45th President of the United States, Donald Trump. (Vol 6)
Discussion
Byker28i said:
The dirty b
d Staggering that Trump is claiming total vindication, does he think that people can't read? Or do him and his team just feel if he isn't charged now with a crime he becomes untouchable?
The Administration is just going to keep peddling the reports as fake news, and that are right and everyone else is wrong. There is no accountability with the GOP, and they are just letting him run riot
The Administration is just going to keep peddling the reports as fake news, and that are right and everyone else is wrong. There is no accountability with the GOP, and they are just letting him run riot
Challo said:
Staggering that Trump is claiming total vindication, does he think that people can't read? Or do him and his team just feel if he isn't charged now with a crime he becomes untouchable?
The Administration is just going to keep peddling the reports as fake news, and that are right and everyone else is wrong. There is no accountability with the GOP, and they are just letting him run riot
The one effect of the Trump administration is to render Truthfulness and Decency to bit players. His supporters don't care about either. His spokespersons now lie and slander on a daily basis without challenge, conflicts of interest that would have sunk a normal politician a few years back are now just added to a long list of "things to ignore" and so on. All that matters is how loud you shout.......The Administration is just going to keep peddling the reports as fake news, and that are right and everyone else is wrong. There is no accountability with the GOP, and they are just letting him run riot
Report in searchable format: https://www.scribd.com/document/406727673/Searchab...
Using search terms like 'finance' and 'money' the only thing I discovered from this report was that it had been neutered before it even began. Follow the money is a basic rule and even with the redactions it is clear this rule has not been followed. Without mapping the flow of Russian money entering the trump organization and where that money ends up the report never stood a chance of understanding the mechanisms behind Russia's support for Trump.
The decision to look for collusion at the level of immediate personal contact between the Trump campaign and Russian officials represents a fundamental misunderstanding about how the Kremlin and GRU operate. Russia is by definition an oligarchy and it is through financial and legal manipulation of the oligarchs that influence and power is awarded or denied. It is not a system that relies on paper trails or meeting minutes, it is a system that relies on money and gulags, therefore the only way to investigate it is to follow the money and any threats towards physical or financial wellbeing.
Then we've got the GRU. Manipulation of political discourse and of potential useful idiots has a long tradition among the Russian services and plausible deniability is a big part of that. Direct communication isn't really a part of this doctrine which relies more on secondary and tertiary factors like kompromat, spreading rumors, misinformation, etc.
Finally there's motive. If you search for 'motive' there is several references to Trump's potential motives but nothing about Russian motives, which is not something that would need redacted given Sergey Lavrov's regular ramblings on the topic, the most recent of which was today. Russia wants to end American financial and military hegemony and replace it with a polycentric world order. Their actions in the 2016 election will have been in line with these goals, none of which require direct communication with Trump if he is going to work towards them himself anyway.
Overall I feel that the failure to investigate the finances of the Trump organisation and the threats he may face if that financing were to be withdrawn is a gross misunderstanding of how Russia colludes with targets it's chosen as a useful idiot. Only one of the two tango partners was investigated and as such the investigation has missed an opportunity to explain to the American people the how and why Russia ended up operating in sync with the Trump campaign.
Was collusion proved? Failure to define collusion.
Was obstruction proved? Most definitely.
Will it make any difference if congress won't indite Trump? Maybe but it's a swing and a miss rather than the sucker punch some were hoping for.
Using search terms like 'finance' and 'money' the only thing I discovered from this report was that it had been neutered before it even began. Follow the money is a basic rule and even with the redactions it is clear this rule has not been followed. Without mapping the flow of Russian money entering the trump organization and where that money ends up the report never stood a chance of understanding the mechanisms behind Russia's support for Trump.
The decision to look for collusion at the level of immediate personal contact between the Trump campaign and Russian officials represents a fundamental misunderstanding about how the Kremlin and GRU operate. Russia is by definition an oligarchy and it is through financial and legal manipulation of the oligarchs that influence and power is awarded or denied. It is not a system that relies on paper trails or meeting minutes, it is a system that relies on money and gulags, therefore the only way to investigate it is to follow the money and any threats towards physical or financial wellbeing.
Then we've got the GRU. Manipulation of political discourse and of potential useful idiots has a long tradition among the Russian services and plausible deniability is a big part of that. Direct communication isn't really a part of this doctrine which relies more on secondary and tertiary factors like kompromat, spreading rumors, misinformation, etc.
Finally there's motive. If you search for 'motive' there is several references to Trump's potential motives but nothing about Russian motives, which is not something that would need redacted given Sergey Lavrov's regular ramblings on the topic, the most recent of which was today. Russia wants to end American financial and military hegemony and replace it with a polycentric world order. Their actions in the 2016 election will have been in line with these goals, none of which require direct communication with Trump if he is going to work towards them himself anyway.
Overall I feel that the failure to investigate the finances of the Trump organisation and the threats he may face if that financing were to be withdrawn is a gross misunderstanding of how Russia colludes with targets it's chosen as a useful idiot. Only one of the two tango partners was investigated and as such the investigation has missed an opportunity to explain to the American people the how and why Russia ended up operating in sync with the Trump campaign.
Was collusion proved? Failure to define collusion.
Was obstruction proved? Most definitely.
Will it make any difference if congress won't indite Trump? Maybe but it's a swing and a miss rather than the sucker punch some were hoping for.
Given the deutsche bank subpoena that is being argued over isn't the 'follow the money' bit of the investigation in play elsewhere? Mueller seems to have made a point of spreading the joy to a wide array of state-level prosecutors, presumably for the purpose of preventing any one failure shutting things down and to ensure that he stood a chance of getting his report out well before the 2020 primaries.
The media need to give their collective heads a wobble; this st belongs on farcegramchat and sad internetz backwaters like here, not on the 6pm bulletin. It's a fking meme, not news.
The media need to give their collective heads a wobble; this s
t belongs on farcegramchat and sad internetz backwaters like here, not on the 6pm bulletin. It's a fking meme, not news.Ructions said:
Edited by hidetheelephants on Friday 19th April 04:21
Tartan Pixie said:
Was collusion proved? Failure to define collusion.
Was obstruction proved? Most definitely.
Will it make any difference if congress won't indite Trump? Maybe but it's a swing and a miss rather than the sucker punch some were hoping for.
I don't think searching for words helps.Was obstruction proved? Most definitely.
Will it make any difference if congress won't indite Trump? Maybe but it's a swing and a miss rather than the sucker punch some were hoping for.
What we have is 108 pages of how Putin used the Oligarchs to reach out to the trump campaign, who multiple times said yes give us that assistance.
One of those was the Chair of Alfa bank - whose servers were linked to trumps, sharing data
Direct quote "...the investigation showed multiple links between the trump campaign and those tied to the russian government, including multiple offers of assistance to the campaign. In some instances the campaign were receptive to the offer..."
EDIT: I should also add that the report says that trump directed Flynn to get Clintons emails, hence his connection to Peter Smith, who mostly seems to have been incompetent, like many of team trump.
According to notes kept by Jody Hunt, who served as Sessions’ chief of staff, Trump’s reaction to Mueller’s appointment was as follows: “The President slumped back in his chair and said, ‘Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I’m f
ked.’”Which explains every action of his obstruction from then on and probably before. These aren't the actions of innocent people, he knew he was in trouble and did everything he could, and still is, to interfere.
It also proves Barr is just protecting trump. In his press conference Barr, apart from repeating trump phrases multiple times, said DOJ guidelines did not influence Muellers decisions, yet in this report he clearly states it does. It looks like Mueller recognised he was never going to get anything through the DOJ because of this, and because he recognised that the DOJ was favourable to trump, so was leaving it to congress to indict.
It's also clear that despite Barr saying there would be no more indictments, there's several more in the pipeline.
Congress needs the full report and the many pages of supporting evidence.
Edited by Byker28i on Friday 19th April 07:27
Schumer and Pelosi tonight: "Barr deliberately distorted significant portions" of Mueller's report. The "report paints a disturbing picture of a president who has been weaving a web of deceit, lies and improper behavior and acting as if the law doesn’t apply to him."
George Conway goes further in a WP opinion piece
George Conway: Trump is a cancer on the presidency. Congress should remove him.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-con...
Mueller couldn’t say, with any “confidence,” that the president of the United States is not a criminal. He said, stunningly, that “if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state.” Mueller did not so state.
Mueller’s investigation “found multiple acts by the President that were capable of executing undue influence over law enforcement investigations.”
Trump tried to “limit the scope of the investigation.” He tried to discourage witnesses from cooperating with the government through “suggestions of possible future pardons.” He engaged in “direct and indirect contacts with witnesses with the potential to influence their testimony.” A fair reading of the special counsel’s narrative is that “the likely effect” of these acts was “to intimidate witnesses or to alter their testimony,” with the result that “the justice system’s integrity [was] threatened.” Page after page, act after act, Mueller’s report describes a relentless torrent of such obstructive activity by Trump.
George Conway goes further in a WP opinion piece
George Conway: Trump is a cancer on the presidency. Congress should remove him.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-con...
Mueller couldn’t say, with any “confidence,” that the president of the United States is not a criminal. He said, stunningly, that “if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state.” Mueller did not so state.
Mueller’s investigation “found multiple acts by the President that were capable of executing undue influence over law enforcement investigations.”
Trump tried to “limit the scope of the investigation.” He tried to discourage witnesses from cooperating with the government through “suggestions of possible future pardons.” He engaged in “direct and indirect contacts with witnesses with the potential to influence their testimony.” A fair reading of the special counsel’s narrative is that “the likely effect” of these acts was “to intimidate witnesses or to alter their testimony,” with the result that “the justice system’s integrity [was] threatened.” Page after page, act after act, Mueller’s report describes a relentless torrent of such obstructive activity by Trump.
Papadopolous was suspected of being a Mossad agent. Didn't he get the money to pay his fine for lying to the FBI from a strange, israeli linked cash transaction?
https://dailycaller.com/2018/08/21/papadopoulos-fo...
hidetheelephants said:
Given the deutsche bank subpoena that is being argued over isn't the 'follow the money' bit of the investigation in play elsewhere? Mueller seems to have made a point of spreading the joy to a wide array of state-level prosecutors, presumably for the purpose of preventing any one failure shutting things down and to ensure that he stood a chance of getting his report out well before the 2020 primaries.
14 other ongoing investigations he handed off to. It makes it sound like Mueller knew Barr would do his best to cover trump, looks like Barr closed down Mueller, so Mueller offloaded as much as he could.The other bit I pulled from Muellers report was the way that Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania suspiciously fell to trump, all by just above the margin required to avoid automatic recounts, that gave trump enough electoral college votes.
We now know the Senate Intelligence Committee which revealed that Russian hackers managed to breach voter registration databases in key swing states ahead of the 2016 election, and gained the ability to delete voter registration data. We know that democrat voters were turned away in some states because they weren't registered to vote.
We know from court that Manafort gave trump campaign internal polling data to the Russian spy Konstantin Kilimnik
In Muellers report he says: “Manafort briefed Kilimnik on the state of the Trump Campaign and Manafort’s plan to win the election. That briefing encompassed the Campaign’s messaging and its internal polling data. According to Gates, it also included discussion of ‘battleground’ states, which Manafort identified as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota.”
Gate of course being trumps vice campaign chair under Manafort
There's so much that can be pulled from Muellers report, proving not only was trump consistently lying about his teams efforts with the russians, but the russians provided real assistance to get trump elected.
We now know the Senate Intelligence Committee which revealed that Russian hackers managed to breach voter registration databases in key swing states ahead of the 2016 election, and gained the ability to delete voter registration data. We know that democrat voters were turned away in some states because they weren't registered to vote.
We know from court that Manafort gave trump campaign internal polling data to the Russian spy Konstantin Kilimnik
In Muellers report he says: “Manafort briefed Kilimnik on the state of the Trump Campaign and Manafort’s plan to win the election. That briefing encompassed the Campaign’s messaging and its internal polling data. According to Gates, it also included discussion of ‘battleground’ states, which Manafort identified as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota.”
Gate of course being trumps vice campaign chair under Manafort
There's so much that can be pulled from Muellers report, proving not only was trump consistently lying about his teams efforts with the russians, but the russians provided real assistance to get trump elected.
What is also obvious is that everyone continued lying to Mueller during interviews or just said they couldn't remember.
trump in his written answers said that at least 30 times he couldn't rememebr key events, despite claiming he has the greatest memory
Trump Jr. announced at meeting of top campaign and Trump family members "that he had a lead on negative information about the Clinton Foundation" in the days before the Trump Tower meeting. Yet Hicks later denied knowing about meeting in advance, and Kushner said he did not recall
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/18/politics/muelle...
trump in his written answers said that at least 30 times he couldn't rememebr key events, despite claiming he has the greatest memory
Trump Jr. announced at meeting of top campaign and Trump family members "that he had a lead on negative information about the Clinton Foundation" in the days before the Trump Tower meeting. Yet Hicks later denied knowing about meeting in advance, and Kushner said he did not recall
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/18/politics/muelle...
After working to help Trump win, Putin wanted to cash in. So he encouraged his oligarchs to make contact with Trump’s transition team about sanctions, and it worked—One document drafted by Dmitriev made its way to Rex Tillerson via Kushner.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/18/mueller-...
Petr Aven, the head of Alfa Bank, was one of the oligarchs deployed by Putin to connect with the transition team. This was after Alfa Bank connected with a Trump Organization server more than 2,000 times between May-Sept 2016, which has never been explained
What we do know is that the russians and team trump established and tried to establish many back channels for communication and that Kushner seems heavily involved in it all.
Dmitriev was able to get a Putin-approved U.S.-Russia “reconciliation plan” to Kushner, who passed it to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. And Gorkov scored a meeting with Kushner during the transition period to discuss U.S.-Russia relations, according to Mueller. It was all about the sanctions.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/18/mueller-...
Petr Aven, the head of Alfa Bank, was one of the oligarchs deployed by Putin to connect with the transition team. This was after Alfa Bank connected with a Trump Organization server more than 2,000 times between May-Sept 2016, which has never been explained
What we do know is that the russians and team trump established and tried to establish many back channels for communication and that Kushner seems heavily involved in it all.
Dmitriev was able to get a Putin-approved U.S.-Russia “reconciliation plan” to Kushner, who passed it to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. And Gorkov scored a meeting with Kushner during the transition period to discuss U.S.-Russia relations, according to Mueller. It was all about the sanctions.
Good thread here which shows relevant parts of the report to reach this conclusion:
@Delavegalaw said:
Translation: The Special Counsel team thought obstruction of justices charges were warranted, but they couldn't do it under DOJ policy. Therefore, they set forth the facts and law, including defenses (however flimsy) and left it to Congress or to a post-presidency prosecution.
https://twitter.com/Delavegalaw/status/11188991211...I've taken the time to read Seth Abramson's mammoth 400+ Twitter thread ( https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1118894511... ) as he methodically went through the first volume. This is the only volume he is really interested in as the evidence mounting to the Obstruction claims has been public knowledge for quite some time.
Very interesting to see a legal mind and someone who has researched the Russian collusion evidence obsessively. He's very convinced there is plenty of impeachable evidence there and that the Obstruction evidence, as blatant as it may seem, is a damp squib in the grand scheme of things. He says several times that the mechanisms of impeachment via congress does not rely on a "proof beyond reasonably doubt" standard (but I don't know what the standard actually is).
It also seems this Dimitri Simes character is a bit of a dark horse and has raised a lot of eyebrows of those who have been following the story over the years. Its likely he and Erik Prince should expect subpoenas from the congress and its committees in the near future!
Very interesting to see a legal mind and someone who has researched the Russian collusion evidence obsessively. He's very convinced there is plenty of impeachable evidence there and that the Obstruction evidence, as blatant as it may seem, is a damp squib in the grand scheme of things. He says several times that the mechanisms of impeachment via congress does not rely on a "proof beyond reasonably doubt" standard (but I don't know what the standard actually is).
It also seems this Dimitri Simes character is a bit of a dark horse and has raised a lot of eyebrows of those who have been following the story over the years. Its likely he and Erik Prince should expect subpoenas from the congress and its committees in the near future!
Edited by Wrathalanche on Friday 19th April 11:40
Wrathalanche said:
I've taken the time to read Seth Abramson's mammoth 400+ Twitter thread ( https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1118894511... ) as he methodically went through the first volume. This is the only volume he is really interested in as the evidence mounting to the Obstruction claims has been public knowledge for quite some time.
Very interesting to see a legal mind and someone who has researched the Russian collusion evidence obsessively. He's very convinced there is plenty of impeachable evidence there and that the Obstruction evidence, as blatant as it may seem, is a damp squib in the grand scheme of things. He says several times that the mechanisms of impeachment via congress does not rely on a "proof beyond reasonably doubt" standard (but I don't know what the standard actually is).
It also seems this Dimitri Simes character is a bit of a dark horse and has raised a lot of eyebrows of those who have been following the story over the years. Its likely he and Erik Prince should expect subpoenas from the congress and its committees in the near future!
Yes indeed, it seems that this is really the start of things, rather than the end. Mueller wrote this:Very interesting to see a legal mind and someone who has researched the Russian collusion evidence obsessively. He's very convinced there is plenty of impeachable evidence there and that the Obstruction evidence, as blatant as it may seem, is a damp squib in the grand scheme of things. He says several times that the mechanisms of impeachment via congress does not rely on a "proof beyond reasonably doubt" standard (but I don't know what the standard actually is).
It also seems this Dimitri Simes character is a bit of a dark horse and has raised a lot of eyebrows of those who have been following the story over the years. Its likely he and Erik Prince should expect subpoenas from the congress and its committees in the near future!
Edited by Wrathalanche on Friday 19th April 11:40
"Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President's corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law."
trump is looking to be on very shaky ground. Of course, his supporters are unwilling or unable to see this or I suspect many may not have the intellectual capacity to understand.
I think Barr's press conference is going to go down as a bit of a historical gaffe. It was nothing but spin, and when faced with questions from the assembled press, he would say "you'll need to read the report"..... why the hell throw a press conference on the subject then?!
Combined with the fact that what is presented in the report very clearly goes well beyond how he characterised it, I think his credibility in congress will be shockingly poor.
Combined with the fact that what is presented in the report very clearly goes well beyond how he characterised it, I think his credibility in congress will be shockingly poor.
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