On the other hand, not everyone shares this point of view:
politifact.com/punditfact/st … a-trump-c/
Still, there are folks [from both the left and the right] who insist that only their own take on all of this reflects the most rational frame of mind.
No doubt about it though: this reeks of “politics”.
We’ll just have to see how it all plays out. And, in the interim, squabble over what the actual facts are.
And, of course, which facts clearly count more than others: ours or theirs?
To the campaign finance laws listed in iambiguous’ link, I would add that if the Russians hacked the DNC, that would be a crime, and if the Trump campaign knowingly received the emails obtained from that hack, that would also be a crime. And if the Trump campaign knew in advance that the Russians were going to be hacking or attempting to hack anyone for the benefit of the Trump campaign, that could make them part of the conspiracy to hack (when I say “hack” here, I mean one of a number of criminal provisions of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act covering unauthorized access to computer systems).
First, I imagine there’s a deal because there are court documents signed by Papadopolous and Flynn acknowledging that they are cooperating with the investigation, and that that cooperation will be taken into account at sentencing. I imagine there’s a deal because there are literally signed deals filed with the court.
And I imagine it involves providing information, active cooperation, and possibly testimony, because sentencing has been delayed, and, in the case of Papadopolous, the plea was entered under seal.
There’s two claims here: one is that there were no crimes committed related to the election. The other is that the crimes related to the election won’t be the crimes that ultimately bring Trump down. The former is implausible, given what Flynn and Papadopolous have acknowledged in their pleas, but I would not be surprised if the most damning crimes revealed by the investigation are not related to the campaign.
What I love about these kinds of conversations is watching the guys who prosecute Trayvon Martin because of his photos on Facebook, turn around and play defense attorney for Trump and deny all kinds of facts that are right in front of their faces. I guess some people either aren’t aware of the effects of their political bias on their ability to be rational, or they don’t think it’s wrong to rationalize toward their political biases in spite of the truth.
Well, shit, somebody needs to lock up Andersen Cooper then, because him and every other news anchor received the emails obtained from that hack. Or are we operating under the CNN “It’s different when we do it” doctrine? Yes, if Trump helped Russia hack the DNC, that would be a crime, but
1.) Russia doesn’t need anybody’s help to send a phishing email to John Podesta, and,
2.) Trump was in no position to provide aid in hacking the DNC servers, considering he’s, you know, not in the DNC, and
3.) There’s just as much reason to think it was spiteful Bernie supporters that did it, and they certainly had more access.
Collusion is not a crime, and “Yeah but what if…” is not a case.
Knew in advance of what? Taking a phone call from a Russian national? Being in the same room as a Russian ambassador for 15 minutes this one time at a fund raising party?
See, that train of thought might make sense if there was a man named “Russia” and that man was hacking the DNC computers while working with the Trump administration. But in reality, Russia is a country of 150 million people or so, and private citizens in the United States have complete freedom to talk to them about anything they like, even if a handful of those citizens are doing illegal things.
I mean, imagine how insane it would be if members of other Governments started assuming their officials were complicit in whatever you imagine Trump has done purely on the grounds that they spoke to an American.
Again, once you realize that getting campaign assistance from foreign nationals isn’t a crime and both campaigns flagrantly did it right in front of our eyes (which you seem to lack any curiosity about, considering how serious you pretend to take it), then the reason for this case to even exist evaporates.
That’s not a deal. That’s what you have to do to stay out of prison. Do you seriously think Flynn has the ability to say “Fuck you and fuck your investigation, I ain’t telling you shit”, when he’s subpoenaed by the FBI and already guilty of a crime? The first thing any party does any time they’re under the gun by law enforcement is release a statement about how fully cooperative they are. I’m sure OJ’s lawyer declared the same thing.
It’s Trump hate pure and simple, irrational and neverendingly full of false accusations…the liberal left in a nut shell that needs to be committed to the nuthouse.
The Democrats don’t even know what a credible accusation would be. The Hillary campaign and Trump campaign both colluded with, and recieved aid from foreign Governments right in front of our eyes and nobody cared. Things that everybody knows are perfectly acceptable are being called crimes for the purpose of this witchhunt. If collusion was a crime Trump and Hillary both would be in jail, or at the very least would have had to suspend their campaigns.
Like I said…blinding Trump hate. When’s the swamp draining to occur? I guess if Trump’s kept on the defensive, that can’t occur especially with most of Washington against his efforts to save the USA’s national sovereignty and values.
Eh, Reagan’s first year was much the same. Calls for his impeachment, insane hand-wringing, whining about his lack of experience, and his agenda slowed down because of how slow it was to appoint cabinet people who supported him.
I don’t remember Reagan being insanely despised.
Everything is amplified by social media, but this happened: nytimes.com/1982/05/02/us/pr … pitol.html
K: he wasn’t… that is Ucci rewritting history again…
a common conservative tactic…
Kropotkin
Or, not long ago…
It’s Obama hate pure and simple, irrational and neverendingly full of false accusations…the conservative right in a nut shell that needs to be committed to the nuthouse.
Objectivists!! =D>
Only 2,100 people showed up for that rally against Reagan where millions upon millions openly protest their Trump hatred.
Obama wasn’t overwhelmingly hated during his first term, but the hate grew during his second term of driving our country into the ditch.
Why are you comparing the number of people who showed up to one rally to the total number of people who don’t like Trump in the entire country? I’m just pointing out that there were demostrations against Reagan where they accused him of a bunch of the same things and called for his impeachment.
Like I said in my past post social media amplifies everything. The retard who thinks Trump is a white supremacist is reaching potentially everybody in the world, where as the retard who thought the same thing about Reagan only reached people within earshot.
She only had the capacity to argue with me because I cited the source of my information. If citing an article written at the time of the event is what you call ‘re-writing history’ then I’m not sure what help there is for you.
What parts of the government took measures to investigate Reagan pressing towards a prosecution, conviction and impeachment of Reagan?
Reagan and Trump are not even comparable is my point.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair
What’s going on with Trump is certainly more exacerbated and severe, but there are absolutely parallels.
I don’t think the comparison is apt. Lots of laws have First Amendment exceptions that would cover the press receiving and publishing hacked information, and not a political campaign receiving the information, keeping it secret, and using it to influence an election. Arguably such an exception is required by the First Amendment.
If we can set the law aside for a minute, do you see no moral difference between a news organization receiving hacked information and reporting on it, vs. a political organization receiving that information and using it in secret to advance their political ends? Does the moral math depend on what news organization and which party it is?
I am not making this argument.
Knew in advance of the hacking.
Or, you know, a government of a country named “Russia”, which is colloquially referred to as “Russia” in standard American English c. 2018.
52 U.S. Code § 30121 reads, in part:
(emphasis in original)
I’m not talking about press releases, I’m talking about the plea deal that Mueller offered and Flynn accepted (see section 8, “Cooperation”), and the plea deal that Mueller offered and Papadopolous accepted, which states that,
What do you mean by a “deal” if not a signed agreements with investigators to cooperate in the ongoing investigation in exchange for favorable treatment at sentencing?
Ah, I’d forgotten about the Iran Contra scandal, but Reagan didn’t start his first term under investigation for it. I understand that you want to categorize their issues the same, as parallels, but what’s happening to Trump is beyond severe and it’s not even based on his acting Presidency (well not yet, not until they throw those obstruction charges at him). I won’t argue your feelings of similarity any farther, I see why you like comparing them, but I don’t see any relevant connections since Reagan had served in politics as an acting governor before his presidency. They both share the wealthy, male Republican status, I’ll give you that. 
Not only do I not see those as morally different, I barely see them as different states of affairs. CNN is a political organization. Fox News as well, though less so. If it was one such political organization and not Wikileaks that got those hacked emails, we only would have seen or heard about them insofar as it advanced the political ends of the news organization that got them.
It is extremely disingenuous to tell me that there’s a moral difference between journalists doing something and politicians doing something when you have benefited from the journalists working to advance your political interests for decades.
If the DNC got their hands on a bunch of illegally-gotten emails that would be damning for Republican, and they decided it would be illegal for them to use or hold on to them, they’d simply leak them to any of a number of press agencies.
Knew that the hacking was going to happen in advance of it? Whoever knew might be guilty of not reporting a crime, but that’s unlikely to get to Trump and doesn’t show any sort of collusion or conspiracy or anything else.
Yeah, and how many millions of people does that represent? “A person in the Russian Government did something” does not make anybody who talked to “A person in the Russian Government” complicit or suspicious. This is where it’s important to point out that the nature of the hacks (a password phishing scam) were such that a college student working alone could easily do the entire thing. We now know that we are simply not talking about something that requires the involvement of multiple agencies in multiple countries.
You aren’t a lawyer, but I get the impression that you follow politics. So do you perhaps remember when Nigel Farage, then member of Parliament and leader of the British far right UKIP party, came to the United States, met with Donald Trump, held a press conference in front of every journalist they could fit in the room, and announced in front of everybody that he, Nigel Farage, a foreign federal official, was in the United States to help Trump with his election campaign? And then they left that press conference to meet in secret and discuss who knows what with who knows what promises exchanged?
Do you understand that the Clinton campaign had perhaps dozens of lawyers watching this, pouring over this - and so did the rest of America-, and their legal conclusion was to do absolutely fucking nothing?
What was much less widely supported is that Gianni Pittella, then member of Italian parliament, also came to the United States and actively campaigned for Hillary Clinton, giving speeches all over the Philadelphia area specifically and emphatically endorsing Hillary Clinton for president, in events that served no purpose other than being campaign rallies for Hillary Clinton. We’re not talking about a press conference where he happens to mention her, he campaigned for her here.
Once again, dozens of lawyers on the opposition watching her every move (and it’s worth while to point out how sue-happy Trump is), and once again, the conclusion was to take no action. I didn’t see a single news article speculating about how much it might have cost cash-strapped Italy to fly Gianni and his aides here and pay their salaries while he campaigned for Hillary Clinton. As far as I can tell, nobody expressed any curiosity about what the Italian gov’t or Gianni’s party might have been promised in exchange.
Why was no action taken? I mean other than because these things obviously aren’t against the law? Because Trump hadn’t won yet and the “Getting help from foreign nationals with your campaign is a crime” bullshit hadn’t been pushed to the press from the DNC yet, so nobody knew they were supposed to be outraged.
I mean, were you?
You are trying to prove something that everybody already knows happened. It’s not a crime. The lawyers of the opposition would have destroyed the campaigns of both parties if it were. Now, taking monetary bribes can probably be punished. But trying to stretch ‘other thing of value’ to mean ‘Anything I need it to mean to condemn Trump because I hate him’ as the left is doing right now is obviously and by precedent a misreading. The First Amendment simply will not allow you to criminalize speech simply because the person speaking is running for office.
[/quote]
Well obviously I and everybody else who hears ‘deal’ would mean the connotative definition of what is implied whenever it is brought up, which is that Flynn offered the FBI dirt on Trump in exchange for a lighter sentence, not that the FBI demanded that Flynn cooperate with their investigation and Flynn said “ok”. That IS the only reason it’s a talking point, after all.