Mega-Thread: Mueller investigation

[Bodakane]

Except that ledger was specifically thing that Ukraine did to help Clinton.

Btw, what was result of Manafort investigation in 2014? Why wasn't Manafort indicted back then?

Links please.

[Ripster42]

Btw, what was result of Manafort investigation in 2014? Why wasn't Manafort indicted back then?

Why bother asking that question? It doesn't matter. The answer could be "we didn't get enough evidence for a conviction but more then enough to convince us," or "we knew about him and then used him to figure out who else was a corrupt asshole by figuring out who he was talking to." It literally doesn't matter, because they clearly had enough to get a warrant again later. Your question is bullshit. Stop peddling bullshit. You're the second most dishonest person on these forums.

[Shalcker]

Links please.

Here.

While it’s not uncommon for outside operatives to serve as intermediaries between governments and reporters, one of the more damaging Russia-related stories for the Trump campaign — and certainly for Manafort — can be traced more directly to the Ukrainian government.

Documents released by an independent Ukrainian government agency — and publicized by a parliamentarian — appeared to show $12.7 million in cash payments that were earmarked for Manafort by the Russia-aligned party of the deposed former president, Yanukovych.

[Breccia]

Sen. Engel --

"Who?"

Top Dem on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. Anyhow, he has a good point. Trump expelled Russian diplomats for a terroristic attempted assassination with a nerve agent on UK soil that hit 20 or so civilians. While he waited until the EU did it first, this is generally being regarded as a fair move by all people except Russia who are still pushing the narrative that it was an accidental false flag swamp gas reflecting the light from Venus.

But...where's the reaction from attacking the election? The sanctions he was forced to sign, crying like a bitch, remain nothing more than a copy-pasted list from Forbes with no actions. Oh sure, he sanctioned the people Mueller indicted,,,but that doesn't match the list he gave all that much. In fact, if Mueller had no indictments -- say, if the investigation had never started, as Trump repeatedly says -- there'd be nothing at all.

“This strong response to the attack in the UK makes even more bizarre the administration's weak response to Russia's ongoing attack right here in the United States,” Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) said in a statement.

“President Trump hasn't done nearly enough to respond to Russia's attack on American democracy, or to prevent it from happening again. Instead, the President praises [Russian President Vladimir] Putin at every turn. It's good that the United States is standing with our ally in this matter. But we also need the Trump Administration to stand up for our own democracy.”
Engel commended the Trump administration’s announcement that it would expel dozens of Russian diplomats in response to the poisoning, saying it was “the right thing to do.”

“These actions, taken together, are a welcome demonstration of Western unity and solidarity, and I hope in the future we will see more joint efforts to push back against Russian aggression,” said Engel.

More of the Trump Paradox, it seems.

[Felya]

Except that ledger was specifically thing that Ukraine did to help Clinton.

Btw, what was result of Manafort investigation in 2014? Why wasn't Manafort indicted back then?

Because America has due process and he was indicted when evidance justified it. US isn’t Russia... people don’t just end up in jail.

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Links please.

He is misrepresenting reality... The investigation into Manafort began in 2014, its result is the indictment under Muller. The evidance used from that investigation is what Manafort is indicted for.

[Shalcker]

Because America has due process and he was indicted when evidance justified it. US isn’t Russia... people don’t just end up in jail.

Yeah, sure... if you "forget" about all the times cops have been exposed planting various evidence in US...

[Deja Thoris]

Yeah, sure... if you "forget" about all the times cops have been exposed planting various evidence in US...

So some systems aren't perfect. Still beats your kangaroo courts and sham trials. Keep trying putinbot.

[Flarelaine]

Clinton campaign had plenty of secretive meetings/communications with Ukrainians before this meet-up with Poroshenko too.

Hillary lost, get over it. We did. This thread is not about her.

[Shalcker]

Hillary lost, get over it. We did. This thread is not about her.

Example was asked to judge wherever it was normal; and example was given. That is all there is to it.

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So some systems aren't perfect. Still beats your kangaroo courts and sham trials. Keep trying putinbot.

You beat Putin, congratulations! An achievement worthy of praise!

Plenty of "sham trials" on both sides; recognizing or not recognizing them as such is politics.

[Lynarii]

Yeah, but that's kind of a separate issue, Trump downplaying his role. We already knew from Trump presidential campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis that Papadoupolos was encouraged to have meetings with foreign officials. The important part, the part that gets to the heart of the issue is, did something illegal occur during this outreach, or was there intention to engage in illegal acts? If not, I can't really find interest in it.

Now, if lies were told to Mueller or the FBI about Papadoupolos' role, that's obviously different, but that didn't happen as far as I know.

What's important is less what was said in the meeting and more what was said about the meeting afterwards. Lets be honest here. If the Trump campaign had come out and said "We had this meeting, nothing really came of it, but this is what was discussed and why we believed it was a legal thing to do", even if it turned out to be technically illegal, there's no way that would be enough for a republican congress and republican senate to unseat a republican president. It would be defended under "Washington outsider, didn't know all the laws as well as he should, but no harm no foul" and the anti-Trump people would make a bunch of noise for a while then it'd die down.

But when they start lying about it, ESPECIALLY if they lie about it under oath? That's significant. People don't generally start lying about something that was on the up and up to begin with. Most people are definitely not going to lie under oath and risk going to jail if the thing they're lying about isn't a big deal. And if a group of people have an established record of lying about a specific topic than it starts to strain credibility that they ever believed that what they were doing was above board and legal to begin with.

[Felya]

Do you think this will still be going on when he is elected for his second term?

Do you think everyone who claims they only voted for Trump to stop Hillary, will still be convicted she is running for office in 2+ years? I think Trump needs to work a lot harder to turn “pocahontas” into a literal witch and a contingency plan, in case someone else runs. Even with Bernie, calling him a communist and pointing where he went on his honeymoon, would require some really bad optics, considering the thread we are posting in.

To steal a 30 Rock joke that probably makes no sense in context... soccer practice is over, time to pick it up...

[Kujako]

Do you think everyone who claims they only voted for Trump to stop Hillary, will still be convicted she is running for office in 2+ years?

Based on how often they bring her up still, gonna go with "yes".

[alexw]

The Cambridge Analytica whistleblower just testified in the UK before their parliament, some of the alleged criminality is pretty shocking. For example he talks about Trumps friend Robert Mercer using fixer firms staffed by former Israeli intelligence officers to intimated people into silence. That one of their number has died under suspicious circumstances after a deal went sour (recorded as a heart attack, he was aged 32) and that there have been "accidents" happening to others. There is even a statement that one of the companies an assassinated maltese journalist was investigating for money laundering was Cambridge Analytica, and that Robert Mercer himself was laundering money through Cambridge analytica to get around campaign finance laws. It makes you wonder how far this reaches into the Trump circle and what they did for him, given how little they cared about following the law. I really do hope Mueller is getting his teeth into this. FYI if this all true there's a good chance of Robert Mercer going to jail.

Here is the bit where he talks about Robert Mercer -




The whole video can be watched here -

[Breccia]

@Connal dropped an NRA bombshell in another thread. The NRA just admitted they get foreign funds, but super duper pinky swear none of it is used in elections.

That's politics for "yes, we laundered Russian money and we're trying to spin this before the investigation concludes".

[Cthulhu 2020]

If you're talking about the Papadopoulus outreach, the one that Team Trump denied, then, you're going to have a really hard time convincing me it was something they were proud of. "Hey everyone, we're making contact with Russia to make better diplomatic friends! Isn't that great? We are so proud of it, we're telling everyone we're doing it, because that's what people who believe they're doing the right thing do. Can you believe we sent a coffee boy to do it? I know, right?"

At this point, anyone who thinks Trump contacted Russia for good relations to the US has either been intentionally ignorant of everything Trump has done up to this point, stupid, gullible, or some combination of the 3.

Trump has a pattern of behavior that shows he's willing to take any win to improve his image. Small wins, wins that weren't even his. You'd think that if Trump weren't being genuine, he'd have bragged about how well he's doing with fixing US Russia relations.

As it is, he's acting more like the kid who frequently steals cookies who just got caught with a cookie, and his excuse is that he was keeping it safe from the cookie monster.

That's one thing I notice the rabid Trump supporters tend to ignore. They treat every single one of his wrongdoings as if it were a deed committed in a vacuum. They do not consider Trump's past behavior nor the context of the deed. They simply cry that nothing wrong was done and that Trump is innocent, without considering the hundreds of past deeds where this administration has proven itself deceitful, incompetent

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What behaviour exactly? Meeting with representatives of foreign governments?

Like Clinton meeting with Poroshenko?

Clinton, Poroshenko Discuss Ukraine, Russia in New York Meeting
20 September 2016 г., 7:56 GMT+5
Hillary Clinton, Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko had an "in-depth discussion of the crisis in Ukraine" during meeting in New York, according to campaign aide.

• Clinton "stressed her commitment to stand with the government and people of Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression, and discussed ways to help Ukraine strengthen and defend itself"
• Campaign aide says Clinton, Poroshenko discussed "Russia’s broader attempts to weaken Europe and destabilize its periphery" as well as Clinton’s "clear-eyed approach to Russia"
• "If elected, she looks forward to deepening and intensifying cooperation with Ukraine": statement

I'm looking for wrongdoing in there and I can't find it.

Oh, you think simply meeting with foreign officials is what's wrong. Gotcha.

See, what team Trump did wrong was

1. Not reporting their meetings
2. Explicitly asking for dirt on Hillary Clinton
and possibly (we'll find out at the end of the Mueller investigation) 3. Asking for interference in the election.

Your counter line: "Waaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh The US has meddled in other country's elections!"

Counter point: "So what? Those countries can punish their politicians for receiving aid from the US, and try to put sanctions on the US."

[Breccia]

Trump wants to work with Putin despite US accusing Russia of meddling worldwide

President Donald Trump took some of his strongest action yet against Russia with Monday's expulsion of what the U.S. says are 60 Russian intelligence operatives - retaliation for the alleged poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter in the United Kingdom.

But the president continues to hold out hope for personally working with Russian President Vladimir Putin, even congratulating the strongman leader on his "re-election" last week and calling for cooperation on "shared interests" like North Korea, Ukraine, and Syria.

"They can help solve problems with North Korea, Syria, Ukraine, ISIS, Iran and even the coming Arms Race," Trump tweeted last Wednesday.

At every turn, however, Russia appears to be blocking U.S. interests, and it's Trump's own top officials pointing out that Russia has created crises around the world or made existing ones worse.

"Russia has chosen to be a strategic competitor, even to the point of reckless behavior," Defense Secretary James Mattis told reporters Tuesday.

Despite calls from the White House for Russia to change its behavior, Trump's persistent push to work with Putin has led critics to doubt his commitment to defending American interests against Russian interference from Afghanistan to Ukraine, the Korean peninsula to western Europe.

The article goes on to detail specifics regarding the listed countries, and also Syria.

[cubby]

@Connal dropped an NRA bombshell in another thread. The NRA just admitted they get foreign funds, but super duper pinky swear none of it is used in elections.

That's politics for "yes, we laundered Russian money and we're trying to spin this before the investigation concludes".

Long shot on money laundering all being related (NRA, GOP) but if it is . . . RICO heaven.

[Breccia]

TheHill's article on the subject:

The disarray in President Trump’s personal legal team has serious implications as he faces off against special counsel Robert Mueller at a critical juncture in the Russia investigation, experts say.

“It’s just astonishing where things stand,” said Harry Litman, a former deputy assistant attorney general who is now a lecturer at the UCLA School of Law.

“You simply must have a strategy that you are following through on. He has literally nothing and, as far as we can tell, even the personnel decisions seem to be taken by watching Fox News.”

Bla bla bla no lawyers want to work for Trump...

But, despite that, some high-profile lawyers have publicly stated that they won’t join the team, while others are reported to have rebuffed overtures.

One of those who declined, Ted Olson, told MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” on Monday that Trump’s overall style of governance, including his personnel changes within the White House, was adding up to a situation of “turmoil.”

“It's chaos, it's confusion, it's not good for anything,” Olson said.

Attorneys and legal experts who spoke to The Hill said that was true of the legal situation, not just the broader conduct of the Trump administration.

They also drew attention to the president’s tempestuous personality, suggesting that this would make any attorney think twice about representing him.

“I don’t have the time, energy or patience to babysit a client who ignores my expertise and opinions,” said Mark Zaid, a prominent Washington attorney.

Zaid noted that he had represented Republican and Democratic members of Congress.

Resistance to representing Trump, he said, “has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with the client. This is a client who is out of control, who tweets incessantly, who argues with his lawyers and disobeys his lawyers.”

Bla bla bla but her emails...

Still, outsiders are skeptical that Sekulow can — or would want to — handle Mueller on his own.

“Sekulow is mostly a communications person,” said Michael Zeldin, a legal analyst for CNN. “He is not a white-collar criminal defense lawyer, and he makes no pretense that he is that. He is there really more to articulate the president’s media message. But he needs someone who can face off against the Mueller investigation."

Also in the mix is Trump’s longtime personal lawyer Marc Kasowitz. Kasowitz was sidelined after some embarrassing incidents, such as a profane email exchange with a stranger that became public in July 2017.

As with many people around Trump, however, Kasowitz has never been fully exiled and is understood to still proffer advice.

Zaid, though critical of Trump in many ways, acknowledged that the story of his legal turmoil could go away quickly once he found someone to represent him.

“Once he finds counsel who sticks with him, the stories of all the people who refused to represent him are a non-issue,” he said.

But that day has not come just yet.

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As predicted, Trump is taking credit for the work South Korea and China are doing in non-threatening diplomatic talks with North Korea.

[Shadowferal]

As predicted, Trump is taking credit for the work South Korea and China are doing in non-threatening diplomatic talks with North Korea.

Hmf...more China's credit than anyone.

[Justank]

Hmf...more China's credit than anyone.

I'd put South Korea at least on par with China on this. If Park Geun Hye or someone with similar policies was still in office I think it's unlikely things would have progressed the way they have. Moon Jae In has put forward a fairly moderate stance on NK which is enabling all of these talks to occur, though I suspect his personal views are bordering on Sunshine policy.