Help Elok understand the ongoing Russia ... thingy

[Dinner]

Just a few days ago Mueller flipped Gates (Flynn's former partner) so that virtually guarantees that Flynn gets convicted with 1st hand testimony. Flynn was the main go between for Putin and Trump and was a long time FSB asset so this puts maximum pressure on Flynn to also flip and if he does then Trump is toast.

[Dinner]

On the OoJ .

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

Just FYI it has been proven that the FISA warrent was granted based upon multiple pieces of evidence and that the Steele dossier was just a minor part of it while the judge was made aware of political origins (both Republican and Democratic) which partially paid for some of Steele's work. The main source was an Australian diplomat who reported George Papandopolus of drunking bragging about a Trump conspiracy to collude with Russia, launder money from Russia to the Trump campaign via Republican front groups, to hack the DNC and leak that info to embarass dems, and to assist Russia's "troll army" disinformation campaign by ide tifying target areas and demographics for them. The third source was the FBI' on going investigation of Carter Page himself who had been suspected of being a Russia agent since about 2010.

So the claim that it all originated with the Steele dossier (large portions of ehich have been authenticated) is complete right wing hog wash. Mostly it was due to Popandopolus bragging to the Australian diplomat (who reported him as he was supposed to do) and due to the on going six year old counter intelligence investigation against Carter Page for working with the Russian FSB.

[pchang]

I should add that Papadopoulos and Flynn have plead guilty to at least one charge and are cooperating with Mueller. What Dinner states with regards to Gates has not been confirmed, but they try to keep these things quiet in order to get more information.

[Dinner]

They all had the same attorneys representing them. Defendents are not usually allowed to change represebtation part way through proceedings but the court does allow it if the attorney is representing multiple defendents and the interests of one defendent changes materially from the others (namely, because he has flipped and turned state's evidence). That is what happened with both George P and Flynn and that seems to be what just happened with Gates.

The only other group I can think of to have a bunch of defendents all accused of different crimes all represented by the same attorney is the Mafia. They do it so they get a heads up if anyone is about to flip. Trump seems to be working on the same lines.

[Elok]

Okay, that's too many threads to pursue. I suppose I'll suspend judgment for a time.

[Jon Miller]

I have heard people joke that Trump's strategy is to have so many scandals and suspicious (or illegal) activities, that the investigation will be unending and average voters will have scandal fatigue.

JM

[Elok]

Well, it works for some things; people get hung up on stupid crap like whether or not he had the biggest SOTU address audience. I suppose my main issue with the Russia thing is the basic impossibility of Russia effectively "hacking" the election. I don't think they modified the vote count without leaving evidence, or suppressed voter turnout, which leaves monetary assistance, not exactly what I'd call damning considering that Hillary had something like ten times his budget however he got it. Or the various e-mail leaks, which turned out to be mostly kinda meh IIRC. Some of her staff made dickish remarks about Catholics, and there were the weird fundraising things with the DNC that didn't seem to swing the numbers much. I might buy Comey--did the Russians have dirt on him that we know of?--but really Trump's win seems like a perfect storm of overconfidence and miscalculation, explicable without interference.

But hell, what do I know. I'm going to go with "did dodgy crap with Russians that is not directly election-related, or limited to money-laundering type deals." That's my current hypothesis, but really, it's Trump, maybe he did have hookers pee on beds.

[pchang]

It is a matter of degree. Could Russian meddling influence a few thousand voters one way or the other? Could it have influenced a few million voters one way or the other? Based on the electoral college results, could a few thousand votes in the right states have changed the winner from Trump to Clinton?

If all Trump’s people did was share internal polling data with the Russians, is that collusion? Would that information be enough to allow the Russians to more effectively spend their limited resources by targeting the exact voters most likely to be influenced by them in the exact states needed to change the election results?

[Jon Miller]

And remember that it is illegal for foreign countries to influence US elections. That doesn't mean that none try. And with the Citizens United ruling it is very difficult/impossible to stop them from doing so. So then the questions also include 'did Trump's campaign knowingly accept Russian aid?'.

JM

[Aeson]

Yah, the effectiveness of Russian meddling really doesn't matter at all. "We tried to collude with a foreign power to fix the election but it may not have made much of a difference" would not be a defence, it would be an admission of guilt.

[BeBMan]

I think they plan to correct the whole Trump timeline in Star Trek Discovery

[Uncle Sparky]

Wait... Trump is really a Ferengi... This explains his obsession with profit, and why he keep turning orange.

[Uncle Sparky]

[Elok]

I'm getting hung up on the part where we spent the entire Cold War blasting pro-American radio propaganda across half the world, and everybody basically accepted it (at a time when we were on nuclear hair-trigger), but internet memes are inexcusable now that Russia is a worn-out sphincter of a country posing little real threat. Of course they have an interest in our election. They'd be fools not to, and if they want to try meddling, mazel tov. They don't have the resources to do it all that well. Anyway, we screwed around with Ukraine's, didn't we?

I mean, if this gets Trump replaced by a functional human being, good, I just can't summon much outrage.

[Jon Miller]

Hacks of elections (or otherwise having those in power put in place by an unwelcome foreign power) have traditionally been considered as acts of war. When we do it or when someone else did it.

Yes we did it, and yes many other nations are pissed off at us over it.

It doesn't mean we should just accept it when it is done to us. It doesn't mean we should accept those who take power by collaborating with a foreign power as legitament.

Additionally, the accusation is that one of our sides not only benefitted, but worked with the foreign power in who tried to influence our elections. That is incredibly serious and could very well mean that our current government is not democratically legitament (as the nations that we 'hacked' considered their leaders who collaborated with us).

If you feel it isn't a big deal, then you are effectively saying that you think it it is fine to be a dictatorship or to be controlled by a foreign power.

As I said, it is different if Trump worked with Russia or if he didn't. Because of Citizen United, it is very difficult for us to keep any foreign group from influencing our elections. So the central issue (as long as we have Citizen United) is if there was collusion (and in this case, it is proven that our elections were influenced, which is a strong reason to 'fix' Citizen United).

JM
(if we just 'accept' it, it is tatamount to the end of our country as an independent nation, we will basically be ruled by whoever is picked by China or Russia or etc)

[pchang]

I'm getting hung up on the part where we spent the entire Cold War blasting pro-American radio propaganda across half the world, and everybody basically accepted it (at a time when we were on nuclear hair-trigger), but internet memes are inexcusable now that Russia is a worn-out sphincter of a country posing little real threat.

Umm - you have totally missed the point. Of course every country tries to influence other countries to do what they want. There is no outrage there. Now, if Trump or his campaign accepted help from Russia, that is where the outrage is. That would definitely be impeachable.

Elok - I have always thought of you as a thoughtful poster. If you have completely missed the point of the Russia investigation, then our Democracy is truly in trouble.