Responses: 2
Not too hard to see why this was the case.
On the one hand, if you think this was a serious probe into potential foreign subversion, you would not want to alert potential agents that you were onto them or they might slip away from the FBI's grasp. They would wait until they had pinpointed all of their subjects before revealing any surveillance efforts.
If on the other hand you view this as I do that this was using the instruments of national intelligence to monitor a Presidential campaign with a bogus document as a cover story, then you would hope to never reveal your efforts for the illegal and partisan effort that it was. You would hope to execute future efforts under similar pretenses.
Somewhere out there is the truth of this. I think there is a fair chance AG Barr finds it.
On the one hand, if you think this was a serious probe into potential foreign subversion, you would not want to alert potential agents that you were onto them or they might slip away from the FBI's grasp. They would wait until they had pinpointed all of their subjects before revealing any surveillance efforts.
If on the other hand you view this as I do that this was using the instruments of national intelligence to monitor a Presidential campaign with a bogus document as a cover story, then you would hope to never reveal your efforts for the illegal and partisan effort that it was. You would hope to execute future efforts under similar pretenses.
Somewhere out there is the truth of this. I think there is a fair chance AG Barr finds it.
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1SG (Join to see)
MSG Stan Hutchison - No, I've just had enough.
If we are going to debate things, everyone needs to be an honest broker, otherwise it descends into trolling. Most of the time, we are better than that on RP.
Talking to people is not a crime, otherwise there would be a boatload of people in jail from Hillary's campaign. What is a crime is conspiracy, and finding none, it was eliminated from probability very early in the Mueller investigation, and possibility not long after.
In the real world, Russia has attempted to sow discord in the United States, and found fertile ground for that in our fractured and tribal politics. Trump is a lot of things, but a Manchurian Candidate is not one of them. The Ukrainians look like they were suspiciously more involved in some of these shenanigans than credit has been given for. Not sure if that thread will be followed, but I bet that'll lead to some embarrassing things, too.
Still potentially at issue is Obstruction of Justice, and whether or not the House has the guts to Impeach. So far, they have 46 members signed on. That sounds like a lot, until you consider that there is 435 members of the House. You need 50% +1, not 10% to do this. I don't think they have the balls to do it, since they know it will go nowhere in the Senate, and many of them are in precarious districts. It is noteworthy that not a SINGLE co-sponsor of Articles of Impeachment is in a district where the Democratic Incumbent is even slightly threatened by a Republican challenger. This is not an accident.
The issue is even more acute in the Senate, where losing even a couple of seats more than they might otherwise might put the Dems in a sub-40 vote situation. The odds of getting 67 votes necessary to oust Trump are nearly zero, meaning more time wasted and some very tough votes for Dem Senators not from New York, California, or Massachusetts.
So I predict much sound and fury on this for a while, but it will fizzle out if the Dems have any sense whatsoever. They should concentrate on some decent policy and beating Trump in November, 2020, or they risk at least two more years in the political wilderness.
The lesson the Dems really need to learn is don't freelance your official government email. Maybe have a little better internet security. Don't hire an untrained Pakistani dude as your IT guy. And maybe if you are going to say really embarrassing things in your political strategy sessions, you do it verbally, not by email. God, the DNC, HRC, and the Dem 2016 Campaign Team were stupid.
So stupid, they couldn't be bothered to campaign in obvious places like Wisconsin and Michigan. So stupid they lost by a margin that with just a little bit of well-placed effort, would have changed the outcome. So stupid, they lost to Trump with the "most qualified candidate ever."
So stupid.
And they are bitter that they are stupid.
So they tried every dirty trick they could think of. And when the light of day shines on it, they will still be stupid, but also disgraced, and maybe even jailed.
And the best they can come up with is a has-been in Biden - a guy with a litany of things in his record that will alienate the progressives. But the progressives are worse, with their array of free shit that they can't possibly pay for. That is Bernie, Liz Warren, Beto, Booker, and Kamala Harris. Everyone else is polling south of 2%, except Buttegieg, but I don't see him getting much traction either.
Without a major course correction (unlikely) or a major screw up by Trump (much more likely, but hasn't happened so far) they are going to lose to this guy AGAIN.
And they will have no one to blame but themselves.
More screaming at the sky ensues in November, 2020.
Book it.
MCPO Roger Collins SPC Erich Guenther
If we are going to debate things, everyone needs to be an honest broker, otherwise it descends into trolling. Most of the time, we are better than that on RP.
Talking to people is not a crime, otherwise there would be a boatload of people in jail from Hillary's campaign. What is a crime is conspiracy, and finding none, it was eliminated from probability very early in the Mueller investigation, and possibility not long after.
In the real world, Russia has attempted to sow discord in the United States, and found fertile ground for that in our fractured and tribal politics. Trump is a lot of things, but a Manchurian Candidate is not one of them. The Ukrainians look like they were suspiciously more involved in some of these shenanigans than credit has been given for. Not sure if that thread will be followed, but I bet that'll lead to some embarrassing things, too.
Still potentially at issue is Obstruction of Justice, and whether or not the House has the guts to Impeach. So far, they have 46 members signed on. That sounds like a lot, until you consider that there is 435 members of the House. You need 50% +1, not 10% to do this. I don't think they have the balls to do it, since they know it will go nowhere in the Senate, and many of them are in precarious districts. It is noteworthy that not a SINGLE co-sponsor of Articles of Impeachment is in a district where the Democratic Incumbent is even slightly threatened by a Republican challenger. This is not an accident.
The issue is even more acute in the Senate, where losing even a couple of seats more than they might otherwise might put the Dems in a sub-40 vote situation. The odds of getting 67 votes necessary to oust Trump are nearly zero, meaning more time wasted and some very tough votes for Dem Senators not from New York, California, or Massachusetts.
So I predict much sound and fury on this for a while, but it will fizzle out if the Dems have any sense whatsoever. They should concentrate on some decent policy and beating Trump in November, 2020, or they risk at least two more years in the political wilderness.
The lesson the Dems really need to learn is don't freelance your official government email. Maybe have a little better internet security. Don't hire an untrained Pakistani dude as your IT guy. And maybe if you are going to say really embarrassing things in your political strategy sessions, you do it verbally, not by email. God, the DNC, HRC, and the Dem 2016 Campaign Team were stupid.
So stupid, they couldn't be bothered to campaign in obvious places like Wisconsin and Michigan. So stupid they lost by a margin that with just a little bit of well-placed effort, would have changed the outcome. So stupid, they lost to Trump with the "most qualified candidate ever."
So stupid.
And they are bitter that they are stupid.
So they tried every dirty trick they could think of. And when the light of day shines on it, they will still be stupid, but also disgraced, and maybe even jailed.
And the best they can come up with is a has-been in Biden - a guy with a litany of things in his record that will alienate the progressives. But the progressives are worse, with their array of free shit that they can't possibly pay for. That is Bernie, Liz Warren, Beto, Booker, and Kamala Harris. Everyone else is polling south of 2%, except Buttegieg, but I don't see him getting much traction either.
Without a major course correction (unlikely) or a major screw up by Trump (much more likely, but hasn't happened so far) they are going to lose to this guy AGAIN.
And they will have no one to blame but themselves.
More screaming at the sky ensues in November, 2020.
Book it.
MCPO Roger Collins SPC Erich Guenther
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SPC Erich Guenther
1SG (Join to see) - You have to be bewildered at the logic of the left. Trump is too dumb to run a Casino but so clever he can be a Russian spy and keep it from both his campaign and cabinet? Oh yeah that fits together, nicely. Lets say he was too dumb to run a profitable casino and so naive he became a Russian spy. Even with being naive the guy would be slipping up all over the place........yet nothing, no evidence. The whole theory of collusion with the Russians is completely nonsensical and delusional.
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MSG Stan Hutchison
1SG (Join to see) - You posted: "What is a crime is conspiracy, and finding none, it was eliminated from probability very early in the Mueller investigation,"
No, it was not. Here is what the report said, briefly:
"The investigation did not establish that the contacts described in Volume I, Section IV, supra, amounted to an agreement to commit any substantive violation of federal criminal law- including foreign-fnfluence and campaign-finance laws, both of which are discussed further below."
Conspiracy was not "eliminated." Mueller was just not able to establish enough evidence to make a charge. But, that's OK. I was far more concerned about the obstruction of justice. That was well established in Volume II.
I don't think Trump is a Manchurian Candidate. However, I do think he was working on a big deal that would make him perhaps 100's of millions.
I await further investigations into the Trump Tower Moscow issue. Why did Trump and other lie about it? Was that an incentive to cause Trump to step so lightly around Putin?
Lot's of questions still unanswered.
No, it was not. Here is what the report said, briefly:
"The investigation did not establish that the contacts described in Volume I, Section IV, supra, amounted to an agreement to commit any substantive violation of federal criminal law- including foreign-fnfluence and campaign-finance laws, both of which are discussed further below."
Conspiracy was not "eliminated." Mueller was just not able to establish enough evidence to make a charge. But, that's OK. I was far more concerned about the obstruction of justice. That was well established in Volume II.
I don't think Trump is a Manchurian Candidate. However, I do think he was working on a big deal that would make him perhaps 100's of millions.
I await further investigations into the Trump Tower Moscow issue. Why did Trump and other lie about it? Was that an incentive to cause Trump to step so lightly around Putin?
Lot's of questions still unanswered.
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Since when has it been required to inform a suspect that they are being investigated?
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SPC Erich Guenther
When the suspect is the elected legal head of the government and your the subordinate of him/her. Otherwise it's subversion of the government. The check and balance on this is the POTUS has Cabinet level officials around him as well as a VP, anyone of which could raise a flag of Russian influence if they observed it. Not one of them expressed a concern about Russian influence by POTUS. Instead it was all folks far external to the Oval Office most of which had a counter political agenda or axe to grind.
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LTC (Join to see)
Yes, but is was not Candidate Trump they were investigating. When there was a staffer with suspicious Russian ties in John McCain's campaign in 2004, the FBI gave him a briefing to ensure they knew about the concerns. This was not done in this case. Add that to the unmasking of US Citizens by Obama-era officials related to the election... and it is concerning. Why the heck is the Ambassador to the United Nations unmasking a large number of US Citizens in intel intercepts? Lump in the conduct of Brennan and Clapper AFTER the election was over (where they used their former position to act like they knew things they did not in order to push a political narrative)... there are rightful concerns about the misuse of government power for political gain. The security of our nation should be apolitical. George Washington was very leery of political parties. We all should consider his warning before going off the rails with all the political hyperbole being tossed around.
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MSG Stan Hutchison
LTC (Join to see) - I am willing to await the results of all the investigations ongoing. Are you?
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