President Trump

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Post by wayfriend »

Justice Dept. Never Fully Examined Trump's Ties to Russia, Ex-Officials Say

The Justice Department secretly took steps in 2017 to narrow the investigation into Russian election interference and any links to the Trump campaign, according to former law enforcement officials, keeping investigators from completing an examination of President Trump's decades-long personal and business ties to Russia.

... But law enforcement officials never fully investigated Mr. Trump's own relationship with Russia, even though some career F.B.I. counterintelligence investigators thought his ties posed such a national security threat that they took the extraordinary step of opening an inquiry into them. Within days, the former deputy attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein curtailed the investigation without telling the bureau, all but ensuring it would go nowhere.

... Installing Mr. Mueller as special counsel in May 2017, Mr. Rosenstein ordered him to examine "any links and/or coordination between the Russian government" and the Trump campaign. Many Democrats embraced the appointment as a sign that law enforcement would complete a full accounting of Mr. Trump's ties to Russia.

But privately, Mr. Rosenstein instructed Mr. Mueller to conduct only a criminal investigation into whether anyone broke the law in connection with Russia's 2016 election interference, former law enforcement officials said.[link]
In short, the investigation was forbidden from adding a counterintelligence aspect to this case. They did not investigate Trumps ties to Russia, whether it could be used as leverage against Trump, and whether or not Trump was operating on the Kremlin's behalf.

This casts sufficient doubt on the no-collusion findings IMO.

And it casts the shadow of doubt over the Department of Justice, who hamstrung the investigation before it even started in order to serve Trump. (That the DoJ serves Trump's personal interests is now common knowledge. To wit, it is defending Trump in at least one sexual abuse case.)
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Post by Skyweir »

There is no doubt and Mueller made it absolutely clear that the findings were NOT no collusion. It was not a vindication of Trump.
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Post by Hashi Lebwohl »

wayfriend wrote:Justice Dept. Never Fully Examined Trump's Ties to Russia, Ex-Officials Say
*yawn* That is so 2018. The Mueller Investigation is over and Trump got impeached but exonerated--remember that reality show back in January? I can hear you chanting it in Jan Brady's voice: "Russia, Russia, Russia".

You know, Cake wrote a song about people like that who absoluately cannot let go of something. Good song, too--The Distance--it is about a guy who cannot stop striving to win when someone else left the race track hours ago with the victory cup. The Russia story totally collapsed and stopped being a thing then the Sentate voted not to remove Trump from office--the Democrats never even mentioned it (maybe once) at their national convention, so I can only presume they wanted people to forget about it. He will never be impeached for it again, much less charged with a crime once he leaves office. It might make for some good fan fiction, though.
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Post by wayfriend »

It's the news of the day, Hashi. I know it's the job of the partisan hack to be dismissive without requiring a valid reason. But blame the justice department as they lied for three years, not me.

(Note: facts don't need a recap. Towers of lies do. Otherwise people forget which lie to tell.)
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Post by Hashi Lebwohl »

Without limitations, Mueller would have been allowed to investigate absolutely anything he wanted to, whether it involved Russia or not. No criminal investigation is ever completely open-ended, not even in movies. I don't have to recall towers of lies, only the facts. The Trump Campaign did not collude with Russia and Trump is not in the pocket of Putin.

The Justice Department needs to be looking into the DNC for turning the FBI into a political weapon back in 2015 and 2016 as well as the FBI, itself, for allowing itself to become weaponized.

I am curious about the Trump hate, though. The man has never done anything to anyone here on a personal level and yet the hate for him is stronger than anything I ever feel for the psycho ex who actually burned my books and attacked me with a knife.
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Post by Gaius Octavius »

People hate Trump because he is seen as a national security threat.
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Post by sgt.null »

ur-Nanothnir wrote:People hate Trump because he is seen as a national security threat.
In what way?
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Post by Gaius Octavius »

I believe you already know. In fact, it was bad enough for General Mattis to plot invoking the 25th amendment in order to forcefully remove Trump from power. Gen. Mattis is generally seen as a pretty straight-laced, honorable man who puts country before politics. If he says it is bad, it is bad.

If he wins and things continue to get worse, eventually you will see clandestine plots against Trump from the CIA, if they aren't already in motion.
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Post by Skyweir »

Mmm... I have posted the Mueller Report terms of reference equivalent which prescribe what the investigation can cover.
the Senate report covers a fair bit more ground for a few reasons. For one thing, it was not limited to information it could prove beyond a reasonable doubt in court, as Mueller was.

Just as important, the committee included counterintelligence questions in its investigative remit—whereas Mueller limited himself to a review of criminal activity.
But here’s a few good links to help understand the report findings

https://www.justsecurity.org/63838/guid ... collusion/

That the trott did not exonerate Trump
https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.bbc ... a-42493918

What is incontrovertible:
“The Russian government engaged in an aggressive, multi-faceted effort to influence, or attempt to influence, the outcome of the 2016 presidential election,” the report, which was co-signed by both Democrats and Republicans on the Senate committee, says.

“Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian effort to hack computer networks and accounts affiliated with the Democratic Party and leak information damaging to Hillary Clinton and her campaign for president” to WikiLeaks.
Null you asked about national security threat, the Senate Intelligence Committee found hundreds of actions connected with Russian interference with the 2016 election.
The report describes hundreds of actions by Trump, his campaign, and his associates in the run-up to the 2016 election that involve some degree of participation by Trump or his associates in Russian activity.
Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chair, comes under heavy criticism in the report for his “willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services” — this “represented a grave counterintelligence threat.”
Great overview here:

https://www.lawfareblog.com/collusion-r ... ittee-find

Where the pubs asserts the Senate Intel Committee Report shows no “collusion”. The term collusion has no agreed meaning in law rendering it a pursuit in futility.

The Dems conclusion:
The Committee's bipartisan Report unambiguously shows that members of the Trump Campaign cooperated with Russian efforts to get Trump elected.

It recounts efforts by Trump and his team to obtain dirt on their opponent from operatives acting on behalf of the Russian government. It reveals the extraordinary lengths by which Trump and his associates actively sought to enable the Russian interference operation by amplifying its electoral impact and rewarding its perpetrators—even after being warned of its Russian origins.

And it presents, for the first time, concerning evidence that the head of the Trump Campaign was directly connected to the Russian meddling through his communications with an individual found to be a Russian intelligence officer.
Law Fares conclusions aligns objectively with the above perspective:
To read these thousand pages and come away with the conclusion that they amount to evidence of “no collusion” really involves a protestation of faith, not a dispassionate assessment of presented evidence. As we said at the outset, debating what constitutes “collusion” is not worth anyone’s time, given that the word has no agreed-upon meaning in this context and that to say that there was none of it doesn’t answer in any event the more important question of what the facts amount to.
These they assert are the key facts/findings

Here are the conclusions we believe the Intelligence Committee’s evidence supports:

1. The Trump campaign and Donald Trump himself were certainly aware in real time of Russian efforts to intervene in the 2016 presidential election.

The campaign had a heads-up that Russia had stolen Democratic emails. And Russian operatives sought and received a meeting with senior Trump campaign officials promising “dirt” on Trump’s opponent. As the campaign wore on, and the Russian efforts were increasingly made public, Trump personally and publicly encouraged them.

2. The Trump campaign was run for a time by a man with an ongoing business relationship with a Russian intelligence operative, to whom he gave proprietary internal polling data.

3. The Trump campaign did not discourage Russian activity on its behalf. In fact, it sought repeatedly to coordinate its messaging around WikiLeaks releases of information. The campaign, and Trump personally, sought to contact WikiLeaks to receive information in advance about releases and may well have succeeded.

4. The campaign sought to obtain disparaging information about Hillary Clinton from actors who either were Russian operatives or it believed were Russian operatives. It did so through a number of means—some of these efforts were direct. Some were indirect.

5. The Russian government and affiliated actors clearly regarded the Trump campaign as a prime target for influence and recruitment. Russia targeted a diverse array of people associated with Trump for contact and engagement through an astonishing variety of avenues. Some of these attempts were rebuffed. Many of them were successful. The result was a sustained degree of engagement between the campaign, and later the transition, and Russian officials and cutouts.

6. Trump’s personal and business history in Russia provided a significant opportunity for kompromat. Such material was very likely collected. There is less evidence that it was ever deployed, though Trump’s mere awareness of his vulnerability gives rise to substantial counterintelligence concerns.

7. Trump’s active pursuit of business deals in Russia while running for president and denying any such deals created significant counterintelligence risk.

8. Trump’s campaign, and later transition, were filled with a remarkable number of people who had secret interactions with Russian actors, about which they lied either in real time or in retrospect.

9. All of this activity, particularly cumulatively, amounts to a grave set of counterintelligence concerns, in which any number of Trump campaign figures—including the candidate himself—exposed themselves to potential coercive pressure from an adversary foreign actor.

10. Trump to this day will not criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin or acknowledge unambiguously Russian intervention in the 2016 election.
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Post by wayfriend »

Speaking about how Trump, obvious to everyone, is a national security threat:
Trump's need to gossip about nukes provokes anxiety

For President Donald Trump, it seems like another a perk of the job: a just-between-us hint at a secret only he can reveal.

Boasting of his "great intel," Trump once told Russian officials visiting the Oval Office in 2017 about an ISIS plot so classified the disclosure risked exposing the source.

In a telephone call with the President of the Philippines, also in 2017, Trump revealed the US had positioned submarines near North Korea, information previously so closely held that even some inside the White House were caught by surprise.

And in a newly revealed conversation with legendary journalist Bob Woodward, Trump disclosed a nuclear weapons system he claimed "you haven't even seen or heard about."

"I have built a nuclear - a weapons system that nobody's ever had in this country before," Trump said, according to a recording of their December 5, 2019, conversation, before going on to say: "We have stuff that Putin and Xi have never heard about before. There's nobody. What we have is incredible."

[...] In May, Trump boasted the US military was developing a new "super duper" missile that he claimed could travel 17 times faster than anything in the current arsenal. The disclosure set off a small drama at the Pentagon, where officials refused to provide any details of the weapon Trump himself unveiled.

[...] In early August 2019, Trump confirmed reports that an advanced nuclear-powered cruise missile had exploded during testing in Russia and said the US was "learning much" from the incident, information which one senior administration official described as "not classified anymore," acknowledging that it had been classified information until the President tweeted that "We have similar, though more advanced, technology. The Russian "Skyfall" explosion has people worried about the air around the facility, and far beyond. Not good!"

[...] Also, in August last year, Trump claimed the US had nothing to do with the explosion of an Iranian rocket, tweeting a photo at such high resolution that it prompted questions about whether the President had publicly released classified imagery.

[...] One of the highest profile intel breaches came in an exchange with Russian officials in the Oval Office in 2017. The visit by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and then-Ambassador to Washington Sergey Kislyak had already sparked an uproar and violated basic White House protocol and guidance from the President's top advisers. It was later revealed Trump divulged classified information to the Russian officials that had been relayed to the US by the Israeli government.

[...] Asked whether Trump may speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin or other world leaders on his cell, one former top White House official said "we never knew who he was speaking to once he was up in the residence."
"This was our biggest concern," this official added. "Not only were calls being made on unsecure lines, the President's filter was faulty, and so there was no telling what he'd say, and to whom."

[...] the remark was revealing [...] because it demonstrated Trump's penchant for using sometimes secret government information to impress his interlocutors and convey his stature.
Who will be the first person to bite the stupid candy and say "the President can declassify anything he wants" ? As if his extremely poor judgement as to what to declassify, and when to declassify it, doesn't matter. As if declassifying secret information for no other reason that to boast doesn't matter.
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Post by wayfriend »

A notion that did not occur to me, but is obvious in retrospect:
Trump’s “no panic” Woodward tapes spin would be easier to buy if his campaign weren’t all about panic

President Donald Trump’s response to devastating revelations from a new book that he privately knew the coronavirus would be devastating to the US is to say he was trying to project “calm” — a state of being at odds with his entire reelection strategy. [link]
Point made, I think.
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Post by Hashi Lebwohl »

There is only one small problem with that premise: corona did not "devastate" the United States. The panic-driven lockdowns caused more harm than the actual virus itself. Yes, people died, but a hell of a lot more people are suffering economically.

Oh...and Skyweir...we have been all over Mueller in the Mueller thread. They could not find any smoking guns and could not impeach Trump over it, so all the Russia crap is, well, crap. By all means, though, keep digging yourself down into the hole--not my problem.
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Post by Gaius Octavius »

How do you know that the lockdowns caused more harm than what would have been caused by the virus had there been no lockdowns?

New York took measures regarding the coronavirus and still got slammed hard by it. It was a massive humanitarian emergency that swamped hospitals and caused chaos. It had a high fatality rate. It likely would have been worse if more people were allowed to spread the virus.

Rural areas haven't been hit as hard by the virus when compared to major metropolitan areas. However, that's because things are spread out and the population density is sparse.

It also remains fact that Trump knowingly misrepresented the virus by saying it was no worse than the cold/flu and not a big deal, that young people were practically immune, etc. He knew that what he said was utter bullshit, and he said it anyway. He continues to play it down, and he continues to have large rallies with no social distancing and few, if any, mask wearers. He even told people to remove their masks! He does not take it seriously despite knowing otherwise.

That's why people are pissed. It was dereliction of duty. Because he spread misinformation, now a large portion of his own voter base believes incorrect information.

He pushed for reopening the economy not because he was worried about long-term economic damage, but rather his own odds at re-election. He puts his own interests before the country.
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Post by sgt.null »

ur-Nanothnir wrote:I believe you already know. In fact, it was bad enough for General Mattis to plot invoking the 25th amendment in order to forcefully remove Trump from power. Gen. Mattis is generally seen as a pretty straight-laced, honorable man who puts country before politics. If he says it is bad, it is bad.

If he wins and things continue to get worse, eventually you will see clandestine plots against Trump from the CIA, if they aren't already in motion.
Now leftists favor military takeovers? Wow. Coup d'etat?
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Post by Gaius Octavius »

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In his place shall arise a contemptible person to whom royal majesty has not been given. He shall come in without warning and obtain the kingdom by flatteries. Daniel 11:21
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The Great Deceiver, leading people astray.

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Post by TheFallen »

I'm trusting that your post above was tongue in cheek, Nano. Presumably intended to satirise all examples of farcical narrative framing, such as Biden's quasi-apocalyptic and end of times "allies of the Light vs Agents of the Dark" bizarrely chosen eye-poppingly insane Lord Of The Rings style schtick?

Because if that set of pix you posted represents what you now honestly think, then my fear that you've escaped the clutches of one extremist cult only to dive blindly straight into the clutches of another... would seem to be absolutely smack bang on the money accurate. Please tell me you've not succeeded in now radicalising yourself in the belief sets of the polar opposite but equally swivel-eyed fringe lunatics?

Jesus but some of you guys give me cause for concern sometimes... some of you clearly should not be allowed to venture into the weirder far reaches of the Internet unsupervised.
Newsflash: the word "irony" doesn't mean "a bit like iron" :roll:

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Post by Ur Dead »

The Net should only be used by OLD people...
We then would know what we posted was total BS.
I get to a point where I worry if we should hand over the planet to the youngins.
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Post by sgt.null »

Wow. Ur, are you posting ironically?
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Post by Skyweir »

I’m ok with that. It’s the old ones that can’t seem to adapt well to changing circumstances.

I got to say I hope that was satire too ... 🙏🤞 and am invoking all my magical 🧙‍♂️ 🧚🏻‍♀️ 🧝‍♀️ in hopes that it indeed was.
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Post by TheFallen »

The really scary thing re Nano's post is that, such is the hyperpolarised and fanatical political climate in the US, we even feel the need to ask in all seriousness if his post was satirical or not. Because we all think there's a more than tiny chance that it might not actually be tongue in cheek. And the fact that we all have that doubt is truly terrifying.

Anyone else still thinking my recent and quite deliberate references to tactics effectively calling the faithful to jihad were overstating things?
Newsflash: the word "irony" doesn't mean "a bit like iron" :roll:

Shockingly, some people have claimed that I'm egocentric... but hey, enough about them

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