Help Elok understand the ongoing Russia ... thingy

[Elok]

So, I pretty much tuned out of "Russiagate" some months ago, after it became clear that nobody was going to accuse anyone of anything specific and damning anytime soon. Some Trump people met with some Russian people, there was an unsubstantiated rumor that Trump had hookers pee on beds in Moscow, Trump tried to halt the investigation by politely asking people to stop, Russia "hacked" the election in an unspecified manner--it was all so terribly exciting that my eyes glazed over and I went off to do something else. Now there's a "memo" alleging that the FBI was politically motivated when it ordered the wiretapping of some dude I never heard of. This is apparently outrageous, because the FBI hasn't been accused of being politically motivated since, uh, the last time the FBI was mentioned.

Is there any fire at all in this giant cloud of smoke? Like, has anybody accused anybody else of an actual, substantive, clearly defined criminal activity, as opposed to having bad motives or being suspicious or talking to bad people?

[Jon Miller]

There is pretty solid evidence that Trump fired or has sought to fire everyone in the DOJ that has sought to investigate whether there was collusion between his campaign and Russia. This would clearly be Obstruction of Justice. At the same time he has led (and been supported by members of the house, but not the senate) in attacks on the FBI (such as accusations that the FBI is part of a deep state attempting to bring down his administration). This is ridiculous as there is pretty good statistical analysis that if Comey had not made the email presentation a few days before the election that Clinton would have won and not Trump. In addition to the FBI being heavily Republican, all the current leaders involved (of the FBI, DOJ and Mueller) were appointed by Trump or appointed by someone Trump appointed.

These accusations of the FBI being politically motivated have not been made outside of the extreme left and right (despite the fact the FBI leans right), so the attack on the FBI (and DOJ) is not standard and is outrageous and is argument that the Trump administration is above any law. One argument is that only congress can reign in Trump, but congress was elected in the same election and the Republicans in (the House especially) congress seem uninterested in investigating Russia's election interference.

There is also pretty solid evidence that Russia influenced the election, maybe enough to tip it in Trump's favor (and this influence included social media and money routed to groups like the NRA). I don't think there is any smoking gun of direct collusion between Trump and the Russians, although he continues to do suspicious things like refuse to apply sanctions to Russia which was voted on by 98% of congress, sneaking senior Russian intelligence officers (who are banned from the US) into the US and meeting with them in private without other US officials present and so on.

Note that the memo is an obvious attack on the FBI in defense of Trump (if Trump was innocent, why go to such outrageous lengths to defend him?), see
https://www.vox.com/2018/2/2/1695758...f-declassified
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-in-trump-case

Basically, we could soon reach a point (if Trump does a "Saturday Night Massacre" a la Nixon) where a majority of the country do not feel that the government is legitament. I understand that many felt that way about Obama, but that was always lunacy and based on conspiracy theorists (some of whom were allowed to be on FOX news). This will be based on the word of our top intelligence and justice agencies, some of the most respected Republicans in addition to pretty much all Democrats lawmakers, add center, center-right, center-left and international news sources. The far left and left-wing conspiracy theorists are not relevant, and it was the right wing ones which drove the Obama illegitamcy compaigns.

Note that most Democrat and all Republican lawmakers, and most of the people I referenced, think that our institutions (DOJ, FBI) will be able to resist these attacks.

JM

[Jon Miller]

On the OoJ investigation, the recent major story was that Trump had tried to fire Mueller (and was stopped because a bunch of people threatened to quit if he did so). BTW, as far as I understand the OoJ is pretty much proven (it was admitted by Trump), with the defence being that the president can legally OJ (but then we live in a dictatorship and not a republic or a democracy) or that it was minor and so not worth an impeachment.

On collusion I think the biggest story still is that Trump Jr and Jared met with Russians in the Trump tower (one floor below Trump) in order to talk about collusion, and have repeatedly lied about what took place on that meeting. They say that in the end no collusion took place (although as I have said, they have been proven to have lied repeatedly about what took place during that meeting), and as of yet there is still no evidence that Trump himself was involved.

FBI surveillance is not renewed unless it is being productive, so it was productive even if they used the Steele Dossier as some of the motivation of the renewal (this is of Carter Paige). BTW, the accusation is that the FBI did not tell the judge who OKed the renewal (BTW, at this time Paige was no longer a member of the Trump campaign) that the Dossier had political motivations (the Democrats say that the FBI did tell the judge that and their memo, which was the Republicans have not allowed to be released, says that).

JM

[Elok]

The one time I saw a report on Russian social media efforts, the results were pretty laughable--about on a par with what Serb posts here. Also, no proof that their government was involved. Where did you read the thing about meeting with Russian spooks? The one thing I read was about this one time some of Trump's folks met with some Russians who promised dirt on Hillary, only to have the Russians natter on for an hour about international adoptions. A quick Google of "Russia sanctions" found an article of Trump approving fresh ones last year--a veto would have been overridden--then very recently choosing not to enforce them, which is entirely explicable insofar as the explicit justification for those sanctions was to question the legitimacy of Trump's election. I find no indications that any previously existing sanctions have been lifted.

[Elok]

The FISA court is basically a rubberstamp anyway (which is, of course, a rather large problem). I think something like a dozen requests have ever been turned down.

EDIT: Re: obstruction, I didn't read the Mueller firing as "this guy has dirt on me, I'd better get rid of him" so much as "this underling is insulting me, how dare he, YOU'RE FIRE--wait, what? I can't do that? Says who? Grr..." I agree that Trump is a damnable buffoon who has no business in the WH, but I'm not seeing evidence that he's actually done anything impeachable per se. More's the pity.

[Jon Miller]

The one time I saw a report on Russian social media efforts, the results were pretty laughable--about on a par with what Serb posts here. Also, no proof that their government was involved. Where did you read the thing about meeting with Russian spooks? The one thing I read was about this one time some of Trump's folks met with some Russians who promised dirt on Hillary, only to have the Russians natter on for an hour about international adoptions.

The adoptions were part of the in place Russian sanctions. Saying that you talked about adoptions means you talked about sanctions.

A quick Google of "Russia sanctions" found an article of Trump approving fresh ones last year--a veto would have been overridden--then very recently choosing not to enforce them, which is entirely explicable insofar as the explicit justification for those sanctions was to question the legitimacy of Trump's election.

That's not the case as they were voted on by Republicans (98 senators voted for them).

It was bipartisan sanctions for Russian election interference.

I find no indications that any previously existing sanctions have been lifted.

They banned high level Russians from entering the US, like the top Russian spies he had secretly visiting earlier.

Also

http://www.newsweek.com/did-nra-channel-russian-money-trump-793487

Also:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-netherlands-russia-cybercrime/dutch-intelligence-agency-spied-on-russian-hacking-group-media-idUSKBN1FE34W

Remember that releases of hacked documents from the Democrats were important new items during the election period.

https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/26/us/2016-presidential-campaign-hacking-fast-facts/index.html

JM

[Jon Miller]

EDIT: Re: obstruction, I didn't read the Mueller firing as "this guy has dirt on me, I'd better get rid of him" so much as "this underling is insulting me, how dare he, YOU'RE FIRE--wait, what? I can't do that? Says who? Grr..." I agree that Trump is a damnable buffoon who has no business in the WH, but I'm not seeing evidence that he's actually done anything impeachable per se. More's the pity.

I have never heard of Mueller insulting Trump. Almost everyone else has been rumoured to insult Trump, but not Mueller.

BTW, the attempted firing was last summer, but the information about it just came out now.

And Trump has admitted, on tape, to firing Comey because of the investigation. There are also the attempts to discredit FBI members (like McCabe) who were known to have dirt on on him and pressure on the DOJ to end the investigation (Sessions and Rosenstien).

JM

[Jon Miller]

Finally, remember that the Watergate investigation went on 2 years. This has only been going on 6 months.

JM

[Jon Miller]

Support for Mueller even from the media right:

https://twitter.com/newtgingrich/status/864998445244743684?lang=en

JM

[pchang]

3 specific individuals (Papadopoulos, Flynn, and Manafort) have been charged with various things both before and during their involvement in the Trump campaign.

[pchang]

The FISA court is basically a rubberstamp anyway (which is, of course, a rather large problem). I think something like a dozen requests have ever been turned down.

Do you know why prosecutors have such a high conviction rate? They have complete discretion over the cases they bring to trial. Thus, they only try cases they expect to win. Same thing with FISA requests.

[Aeson]

3 specific individuals (Papadopoulos, Flynn, and Manafort) have been charged with various things both before and during their involvement in the Trump campaign.

Also Gates.

[pchang]

Yes - forgot about him. 4 specific individuals (Papadopoulos, Flynn, Manafort, and Gates) have been charged with various things both before and during their involvement in the Trump campaign.

[Dinner]

That Trump did seek the help of Putin and his troll Army (state sponsored disinformation campaign) is pretty solidly proved at this point . This was in exchange for removing sanctions and giving Putin a free hand in places like Syria and tge Ukraine which Trump has only partially delivered on because of resistance in the Congress. It seems highly likely that Republicans provided Putin with the seing states and districts to target during the disinformation campaign. Also as even Steve Bannon has pubicly admitted this is going to be a money laundering case where Putin provided tens of millions if not hundreds of millions via strae backers to fund the Trump campaign via Republican front groups such as the NRA.

All of that is illegal, all of that is impeachable, and thus why Donny small hands has spent the last year obstructing justice in just about every eay he can up to and including trying to tear down American lae enforcement. As former Republican congressman and now tv host Joe Scarborough said on Friday Trump is scared to death of Mueller and now he is getting desperate as more and more former aids flip and turn states evidence.

[Dinner]

That Trump did seek the help of Putin and his troll Army (state sponsored disinformation campaign) is pretty solidly proved at this point . This was in exchange for removing sanctions and giving Putin a free hand in places like Syria and tge Ukraine which Trump has only partially delivered on because of resistance in the Congress. It seems highly likely that Republicans provided Putin with the seing states and districts to target during the disinformation campaign. Also as even Steve Bannon has pubicly admitted this is going to be a money laundering case where Putin provided tens of millions if not hundreds of millions via strae backers to fund the Trump campaign via Republican front groups such as the NRA.

All of that is illegal, all of that is impeachable, and thus why Donny small hands has spent the last year obstructing justice in just about every eay he can up to and including trying to tear down American lae enforcement. As former Republican congressman and now tv host Joe Scarborough said on Friday Trump is scared to death of Mueller and now he is getting desperate as more and more former aids flip and turn states evidence.