential; the information in those had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent."
"Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.
"For example, seven e-mail chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received. These chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending e-mails about those matters and receiving e-mails from others about the same matters. There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation.
"To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now.
Why is the title "Mueller Report 'Summary' Delivered to US Congress", instead of, "Mueller Report Summary Delivered to US Congress"? Is it somehow not a summary?
True, Juanita Broaddrick is straight up rape.
There's not sufficient evidence to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, but the evidence suggests he very likely did rape her.
Read the NY Times articles about it? They pretty much said where's there's this much smoke, there's probably a fire...at the very least the optics were bad with the Clinton Foundation taking in 10s of millions of dollars from Russians connected with the deal and Bill personally raking in several hundreds of thousands of dollars for speeches given to Russians connected with the deal, then having the deal get approved by Sec. Clinton.
"The New York Times confirmed Schweizer’s Uranium One revelations in a 4,000-word front-page story by a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter. It detailed how the Russian energy giant Rosatom had taken over the Canadian firm with three separate purchases between 2009 and 2013, largely coinciding with Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state.
"The Hill reported last week that ahead of the deal, the FBI had uncovered “substantial evidence that Russian nuclear industry officials were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering” to expand Russia’s nuclear footprint in the U.S. as early as 2009. The agency also found that Russian nuclear officials had routed millions of dollars to the U.S. to benefit the Clinton Foundation. The Justice Department would sit on the evidence for four years before looking to prosecute, by which time the deal had been approved.
Trump's obsequious behavior towards Putin is suspicious. So is his failure to allow any notes of his meeting with Putin to see the light of day. So one the one hand, we have a President who has lied or told falsehoods over 8000 times since entering office and on the other we have a President who seemingly lies about everything and then explains that he lied. My guess is his dealings with Putin are above reproach must as a brick is above the Sargasso Sea (to reuse a choice Douglas Adams' phrase).
That quote from CNN encompass all that I think about the seemingly jubilitaiton of many people here " Barr reports that Mueller found insufficient evidence to charge a federal crime, but not necessarily that Mueller found no evidence whatsoever. ". That is it. Now all we can do is wait to see for ourselves those insufficient evidence. Since the prosecutor level was "beyond reasonable doubt" my guess is that it will be one of those report "OJ " like where the public can decide based on evidence provided , but the prosecution held to a higher standard cannot.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
"Oh, and by the way: If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it's a duck." ..... except in the US justice system, where you still have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that it is a duck, even if it really looks like one.
And all of those indictments had nothing to do with Trump. It was all dirty and shady things those people did on their own. Trump hired a lot of veteran beltway types for his campaign. It should come as a shock to nobody that anyone who has spent more than a week working there is dirty. If you dug around in any campaign you would find the same kind of stuff for everyone. I'm willing to put money on it. As for why Trump fired Comey and why is isn't obstruction, I'm no legal expert. But if I had to guess, it may be because as Mueller's findings show there was nothing to it and it was a waste of time. It was also built upon a lie, the dossier made by Steele, a foreign agent by the way. Session's had started a major push to crack down on human trafficking and Comey was working on a sham investigation. He didn't get with the program and had clear political motives. I'd fire his ass too.
To me the evidence suggests that both are true. Schiff performed some serious amounts of witness tampering AND Cohen is a pathological liar
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
You're arguing against objective reality.
-Dave
RIght,
Cohen took a plea. Cohen is a guy with his hands in many of cookie jar by all appearances and its likely he was threatened with being charged with much much worse. The same way a boarder line DUI offender might plea to equipment failure to account for their weaving. That sort of thing happens literally every day.
The John Edwards case casts a WHOLE HECK OF A LOT OF DOUBT on if payments to Clifford's would ultimately be determined by a court to constitute a campaign contribution or not. If Trump were to be charged you can bet his lawyers would argue; quite correctly that a man might have all kinds of reasons to want to a mistress to not talk about the affair he had with her while his wife was pregnant. Reasons not related to the campaign at all. A lot of people for example might ask if that is how he treats his wife; can he be a reliable partner in business? As an example. That isnt a question a real-estate tycoon would want potential investors asking.
Its only a campaign contribution if can convince a jury "but for his presidential campaign, the hush money would not have been paid." If anything Cohen's repeated self contributions do a lot to impeach the best argument that likely exists: Trump's fixer said that is why he did it.
So although yes Cohen was "convicted of campaign finance violations" there exists no finding of fact that said violation occurred. That is important legally speaking if you are Trump.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
"...why did Trump and his associates keep lying about it?" Because it has terrible optics not matter what? People lie to cover up embarrassing but legal actions all the damn time.
"Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny! Free men pull in all sorts of directions" -- Havelock Vetinari
If you believe the media has a right wing bias, you are delusional. There is no way a right wing media would have highlighted every mistake Trump has ever made, and downplayed every mistake Obama made during his "scandal free" eight years in office. Hell, look at the attacks on Trump which included pictures of kids in cages from the Obama years, which had been basically ignored previously.
"Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny! Free men pull in all sorts of directions" -- Havelock Vetinari
Which party is it again that Steve King, Steve Scalise, Cindy Hyde-Smith, Corey Stewart, Jason Spencer, and Donald "very fine people" Trump have had their political careers with?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Not the one with Robert "Sheets" Byrd, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, etc. And you seem to forget that the GOP publicly stated - and voted - a rebuke of Steve King. Yet the Democrats refuse to do so for the obvious racism/anti-semitism in their own ranks...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
So meeting with Russian operatives during your campaign is not an issue? Great - so why the charges of collusion against Trump? Obvious double standard is obvious.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Eh, no, It was the Republicans who commissioned the 'dossier', the Democrats just picked up where the Republican left off after they decoded Trump was their new god emperor.
No, that is not correct. It was started by the Free Beacon, but then dropped. It was not funded by the GOP. However, we do have the Clinton campaign and the DNC paying Fusion GPS. So no - you're wrong. The GOP did NOT commission the dossier. That's a lie. The Democrats own that one - and like most things, they want to get rid of their connection - so they lie about it.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
37 indictments, 6 guilty please, and one conviction. That doesn't sound like a fail to me.
"please"?
Typo. I didn't proof-read carefully enough. (I almost did it again while writing this reply.)
And on the subject of corrections, I'll clarify that the Mueller probe made 199 criminal counts on 37 individuals, with 7 guilty pleas, 1 conviction at trial, and 5 people heading to jail (so far.)
So a detective, driving to a murder scene, stops and writes someone a speeding ticket. The Detective never closes the murder case - that's a fail. Mueller was investigating collusion and obstruction of justice, he found none of either - so yes, fail.
He was also investigating Russian interference in the election. He indicted 26 Russians. The charges against the other individuals may not have involved conspiracy, but they were not speeding tickets. They were felonies.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Eh, no, It was the Republicans who commissioned the 'dossier', the Democrats just picked up where the Republican left off after they decoded Trump was their new god emperor.
No, that is not correct. It was started by the Free Beacon, but then dropped. It was not funded by the GOP. However, we do have the Clinton campaign and the DNC paying Fusion GPS. So no - you're wrong. The GOP did NOT commission the dossier. That's a lie. The Democrats own that one - and like most things, they want to get rid of their connection - so they lie about it.
I didn't say the GOP commissioned that dossier I said it was Republicans, the Washington Free Beacon is a conservative website that shills for the GOP which makes it part of the GOP hive-mind. When the Beacon dropped the dossier after Trump became god-emperor of the right wing Fusion GPS sold it to the DNC. Now that is free market capitalism at work, as a conservative you should approve :-)
Robert "Sheets" Byrd, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib
People who apologized for and renounced their racism? Do you have any examples of unapologetic practicing racists like the ones I listed?
Also the Democrats have rebuked anti-Semitism within their own ranks. But the Republicans want them to rebuke anti-semitism separately and not alongside Islamophobia or anything else...why don't they like rebukes of Islamophobia? Curious.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Trump and his associates may have dodged a bullet with the Mueller probe, but I say again, he is nowhere near being in the clear yet. He is facing other legal challenges, including investigations into his organization and his charity, his alleged participation in the Stormy Daniels hush payments, and allegations of sexual assault.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Actually, I think the investigation was covered through penalties against the convicted as well as selling off what's left of Paul Manafort's life, a small fortune he amassed through decades of illicit lobbying work.
That is a twisted history you have. Citation needed - because everything I've seen says the dossier was started after the DNC and the Clinton campaign began funding Fusion GPS. Rachel Maddow would be proud of you!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I hear from Trump critics the following two trains of thought, which are inconsistent with each other:
1) He's a big criminal masterminding an organized conspiracy of Collusion with Russia and keeping it under wraps.
2) He's an absolute moron.
I tend to believe #2, however I admit I could be incorrect: However, assuming he is a moron, that pretty much rules out the whole collusion issue: with a moron, it would have been much more obvious.
That doesn't rule out Russian interference- they were certainly capable of interfering, and the report says as much.
Continue missing the overall point if it makes you happy or serves your chosen narrative, I guess.
a simple "Move on" would have sufficed. ...
I get where you're coming from, but
I have no dog in this fight. The fact remains however that, regardless of the fact that you are personally convinced he is a duck, there are laws in place to protect people from your torch and pitchfork psychosis.
No. If a court finds someone 'wrongly convicted', they will get them released from prison.
That's not the same as 'innocent'.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
However, there's a problem here - that's not a crime,
I am so tired of you fuckwits parroting this horse shit. You either know it's false, and are trying to manipulate public opinion, or you're too fucking stupid to look it up yourself.
A campaign finance violation is a lot like a tax code violation. In itself, not typically a criminal violation. However, there's a clear line that can be crossed on both that turns it into a criminal violation- provable intent.
When the feds catch you talking about your scheme to avoid disclosure, you've nailed intent, and this moves from a fine to a criminal prosecution.
Its only a campaign contribution if can convince a jury "but for his presidential campaign, the hush money would not have been paid."
You're close, but not quite there.
All they have to prove is that there was any intent, whatsoever, to affect the optics of the campaign by paying money to hide the affair.
What's important is that they have intent. Whether he would have paid or not is entirely irrelevant. They simply had to know it was important to the campaign.
Put another way: Lying about use of money to pay for a networking trip to Vegas doesn't become legal once you can convince a Jury you would have done it even if you weren't running.
he's a pathological liar
It's also pretty clear you don't know the actual definition of that term.
Yes, he's as crooked as they come, working for... an actual fucking pathological liar.
What in the name of the fucking almighty makes you think his boss is more credible than him?
Correction: A guilty plea is in fact a conviction.
Do you really not know this?
Do you think that people who plead guilty aren't convicts?
A conviction is any determination of guilty by a party with the authority to do so. A Judge accepting a defendant's guilty plea results in a conviction from the Judge.
The Judge can also refuse to accept the defendant's guilty plea, staying the conviction until decided by a Jury.
What's your angle? Grasping for straws to defend your guy, or what?
I have no love for Tough Love. He's a first order gas lighting attack dog for anything he feels emotionally or financially invested in, regardless of merit.
That being said, he's not wrong.
Mueller didn't explicitly state anything. Mueller filed a report, which was summarized by the Trump-appointed AG.
That's simply a fact.
That is a twisted history you have. Citation needed - because everything I've seen says the dossier was started after the DNC and the Clinton campaign began funding Fusion GPS. Rachel Maddow would be proud of you!
I don’t have to go get far for a citation you said it yourself:
No, that is not correct. It was started by the Free Beacon, but then dropped...
... although you tried made it sound like the Washington Free Beacon is some DNC mouthpiece by neglecting to mention the fact that the Beacon is a conservative site that shills for the RNC. The Beacon contracted with Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Trump in October 2015. When Trump was crowned god emperor of right wing loony-land Fusion was dropped by the Beacon and the DNC took over the dirt mining project but that still does not change the fact that it was started by a Republican entity.
$25 million and counting so far and we have "no collusion".
I imagine the next money wasting investigation will begin soon.
$25 million, just mindblowing... if we could only get that kind of unlimited money for education.
If the person you're asking is a Republican, then they probably would, and then they'd get you an interview spot on Fox "News" so you could explain how "Killary" forced you to rob the bank.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
No this is not correct. If it was correct than Edwards would have gone to jail.. You telling me John Edwards did not think running around on his wife while she lay dying would not affect the optics of the campaign. What happens if I buy a new car while running for office. If I chose a Prius one could argue that I was trying to appeal to eco-concisous voters. Do I need to disclose that to the FEC as a campaign expenditure. Obviously not if its only for my person use fetching groceries.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
You missed the point again. You have to prove intent.
They could not prove intent with Edwards. Between you and I? Of course there was intent. But proving it is difficult.
As I said, I was misled by another post. You and others have pointed out my error. I googled and verified you are all correct.
Thanks for the improvement. But I have no angle. I just screwed up.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Free Beacon is an independent, conservative leaning news site. The Clinton campaign and the DNC are directly involved in the election. BIG difference there...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Then please forgive my tone.
That particular argument is one I've seen disseminated with the passion of people trying to change reality in the minds of people who don't care to know better.
Wasn't sure if you were one of those folks, or not.
To get in the last word?
The contents of this message have been doubly encrypted by ROT13
Difference is, Barr is the AG. Not a glorified policeman.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Free Beacon is an independent, conservative leaning news site. The Clinton campaign and the DNC are directly involved in the election. BIG difference there...
.. the beacon is funded by Republican donors, including Paul Singer, which makes it part of the larger Republican hive, it is not independent nor is it fair and unbalanced. But never mind that, since when is it a crime for political parties like the Democrats to dig up opposition research on their opponents? Or is that another one of those thing that's perfectly OK when Republican do it, but becomes an act of treason when Democrats do that exact same thing?
Forgiven and forgotten.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
If there was intent, then why did he pay off the other mistresses BEFORE he ever started running for President. This is not Trump's first payoff rodeo. The evidence is that National Enquirer had quite a little side-line going where they would buy up and bury these types of stories.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
He said in order for there to be a criminal violation of campaign finance law, one must prove there was a "knowing and willful" violation.
Von Spakovsky believes that's a tough case to prove.
Weird. It's like I said... pretty much exactly that.
Why are you full of shit? What is it you're trying to accomplish?
Oh, the as to "why there was intent" hinges upon the fact that Cohen said there was.
Whether or not that is credible is another story, but assuming it factual, that constitutes a criminal offense.
I never said I believed one way or another. I was simply dispelling some incorrect information about whether or not it could *be* a criminal offense.
Yes. And to keep their love child a secret.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
You're apparently delusional.
You start with the fact that he controls 3.1 billion in property, but then imply that he is used car salesman level con artist without a penny to back anything up. I'm simply amazed that such a convoluted model of the world can exist in anyone's head.
If he can maintain a con like that for the past 40 years, he is the most amazing, hard-working con-artist the world has ever known.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Omar didn't apologize for her antisemitism. She apologized that it made others feel bad.
And taking a resolution denouncing antisemitism that was written to rebuke an antisemitic muslim and watering it down to denunciate all "hate" so that the particular hate in evidence can be hidden in the crowd is disgusting.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Yet it is not the GOP. Is it? But why does the DNC and the Clinton campaign get a free pass from you? Is it because you believe that those you favor shouldn't have to play by the same rules, or suffer the same consequences as those you don't like? Justice isn't blind, right?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Wait, are you trying to insinuate that Trump ISN'T the second coming of Jesus?
'Casue that's what I implied from you remark
Pretty certain that I get Internet Points for using insinuate and implied properly, content be damned.
And all of those indictments had nothing to do with Trump.
Lololol, half of those people were directly appointed by Trump. You don't get any closer of a relationship than personal lawyer for decades, or the very top campaign director. I love the calldown sheet, this is just like when the Trump tower meeting was first speculated. Trump says
How in the world does anyone believe anybody who just repeatedly, serially, redundantly lies like this??
It was all dirty and shady things those people did on their own. Trump hired a lot of veteran beltway types for his campaign.
Ya, and mob bosses hire dirty thugs all the time. It shouldn't make them innocent. Even without direct orders, leadership style and tactics have a way of filtering down an organization. A one-off, low-level, dirty employee doesn't necessarily say much. But when you're seeing 10x as many prosecutions as the next company (or administration), then you know the top level apples are rotten. Heh, and it's easy to see good leadership in action. When one employee screws up, real leaders actually take responsibility. If nothing else, they at least say, "Ok, we've identified some illegal activity. We're going to launch our own investigation and/or learn from the incident, and ensure this never happens again." Trumps answer? "Nothing bad happened, you're imagining it!!! Baaaaa!"
As for why Trump fired Comey and why is isn't obstruction, I'm no legal expert. But if I had to guess, it may be because as Mueller's findings show there was nothing to it and it was a waste of time. It was also built upon a lie, the dossier made by Steele, a foreign agent by the way.
Ok, you're no longer making any sense at all. Nothing to it? The 'it' is Trump admitted he fired the FBI director over the Russia investigation. Waste of time? See previous mentions of all the prosecutions. Built on a lie? How is Trump admitting obstruction built on a lie? You're saying Trump lied? Lol this convo makes no sense I'm done.
People who apologized for and renounced their racism?
Sorry, you can not renounce racism. You can apologize for it sure, but that means nothing more than a canadian apologizing because they sneezed. A racist is a racist, and as the liberals have shown should be shunned from earth forever for even thinking about thinking something racist. Trust me I saw this shit on CNN it has to be true.
--Highdude702(mods)
Not remembering a secondary detail isn't a lie.
You're right because its deceit, which is 10x worse than just a normal lie. Also shows your hand and character. You're not in this for truth. You just hate Trump so much you don't care what it takes to get him out of office and into prison. Even if he is 100% innocent of any crime.
Sorry, the summary says the counsel deferred to AG and Rosenstein on whether there was enough to prosecute, not that there "was no collusion" - Mueller never said that, sorry bitch. Trump hangs for his other proven crimes either way.
You lose either way.
Deferred the choice on obstruction, which, by the way, REQUIRES that there be an actual crime for which the investigation was obstructed... Which was what? Russian Collusion?
By the way, Mueller isn't going to charge anybody else here, that means that nobody else was involved in some criminal activity, INCLUDING the Trump Tower Meeting attendees. At this point, I suppose you *could* argue that Trump himself was colluding but his staff didn't know about it or participated in the scheme, but I'd say you are grasping at straws if you did.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
#nevertrunk
..torch and pitchfork psychosis
You sure sound like you picked a side to me, at least all the way back in 2016. Care to deny that?
Are you trolling me? You might be. But I guess I'll feed you anyway: The son-of-a-bitch surrounds himself with criminals and ne'er-do-wells; that's the 'duck' part.
Furthermore, as previously stated, he sure seems to act like a mob boss: get your underlings to do the dirty work, so your hands stay clean. They go to jail for you, out of loyalty, so you don't have to go to jail. Theoretical? Sure. Probable? I believe it is. I'm far from alone in that, too.
If you really want to just throw up your hands and put on a MAGA hat, then it is also my opinion that you're gullible. But I don't think the son-of-a-bitch belongs in the Whitehouse, never did, and I'll cheer when he finally leaves. It'll probably take until I'm dead of old age to repair all the damage him and his cronies have done, but with any luck it can all be repaired.
You've already made your opinions clear enough so now I invite you to not bother responding with your insults towards me for my beliefs and opinions. You're not going to change my mind and I really don't care about your opinions either so just don't bother.
The yank trolls are out in full force tonight...
Yeah there is. There's money laundering, tax evasion, extortion, all sorts of cool stuff.
Which of those things are you saying that Trump did, and that Mueller found but was prevented by the Russians from mentioning, even though he had a team of Trump-hostile attorneys working with him? Please be specific. And mention which action, in advance of a proceeding, Trump took to obstruct that proceeding? Because that's the standard.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Belly crawling anonymous troll dude, one day later it is now known that my comment was exactly correct. Now go slither back to your hole.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Holy fucking SHIT you are retarded.
No, I'm using Trumpkin logic on you, but that's pretty much the same thing ... and why do you worship feces?
Yet it is not the GOP. Is it? But why does the DNC and the Clinton campaign get a free pass from you? Is it because you believe that those you favor shouldn't have to play by the same rules, or suffer the same consequences as those you don't like? Justice isn't blind, right?
Free pass on what? Opposition research? Are you seriously telling me that the GOP has never done that because they have Christian Morality ? It's not illegal to compile opposition research on somebody and if that turns up that he suffers from urolagnia that's not the DNC's fault.
obstruction, which, by the way, REQUIRES that there be an actual crime for which the investigation was obstructed...
Well hold on. That's just AG William Barr's view. And he has even more generous views on whether the POTUS can obstruct justice at all. Which is to say, he think the POTUS can't. And to that point, he wrote what was practically an audition letter to be AG.
As for whether there has to be an underlying crime for there to be obstruction ... I give you Martha Stweart.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Hiring foreign nationals to use Russian lies to build up a dossier, and meeting with Russian operatives in secret and NOT reporting the meetings. That's collusion right there, at least that's what we've been told for the last several years...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Not remembering a secondary detail isn't a lie.
You're right because its deceit, which is 10x worse than just a normal lie. Also shows your hand and character. You're not in this for truth. You just hate Trump so much you don't care what it takes to get him out of office and into prison. Even if he is 100% innocent of any crime.
Uhhhh.
You do realize that by deliberately conflating an easily made factual error with deceit you are in fact... committing deceit?
I stole this Sig
You guys have so much deceit in this thread. I get you're trying to lie to others to change their opinion, but please for your own sake tell me you're not actually lying to yourself about this stuff to make yourself feel better? That is not healthy. There's a few of you here that should probably seek help.
What? That the free Beacon is a conservative rag that hired Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Trump? That is a matter of public record. This is only the end of Season 1, but there is so much more dirt on Trump that can be used to fuck up his life, I'm looking forward to Season 2.
I don't care if you change your mind or not. Torch and Pitchfork Psychosis is a real thing. It is when you believe in someone's guilt in spite of overwhelming evidence against it. You "just know" they're guilty despite there being no evidence to support your belief. You are out to get them and you don't care about facts.
That is the mental trap you have set yourself in.
For the record, I think Trump is a despicable human being who doesn't deserve to be President, and I was absolutely shocked when I woke up the morning after the election. However, his being a despicable human being completely absent of any moral compass does not make him guilty of collusion or obstruction. But, you probably won't believe this because you have already decided that I am the enemy, in spite of the fact that I have thus far offered you zero evidence to suggest that I am a Trump supporter.
The special counsel, an avowed Democrat and Hillary supporter, and therefore very highly motivated by his own bias, spent two years and 50 million dollars trying his best to find a single shred of evidence that Trump worked with a foreign state to steal the election or even get in the way of the investigation, and he couldn't find it.
Personally I think he wasted far too much time chasing after Stormy Daniels payments (which were not illegal in the slightest) and his other immoral and patently disgusting, but again not illegal, behaviors, when he should have spent 100% of his effort on the main objective of the special counsel's authorization: Russian Collusion. But, perhaps he knew early on that there was no collusion and had some money to spend, so did so chasing these red herrings. Who knows?
But, I digress.
Let me ask. What damage do you propose Trump has done that will take a generation to correct? Please give an honest, objective answer supported by verifiable fact, if you can.
On the other hand, if a campaign co-ordinates with foreigners to engage in activities aimed at influencing an election
BOGGLE!!! WTF do you think the purpose of the fucking dossier was??? Damn are you dense.
Just another day in Paradise
Anybody who has made it this far down the page knows by now that you're obfuscating and full of shit.
Well he constantly lies about Obama calling him a center-right president. So there's that.
He just doesn't belong to the "Little people" group so he absolutely gives 0 fucks, just like the rest of the elitist democrats. I, for one. Part of the "Little people" group, have actually been doing quite good these last 2 years.
Prosecutors are not in the business of prosecuting when it appears unlikely they will win.
SCOTUS says they shouldn't be, but disagrees with your assessment of what's actually happening.
https://observer.com/2016/07/u...
Just another day in Paradise
Sounds like a lie to me, how much more completely can one apologize?
https://theintercept.com/2019/...
Will you apologize for your lie?
Quick reminder of what we're stacking this up against:
https://www.usatoday.com/story...
I think whistling and looking the other way from that kind of thing, calling the recognition of Islamophobia as being just as bad as anti-Semitism "watering down," is disgusting.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
On the other hand, if a campaign co-ordinates with foreigners to engage in activities aimed at influencing an election (such as, oh say, hacking your opponent's email servers) then that is collusion.
Yeah, but Mueller stated, and Barr reported, that they found NO evidence (zip, nada, zilch) evidence that anyone in the Trump campaign ever coordinated anything with the Russians, despite the Russian's repeated explicit attempts to do just that.
Actually, what Mueller said, and Barr cited was that "[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities." (emphasis mine.) That doesn't sound like "zip, nada, zilch" evidence, although that may very well be the case. We'll need to see the report to find out. But at this stage it does appear that Mueller's finding is that, whatever Trump's campaign did, it did not rise to the level of conspiracy or co-ordination with a foreign government.
And if a foreign government handed a campaign unsolicited information about its opponent, then that would be an illegal campaign contribution
But if you pay for the information from the same foreign government it's OK?
The dossier paid for by the DNC was prepared by a British former intelligence agent, not a government. But anyway, as for whether it's okay to buy information from a foreign government in the context of an election campaign, I confess I don't know, but perhaps it's okay. The FEC rules appear to be mostly concerned with active foreign influence on a campaign, such as a foreign entity participating in the strategizing or decision-making with a candidate. (The Trump Tower meeting had the look of that kind of activity, but apparently Mueller concluded there was smoke but no fire.) If a campaign simply requested and paid for information from a foreign source (government or otherwise) without involving the source in campaign planning, that doesn't sound to me like a violation.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
On the other hand, if a campaign co-ordinates with foreigners to engage in activities aimed at influencing an election
BOGGLE!!! WTF do you think the purpose of the fucking dossier was??? Damn are you dense.
Yes, obviously the dossier was requested and purchased from a British former intelligence agent with the intent (by the DNC) to influence the election. There was no co-ordination between the agent and the DNC, other than the DNC telling him who they wanted information on, and then cutting him a check. The agent was not involved in the planning, strategizing, or decision-making for the campaign, nor did he donate to it. His research was a work-for-hire.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Nowhere in that article is there an apology. Whenever you mouth something and then say "but", the words you mouthed are just a cover. She was not talking about Israel with her antisemitic tweet. The was talking about Jews. She had met with Jewish members of her district two years ago to discuss her antisemitic statements, and they came away stating that she wasn't interested in learning how her antisemitic statements are damaging. She had made a similar apology only two weeks before. The House resolution was initiated to call out her antisemitism, but Nancy couldn't politically bury it since the two of them had just appeared on the cover of "Rolling Stones" together, so they chose to water it down to disguise the real target.
Fortunately, we have Jew haters like GameboyRMH to run cover for her anyway.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Hey, I'm not the one defending the party that does this:
https://www.theguardian.com/wo...
And forgetting to mention the primary target of the holocaust because others were also targeted isn't "watering it down?"
Conservative bad-faith false-equivalence ultra-hypocrisy is so tiresome.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Oh, another Trumpkin who thinks Trump is a Jesus like beacon of morality and honesty in a dark swamp of corruption.
No, I consider Trump to be something unpleasant but useful. He's the Drano of politics. Nobody wants a glass of Drano on the dinner table, but if you keep a bottle of it under the sink you can use it flush all kinds of unpleasant shit and scum away.
Note that you responded with a great deal of butthurt, but no rebuttal. Almost like you can't. Which means you sound like a Hillbot, desperately holding onto the Russian Collusion narrative after Mueller said there was no collusion and there will be no more indictments.
So dig out a chalkboard and do your best Bart Simpson impression:
1) Memos were never proven to forgeries
2) CBS did verify the memos - for the accuracy of their content
3) So even if the memos were forged copies, the forgeries were true
Repeat as necessary until those facts start to percolate into that brainpan. Then get back to me when every reporter is fired who parroted propaganda on either Iraq or on Russiagate. Until then, all you have is a pile of wingnut BS.
Russia did shit, diphsit. Both parties are virulently anti-Russian and have been for over a century. Accusing Russia of trying to favor one over the other is like accusing a gay person of trying to pick a side in an election between a homophobic Catholic and an equally homophobic Mormon. Russia is the same damn country it was in 2012, when the establishment ridiculed Mitt Romney for saying Russia was a threat to the United States.
Speaking of homophobes, no one talks more about sucking another man's cock than homophobic bigots such as yourself. Why is that?
You don't have that either. There's as much evidence that Russia interfered in the election as there is that Hillary ordered a hit on Vince Foster: none. What you have is a hunch - and hunches are not evidence.
We know that's false as the files were copied far too fast to have been hacked remotely, it was a local copy. And because Wikileaks has denied that Russia gave them the DNC emails. And Wikileaks, unlike 99.99% of the media that has reported on Russiagate, has a 100% record of honesty. This talking point is further bunk as Wikileaks teased the release weeks and even months before the citations of the Trump campaign talking about them.
It's laughable, that's what it is. Russia is a meddling country that wants to spy and hack everything - except for Hillary's unsecured email server. That they left alone out of courtesy, until a Trump joke changed Putin's mind.
Common, man. This shit is just embarrassing.
We know that's false as the files were copied far too fast to have been hacked remotely, it was a local copy
Seriously?
Rule #1 of having a hacking operation, do your hacking from a machine that's separate from your main network.
Now, how do you then get the stolen files from that machine to your main network?
Use a USB stick.
I stole this Sig
Your problem with physics is not my problem. Seriously.
https://consortiumnews.com/201...
Your problem with physics is not my problem. Seriously.
https://consortiumnews.com/201...
*sigh*
I'm guessing this is what you mean by "physics"
July 5, 2016: In the early evening, Eastern Daylight Time, someone working in the EDT time zone with a computer directly connected to the DNC server or DNC Local Area Network, copied 1,976 MegaBytes of data in 87 seconds onto an external storage device. That speed is much faster than what is physically possible with a hack.
It thus appears that the purported “hack” of the DNC by Guccifer 2.0 (the self-proclaimed WikiLeaks source) was not a hack by Russia or anyone else, but was rather a copy of DNC data onto an external storage device.
Which is an misunderstanding of stupidly interpreted evidence.
There's no evidence of the files being transferred off the DNC servers at 22mb/s, there's evidence of the files being written at 22mb/s on July 5th.
Which is more than a month older than the oldest email!!!!!
You're not looking at the timestamp of the hack, you're looking at the timestamp of putting the files on a USB for Wikileaks.
I stole this Sig