Trump Jr./Russian lawyer meeting: Jr. knew info was part of Russian Gov effort

[EnglishPete]

Trump's son, son-in-law, and campaign manager specifically went to a meeting where they believed they could obtain damaging information on Clinton sourced from the Russian government.  

And?

Contrary to all the foaming at the mouth hysterics talking about this that isn't illegal, much less 'treason' as lots of unhinged lefties are claiming.

If someone walked into a bank and said to the teller "I'm robbing this place, give me all your money"  and then walked out after that didn't work....would you say "well hey, it was just him talking!"?

No because robbing banks would be illegal. Obtaining damaging information on Clinton sourced from the Russian government is not per se illegal.

[Person Man]

Trump's son, son-in-law, and campaign manager specifically went to a meeting where they believed they could obtain damaging information on Clinton sourced from the Russian government.  

And?

Contrary to all the foaming at the mouth hysterics talking about this that isn't illegal, much less 'treason' as lots of unhinged lefties are claiming.

If someone walked into a bank and said to the teller "I'm robbing this place, give me all your money"  and then walked out after that didn't work....would you say "well hey, it was just him talking!"?

No because robbing banks would be illegal. Obtaining damaging information on Clinton sourced from the Russian government is not per se illegal.

What the result was doesn't matter. The guy still gets busted for sodomy if the hooker is a cop and nothing actually happens . Its called an inchoate offense. And if trying to contract oppo research out to a hostile state Government is illegal, He is liable vicariously if His son could be considered doing this for Him as part of his services.

[EnglishPete]

Trump's son, son-in-law, and campaign manager specifically went to a meeting where they believed they could obtain damaging information on Clinton sourced from the Russian government.  

And?

Contrary to all the foaming at the mouth hysterics talking about this that isn't illegal, much less 'treason' as lots of unhinged lefties are claiming.

If someone walked into a bank and said to the teller "I'm robbing this place, give me all your money"  and then walked out after that didn't work....would you say "well hey, it was just him talking!"?

No because robbing banks would be illegal. Obtaining damaging information on Clinton sourced from the Russian government is not per se illegal.

What the result was doesn't matter. The guy still gets busted for sodomy if the hooker is a cop and nothing actually happens . Its called an inchoate offense. And if trying to contract oppo research out to a hostile state Government is illegal, He is liable vicariously if His son could be considered doing this for Him as part of his services.

But there's no indication in the e-mails that DJT Jr is trying to contract opposition research to anyone. He's asking about meeting with someone who claims to already have damaging information about Clinton. That would be him trying to carry out oppo researcch himself, not trying to contract it out to anyone else.

As for your point about this allegedly coming from a "hostile" foreign government Russia is not at war with the US any more than Ukraine is. The US and Russia have diplomatic and trade ties. The fact that the US and Russian governments haven't been getting along very well doesn't make any difference to the legality or illegality of an act. Israel is a close ally of the US but that didn't make Jonathan Pollard's actions legal or stop him from sitting in prison for 28 years.

[ProudModerate2]

The Russians are our advisory.
To most of the citizens of the US, the Russian government is seen as an enemy and they can not be trusted.
Most recently, the Russians have been committing acts that go against democracy as the US and many other democratic nations (including Europe) see it.
They should not be meddling in our elections. Period. Even our government believes in this, otherwise they (Congress) would not be implementing harsh sanctions against Russia for doing so.
This is clear evidence of the trump campaign colluding with Russia to damage the Hillary campaign. Something the trump campaign kept denying over and over and over again.
One thing is clear, the trump family and their campaign have lied numerous times.

[Virginiá]

With all due respect, I find it hard to take a blog called "weaponized autism" seriously

EnglishPete's perspective has to bend and twist beyond recognition to justify Trump's behavior, so it isn't surprising that he has to scrape the fringes of the Internet to back it up. I bet if you created a fake pro-Trump blog and started posting completely bogus theories on there rationalizing how Trump is innocent on any given scandal, EnglishPete would eventually start referencing it on here.

Pretty ironic how despite all his complaining about the biased fake news mainstream media, he chooses to read arguably the least reliable / most biased blogs/"news" sites on the Internet.

[Hindsight was 2020]

With all due respect, I find it hard to take a blog called "weaponized autism" seriously

EnglishPete's perspective has to bend and twist beyond recognition to justify Trump's behavior, so it isn't surprising that he has to scrape the fringes of the Internet to back it up. I bet if you created a fake pro-Trump blog and started posting completely bogus theories on there rationalizing how Trump is innocent on any given scandal, EnglishPete would eventually start referencing it on here.

Pretty ironic how despite all his complaining about the biased fake news mainstream media, he chooses to read arguably the least reliable / most biased blogs/"news" sites on the Internet.

That really seems to sum up Trump supporters in general. The WaPo with Jrs emails=Fake News! Freedumbboteagle.com says Hillary has Parkinson= Wow guys this sh*t is serious

[Mr. Morden]

Trump-world's new party line seems to be that there's nothing wrong with American political candidates working with foreign governments to tip the outcomes of American elections.

OK, so then why were Tillerson and Haley saying just a few days ago that Trump confronted Putin over election interference and that he wanted "non-interference" in our elections?

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/08/haley-russia-election-meddling-240323
http://www.npr.org/2017/07/07/535832230/tillerson-trump-confronts-putin-over-russian-election-meddling

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Is the interference of foreign governments in American elections something that we should regard as a problem or not?

[ProudModerate2]

Trump-world's new party line seems to be that there's nothing wrong with American political candidates working with foreign governments to tip the outcomes of American elections.

OK, so then why were Tillerson and Haley saying just a few days ago that Trump confronted Putin over election interference and that he wanted "non-interference" in our elections?

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/08/haley-russia-election-meddling-240323
http://www.npr.org/2017/07/07/535832230/tillerson-trump-confronts-putin-over-russian-election-meddling

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Is the interference of foreign governments in American elections something that we should regard as a problem or not?

If you expect trumpist, trump and/or his administration to be consistent on anything .... forget it.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Trump's son, son-in-law, and campaign manager specifically went to a meeting where they believed they could obtain damaging information on Clinton sourced from the Russian government.  

And?

Contrary to all the foaming at the mouth hysterics talking about this that isn't illegal, much less 'treason' as lots of unhinged lefties are claiming.

If someone walked into a bank and said to the teller "I'm robbing this place, give me all your money"  and then walked out after that didn't work....would you say "well hey, it was just him talking!"?

That's not an appropriate comparison here.

Indeed. A much more apt comparison would be someone who publicly talked about stealing from a bank to get rich, publicly talked about doing it with a teller's help, met secretly with a teller from the bank, walked into the bank when the teller was working, walked out and immediately began throwing around $100 bills, then lied about ever talking to the teller or discussing stealing from a bank. Oh, and the teller is on record as having opened the cash safe, after blocking out the security cameras. (It was totally someone else who went into the safe and blocked the cameras, according to the teller and the newly rich guy.)

Oh, but trust him, that private meeting with the teller was about the Orphans' Fund. You should totally believe him, because he publicly admitted to having a private meeting with the teller after finding out there was videotape of him meeting with the teller.

[EnglishPete]

The Russians are our advisory.

I think the Russians may have been the Clintons' advisory. All that money they gave them probably came with some advice.

But seriously, how can you expect other people to follow your suggestion of not responding to my points when you won't even follow it yourself? LOL

[EnglishPete]

Functionally, I'm curious, how do you defend Trump's speeches about the Hillary oppo and say that he wasn't aware of a meeting in his own building, with Don Jr, Manafort, and Kushner? He promised a press conference about Hillary's emails that very night and tweeted about it 15 minutes after the meeting. The information seems highly correlated with what the email said.

Basically, this feels like a smoking gun that Trump was open to collusion or actually did commit collusion with Russia's government. But to believe that the Podesta emails were unrelated to this - especially given Junior's statement of "later in the summer" is to defy explanation. You'll remember Roger Stone tweeted that it would be soon "Podesta's time in the barrel." It definitely feels like Trumpland knew ahead of time and were clear on the provenance of these Wikileaks. (Senior doesn't do email, for the record. It seems that this was handled at the top levels).

Basically, the set of facts between the Podesta emails, them being from the Russian government, and the timing (and backing up of that timing by Don Jr's emails) as well as Natalia Veselnitskay being linked to the Russian government implies very strongly that there is a plausible, even probable link.

This is an archive of Natalia Veselnitskaya's Facebook page. Lots of anti-Trump (and anti-Putin) images there. That added to the curious matter of how she got a Visa to get into the US after previously being refused. I think this is the smoking gun, I agree with you there. Its the smoking gun that indicates that this whole "Russia is interfering in our elections and colluding with the Trump campaign" was cooked up prior to June of last year.

That then obviously links in with all the other goings on later that were blamed on the Russians'  as these were obviously part of the same scheme. That would be why the DNC refused access to the FBI their servers to confirm that the hacking had taken place because there never had been a hacking, just a leak to be blamed on 'der Rushans'.

And let's not forget that the first request to the FISA court by the Obama admin to spy on the Trump campaign came in June 2016, shortly after this meeting. So this was not only a setup but was a set up designed to be a piece of theatre for the FISA court.

The latest revelations are clearly not a nothing burger. They are strong evidence of a key part of the Obama administration's plan to set up a bogus 'Russia/Trump' conspiracy narrative as an excuse to misuse the security services to spy on and undermine a political opponent.

[Devout Centrist]

Functionally, I'm curious, how do you defend Trump's speeches about the Hillary oppo and say that he wasn't aware of a meeting in his own building, with Don Jr, Manafort, and Kushner? He promised a press conference about Hillary's emails that very night and tweeted about it 15 minutes after the meeting. The information seems highly correlated with what the email said.

Basically, this feels like a smoking gun that Trump was open to collusion or actually did commit collusion with Russia's government. But to believe that the Podesta emails were unrelated to this - especially given Junior's statement of "later in the summer" is to defy explanation. You'll remember Roger Stone tweeted that it would be soon "Podesta's time in the barrel." It definitely feels like Trumpland knew ahead of time and were clear on the provenance of these Wikileaks. (Senior doesn't do email, for the record. It seems that this was handled at the top levels).

Basically, the set of facts between the Podesta emails, them being from the Russian government, and the timing (and backing up of that timing by Don Jr's emails) as well as Natalia Veselnitskay being linked to the Russian government implies very strongly that there is a plausible, even probable link.

This is an archive of Natalia Veselnitskaya's Facebook page. Lots of anti-Trump (and anti-Putin) images there. That added to the curious matter of how she got a Visa to get into the US after previously being refused. I think this is the smoking gun, I agree with you there. Its the smoking gun that indicates that this whole "Russia is interfering in our elections and colluding with the Trump campaign" was cooked up prior to June of last year.

That then obviously links in with all the other goings on later that were blamed on the Russians'  as these were obviously part of the same scheme. That would be why the DNC refused access to the FBI their servers to confirm that the hacking had taken place because there never had been a hacking, just a leak to be blamed on 'der Rushans'.

And let's not forget that the first request to the FISA court by the Obama admin to spy on the Trump campaign came in June 2016, shortly after this meeting. So this was not only a setup but was a set up designed to be a piece of theatre for the FISA court.

The latest revelations are clearly not a nothing burger. They are strong evidence of a key part of the Obama administration's plan to set up a bogus 'Russia/Trump' conspiracy narrative as an excuse to misuse the security services to spy on and undermine a political opponent.

I've seen pretzels twisted into less knots

[ApatheticAustrian]

DOJ Settled Massive Russian Fraud Case Involving Lawyer Who Met With Trump Jr.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/12/doj-settled-massive-russian-fraud-case-involving-lawyer-who-met-with-trump-jr/

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

DOJ Settled Massive Russian Fraud Case Involving Lawyer Who Met With Trump Jr.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/12/doj-settled-massive-russian-fraud-case-involving-lawyer-who-met-with-trump-jr/

Jesus.

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Says it all, really.

Does anyone care to bet how long before Trump is tied to the accused Russian money launderers he just let off the hook? (More than we already know, I mean.)

[Middle-aged Europe]

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Originally published back in May, here's is a quick overview of the Russian moneylaundering operations that potentially touch on the Trump administration:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/us-settlement-prevezon-case-raises-more-questions-trump-frydenborg

[EnglishPete]

Functionally, I'm curious, how do you defend Trump's speeches about the Hillary oppo and say that he wasn't aware of a meeting in his own building, with Don Jr, Manafort, and Kushner? He promised a press conference about Hillary's emails that very night and tweeted about it 15 minutes after the meeting. The information seems highly correlated with what the email said.

Basically, this feels like a smoking gun that Trump was open to collusion or actually did commit collusion with Russia's government. But to believe that the Podesta emails were unrelated to this - especially given Junior's statement of "later in the summer" is to defy explanation. You'll remember Roger Stone tweeted that it would be soon "Podesta's time in the barrel." It definitely feels like Trumpland knew ahead of time and were clear on the provenance of these Wikileaks. (Senior doesn't do email, for the record. It seems that this was handled at the top levels).

Basically, the set of facts between the Podesta emails, them being from the Russian government, and the timing (and backing up of that timing by Don Jr's emails) as well as Natalia Veselnitskay being linked to the Russian government implies very strongly that there is a plausible, even probable link.

This is an archive of Natalia Veselnitskaya's Facebook page. Lots of anti-Trump (and anti-Putin) images there. That added to the curious matter of how she got a Visa to get into the US after previously being refused. I think this is the smoking gun, I agree with you there. Its the smoking gun that indicates that this whole "Russia is interfering in our elections and colluding with the Trump campaign" was cooked up prior to June of last year.

That then obviously links in with all the other goings on later that were blamed on the Russians'  as these were obviously part of the same scheme. That would be why the DNC refused access to the FBI their servers to confirm that the hacking had taken place because there never had been a hacking, just a leak to be blamed on 'der Rushans'.

And let's not forget that the first request to the FISA court by the Obama admin to spy on the Trump campaign came in June 2016, shortly after this meeting. So this was not only a setup but was a set up designed to be a piece of theatre for the FISA court.

The latest revelations are clearly not a nothing burger. They are strong evidence of a key part of the Obama administration's plan to set up a bogus 'Russia/Trump' conspiracy narrative as an excuse to misuse the security services to spy on and undermine a political opponent.

I've seen pretzels twisted into less knots

What's laughable is the theory that this 'investigation' is an honest down the line search for the truth. What is not in dispute was that there has been investigations into this "Trump/Russia collusion theory" going back to June of last year.

Now what are the two usual reasons why this type of investigation of a politician or a political campaign? The tow usual reasons for such an investigation are

a) A legitimate investigation launched because of genuine concerns
b) A politically motivated witch hunt

So does the evidence in this case point to the reason for this series of investigations being a) or b)? What does the evidence suggest is the reason on the balance of probability? Because the evidence keeps stacking up that its b). If anyone wants to put forward evidence that a) was the reason the investigations were launched then lets hear it.

[Person Man]

Functionally, I'm curious, how do you defend Trump's speeches about the Hillary oppo and say that he wasn't aware of a meeting in his own building, with Don Jr, Manafort, and Kushner? He promised a press conference about Hillary's emails that very night and tweeted about it 15 minutes after the meeting. The information seems highly correlated with what the email said.

Basically, this feels like a smoking gun that Trump was open to collusion or actually did commit collusion with Russia's government. But to believe that the Podesta emails were unrelated to this - especially given Junior's statement of "later in the summer" is to defy explanation. You'll remember Roger Stone tweeted that it would be soon "Podesta's time in the barrel." It definitely feels like Trumpland knew ahead of time and were clear on the provenance of these Wikileaks. (Senior doesn't do email, for the record. It seems that this was handled at the top levels).

Basically, the set of facts between the Podesta emails, them being from the Russian government, and the timing (and backing up of that timing by Don Jr's emails) as well as Natalia Veselnitskay being linked to the Russian government implies very strongly that there is a plausible, even probable link.

This is an archive of Natalia Veselnitskaya's Facebook page. Lots of anti-Trump (and anti-Putin) images there. That added to the curious matter of how she got a Visa to get into the US after previously being refused. I think this is the smoking gun, I agree with you there. Its the smoking gun that indicates that this whole "Russia is interfering in our elections and colluding with the Trump campaign" was cooked up prior to June of last year.

That then obviously links in with all the other goings on later that were blamed on the Russians'  as these were obviously part of the same scheme. That would be why the DNC refused access to the FBI their servers to confirm that the hacking had taken place because there never had been a hacking, just a leak to be blamed on 'der Rushans'.

And let's not forget that the first request to the FISA court by the Obama admin to spy on the Trump campaign came in June 2016, shortly after this meeting. So this was not only a setup but was a set up designed to be a piece of theatre for the FISA court.

The latest revelations are clearly not a nothing burger. They are strong evidence of a key part of the Obama administration's plan to set up a bogus 'Russia/Trump' conspiracy narrative as an excuse to misuse the security services to spy on and undermine a political opponent.

I've seen pretzels twisted into less knots

What's laughable is the theory that this 'investigation' is an honest down the line search for the truth. What is not in dispute was that there has been investigations into this "Trump/Russia collusion theory" going back to June of last year.

Now what are the two usual reasons why this type of investigation of a politician or a political campaign? The tow usual reasons for such an investigation are

a) A legitimate investigation launched because of genuine concerns
b) A politically motivated witch hunt

So does the evidence in this case point to the reason for this series of investigations being a) or b)? What does the evidence suggest is the reason on the balance of probability? Because the evidence keeps stacking up that its b). If anyone wants to put forward evidence that a) was the reason the investigations were launched then lets hear it.

Its no more b than what happened to the Clintons.  This time its based on "matters" that have been going on for years.

The question here is whether Trump hired the Kremlin to help elect him President and why (was there an illegal consideration?(launder drug money from Russian mob? blackmail from prostitutes pimped by the mob? loan money obtained by false pretenses? ) and how (what crimes against the US were authorized, committed, and by whom(known fugitives who are members of the alt-right inteligencia and digerati?))

Maybe Trump is just a rich guy who has investors in Russia and just some friends of the investors did coke, hunted tigers, and cruised on 100 million dollar yachts with some Russian politicians. Maybe amongst them were some Russian or alt-Right digerati who just did things on their own accord because of the fond memories they had tag teaming Miss Teen Universe or whatever. Something definitely happened. I am open to the fact that me and most other people are simply too small minded to understand plutocrats, how they do business, and Covfefe. Through naive application of common sense and mathematical theory, I imagine its unlikely this was all a coincidence or someone doing something for someone on their own.

[ApatheticAustrian]

Kushner, who omitted foreign contacts on security clearance forms, updated that list 3x "adding more than 100 names"
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/12/us/politics/trump-says-son-is-innocent-amid-reports-of-russia-meeting.html

[Nyvin]

Functionally, I'm curious, how do you defend Trump's speeches about the Hillary oppo and say that he wasn't aware of a meeting in his own building, with Don Jr, Manafort, and Kushner? He promised a press conference about Hillary's emails that very night and tweeted about it 15 minutes after the meeting. The information seems highly correlated with what the email said.

Basically, this feels like a smoking gun that Trump was open to collusion or actually did commit collusion with Russia's government. But to believe that the Podesta emails were unrelated to this - especially given Junior's statement of "later in the summer" is to defy explanation. You'll remember Roger Stone tweeted that it would be soon "Podesta's time in the barrel." It definitely feels like Trumpland knew ahead of time and were clear on the provenance of these Wikileaks. (Senior doesn't do email, for the record. It seems that this was handled at the top levels).

Basically, the set of facts between the Podesta emails, them being from the Russian government, and the timing (and backing up of that timing by Don Jr's emails) as well as Natalia Veselnitskay being linked to the Russian government implies very strongly that there is a plausible, even probable link.

This is an archive of Natalia Veselnitskaya's Facebook page. Lots of anti-Trump (and anti-Putin) images there. That added to the curious matter of how she got a Visa to get into the US after previously being refused. I think this is the smoking gun, I agree with you there. Its the smoking gun that indicates that this whole "Russia is interfering in our elections and colluding with the Trump campaign" was cooked up prior to June of last year.

That then obviously links in with all the other goings on later that were blamed on the Russians'  as these were obviously part of the same scheme. That would be why the DNC refused access to the FBI their servers to confirm that the hacking had taken place because there never had been a hacking, just a leak to be blamed on 'der Rushans'.

And let's not forget that the first request to the FISA court by the Obama admin to spy on the Trump campaign came in June 2016, shortly after this meeting. So this was not only a setup but was a set up designed to be a piece of theatre for the FISA court.

The latest revelations are clearly not a nothing burger. They are strong evidence of a key part of the Obama administration's plan to set up a bogus 'Russia/Trump' conspiracy narrative as an excuse to misuse the security services to spy on and undermine a political opponent.

I've seen pretzels twisted into less knots

What's laughable is the theory that this 'investigation' is an honest down the line search for the truth. What is not in dispute was that there has been investigations into this "Trump/Russia collusion theory" going back to June of last year.

Now what are the two usual reasons why this type of investigation of a politician or a political campaign? The tow usual reasons for such an investigation are

a) A legitimate investigation launched because of genuine concerns
b) A politically motivated witch hunt

So does the evidence in this case point to the reason for this series of investigations being a) or b)? What does the evidence suggest is the reason on the balance of probability? Because the evidence keeps stacking up that its b). If anyone wants to put forward evidence that a) was the reason the investigations were launched then lets hear it.

The Trump administration has repeatedly denied having ANY meeting with ANY Russian officials.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Kushner, who omitted foreign contacts on security clearance forms, updated that list 3x "adding more than 100 names"
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/12/us/politics/trump-says-son-is-innocent-amid-reports-of-russia-meeting.html

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So Kushner will be falling on his sword then?


I look forward with interest to him explaining to a jury that Trump's promising of Clinton-related info *immediately* after that meeting were completely coincidental.

[EnglishPete]

The question here is whether Trump hired the Kremlin to help elect him President and why (was there an illegal consideration?(launder drug money from Russian mob? blackmail from prostitutes pimped by the mob? loan money obtained by false pretenses? ) and how (what crimes against the US were authorized, committed, and by whom(known fugitives who are members of the alt-right inteligencia and digerati?))

No the question here is whether the highly dubious 'evidence' that's been presented of wrongdoing by the Trump campaign and Russia in last years election was gathered in good faith or whether its been cooked up as part of a politically motivated witch hunt.

[Person Man]

The question here is whether Trump hired the Kremlin to help elect him President and why (was there an illegal consideration?(launder drug money from Russian mob? blackmail from prostitutes pimped by the mob? loan money obtained by false pretenses? ) and how (what crimes against the US were authorized, committed, and by whom(known fugitives who are members of the alt-right inteligencia and digerati?))

No the question here is whether the highly dubious 'evidence' that's been presented of wrongdoing by the Trump campaign and Russia in last years election was gathered in good faith or whether its been cooked up as part of a politically motivated witch hunt.

You mean if the evidence I am talking about was Veritased together?

[EnglishPete]

The question here is whether Trump hired the Kremlin to help elect him President and why (was there an illegal consideration?(launder drug money from Russian mob? blackmail from prostitutes pimped by the mob? loan money obtained by false pretenses? ) and how (what crimes against the US were authorized, committed, and by whom(known fugitives who are members of the alt-right inteligencia and digerati?))

No the question here is whether the highly dubious 'evidence' that's been presented of wrongdoing by the Trump campaign and Russia in last years election was gathered in good faith or whether its been cooked up as part of a politically motivated witch hunt.

You mean if the evidence I am talking about was Veritased together?

I take it that's a sly dig at Project Veritas, a much more trustworthy news organisation than the Carlos Slim blog or the Jeff Bezos blog. Cooked up means cooked up.

[KingSweden]

The fact that Don Jr. may have technically broken campaign finance laws is small potatoes, and the FEC is toothless anyway.

The real significance of these developments is that we've crossed the Rubicon from "no evidence of collusion" to "clear evidence of attempted collusion". Let's see where the evidence leads from here.

We'd almost be better off dumping the FEC and starting from scratch.

And yes, 100% correct on the second half