Special Counsel Appointed for Russia Investigation

[mage21]

Continue to call out Trump for his lack of knowledge, competence, and adherence to democratic norms?

Protip: This doesn't play well to the general public who doesn't follow politics too terribly closely. It might have at first when it was novel, but people understand Trump's unorthidoxy at this point. Not saying criticism isn't valid, but the narrative waters are so muddied right now people are just throwing up their hands, if they even cared about Trump's latest ignorant tweet to begin with.

[Toppy]

Pretty sure the FBI isn't going to let the issue die.

But Trump asked them to let it die and everything, why can't they just play nice with the comrade POTUS?

[Ripster42]

Protip: This doesn't play well to the general public who doesn't follow politics too terribly closely. It might have at first when it was novel, but people understand Trump's unorthidoxy at this point. Not saying criticism isn't valid, but the narrative waters are so muddied right now people are just throwing up their hands, if they even cared about Trump's latest ignorant tweet to begin with.

Protip: This does play well with the general public, which is why he's at a 50+% unfavorability rating.

[mage21]

Pretty sure the FBI isn't going to let the issue die.

Yes, of course not. The former of the two choices is obviously what we need.

[Gestopft]

Protip: This doesn't play well to the general public who doesn't follow politics too terribly closely. It might have at first when it was novel, but people understand Trump's unorthidoxy at this point. Not saying criticism isn't valid, but the narrative waters are so muddied right now people are just throwing up their hands, if they even cared about Trump's latest ignorant tweet to begin with.

It will play a lot better if the midterms come around and he has little to show as far as major accomplishments.

[mage21]

Protip: This does play well with the general public, which is why he's at a 50+% unfavorability rating.

Unfavoribility that has been overall in decline since October of last year.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Unfavoribility that has been overall in decline since October of last year.

It's still really really low and with what is happening now, it doesn't look good for Trump.

[Celista]

It's still really really low and with what is happening now, it doesn't look good for Trump.

I don't think anyone should get too excited until the investigation is concluded. The FBI could very well find nothing (as it did with Hillary).

Hi, Aeluron.

[Kontinuum]

Michael T. Flynn told President Trump’s transition team weeks before the inauguration that he was under federal investigation for secretly working as a paid lobbyist for Turkey during the campaign, according to two people familiar with the case.

Despite this warning, which came about a month after the Justice Department notified Mr. Flynn of the inquiry, Mr. Trump made Mr. Flynn his national security adviser. The job gave Mr. Flynn access to the president and nearly every secret held by American intelligence agencies.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/17/u...y-adviser.html

[Deletedaccount1]

My name is Special Counselor Knadra. I can confirm that president Trump has done nothing wrong since taking office.

[PersephoneDankles]

Considering the entire investigation is "BUT HILLARY WOULD'VE WON WITHOUT RUSSIA!!" Mentioning Hillary in a Topic about said investigation seems pretty on topic.

I think this is where a lot of people, on both sides, go wrong.

I don't think this is about Senator Clinton losing the election because of Russian interference.

This is what we know.

We know that the U.S. intelligence community released a declassified assessment in January 2017 that asserted Russia had carried out a massive cyber operation ordered by Russian President Putin with the goal to sabotage the 2016 U.S. elections, and that Putin favored Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton.

We know that Donald Trump's business empire, and several key members of his campaign have ties to Russia and other former soviet countries. A couple of examples:

1. His campaign manager Paul Manafort was forced to resign after it was revealed he accepted payments from The Party of Regions, a political party in the Ukraine that advocates for a union with the Russian Federation.

2. General Flynn was dismissed as National Security Advisor after is was revealed he had lied about communications he had with the Russian Ambassador and is now being investigated by the FBI and the Army.

We know that President Trump fired Director Comey, the guy overseeing one of the investigations, and when he made the decision, he was thinking about Russia. That's undeniable because President Trump himself confirmed it in an interview with Lester Holt

I was going to fire Comey knowing there was no good time to do it

And in fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself -- I said, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story. It's an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should've won.

And, knowing all of that, there is now an allegation that President Trump asked Director Comey to quash an investigation into General Flynn, an investigation that could potentially embarrass the President, hurt him politically or even implicate him directly. If it turns out to be true, that's basically obstruction of justice. It makes it seem as though he fired Comey because Comey didn't drop the "Russia thing".

So I think there is a very compelling case for an investigation based on this alone. If the investigation points to President Trump or his campaign colluding with a foreign government to influence the 2016 election and then attempting a cover-up, that's huge. With a Y.

At that point, we can start asking if it actually cost Senator Clinton the Presidency.

But we're not there yet.

[Ripster42]

Unfavoribility that has been overall in decline since October of last year.

Since he's been elected, it's gone from 41% to 54%.

[Independent voter]

https://sports.ladbrokes.com/en-gb/betting/politics/

The British bookies have Trumps odds at leaving office before 2020 at 4/6, meaning $4 will get you $6. That's almost an even chance.

[Matchles]

Unfavoribility that has been overall in decline since October of last year.

This is Trump's honeymoon phase. Presidents almost never have higher approval ratings than their first few months in office. Obama came into office with 13% disapproval, it was much higher during the election.

[Ghostpanther]

Good. This way, the Democrats can not say it was a bias investigation. Mueller has a lot of by bipartisan respect.

[Sky High]

https://sports.ladbrokes.com/en-gb/betting/politics/

The British bookies have Trumps odds at leaving office before 2020 at 4/6, meaning $4 will get you $6. That's almost an even chance.

they're saying it's just shy of a coin flip, fucking hell.

[Mercane]

the lack of any concrete evidence, or anything that's solid enough to use in court. If the FBI has anything they should be able to send it over to the Special Counsel right away

Sessions recusing himself, firing the Director of the FBI the day subpoenas went out, half the completely inane bullshit he's said on live television- He's guilty as shit, or a complete moron.

I'm leaning towards both, hopefully he takes Pence and most of his pay to play cabinet with him.

[Ghostpanther]

https://sports.ladbrokes.com/en-gb/betting/politics/

The British bookies have Trumps odds at leaving office before 2020 at 4/6, meaning $4 will get you $6. That's almost an even chance.

They also had a much higher chance of him losing the election. :P

[alexw]

More bad news for traitor Flynn. No wonder he wants immunity.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/poli...151149702.html

Flynn stopped military plan Turkey opposed – after being paid as its agent

One of the Trump administration’s first decisions about the fight against the Islamic State was made by Michael Flynn weeks before he was fired – and it conformed to the wishes of Turkey, whose interests, unbeknownst to anyone in Washington, he’d been paid more than $500,000 to represent.

The decision came 10 days before Donald Trump had been sworn in as president, in a conversation with President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, who had explained the Pentagon’s plan to retake the Islamic State’s de facto capital of Raqqa with Syrian Kurdish forces whom the Pentagon considered the U.S.’s most effective military partners. Obama’s national security team had decided to ask for Trump’s sign-off, since the plan would all but certainly be executed after Trump had become president.

Flynn didn’t hesitate. According to timelines distributed by members of Congress in the weeks since, Flynn told Rice to hold off, a move that would delay the military operation for months.

If Flynn explained his answer, that’s not recorded, and it’s not known whether he consulted anyone else on the transition team before rendering his verdict. But his position was consistent with the wishes of Turkey, which had long opposed the United States partnering with the Kurdish forces – and which was his undeclared client.

Trump eventually would approve the Raqqa plan, but not until weeks after Flynn had been fired.

Now members of Congress, musing about the tangle of legal difficulties Flynn faces, cite that exchange with Rice as perhaps the most serious: acting on behalf of a foreign nation – from which he had received considerable cash – when making a military decision. Some members of Congress, in private conversations, have even used the word “treason” to describe Flynn’s intervention, though experts doubt that his actions qualify.

[mage21]

Since he's been elected, it's gone from 41% to 54%.

According to RCP, since he's been elected, he's gone from ~60% to 54%.

I will agree that it's been in steady incline since January, but I maintain it has nothing to do with the general public. I attribute it to the politically active/engaged.