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Russian To Judgement?
In the last 24 hours, two new stories on the Trump-Russia relationship have been published by the New York Times and The Washington Post, respectively.
The NYT headline reads F.B.I. Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia and posits that immediately after the President fired FBI director James Comey in May of 2017, the agency opened up an investigation to determine if President Trump was working on behalf in Russian interests:
Agents and senior F.B.I. officials had grown suspicious of Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign but held off on opening an investigation into him, the people said, in part because they were uncertain how to proceed with an inquiry of such sensitivity and magnitude. But the president’s activities before and after Mr. Comey’s firing in May 2017, particularly two instances in which Mr. Trump tied the Comey dismissal to the Russia investigation, helped prompt the counterintelligence aspect of the inquiry, the people said.
Buried nine paragraphs in the story comes this reveal:
No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials. An F.B.I. spokeswoman and a spokesman for the special counsel’s office both declined to comment.
The Washington Post says Trump has concealed details of his face-to-face encounters with Putin from senior officials in administration and claims that after a one-on-one meet with Putin in Hamburg in 2017, Trump confiscated the interpreter’s notes:
President Trump has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, including on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials, current and former U.S. officials said.
Predictably, the media and Twitter are spinning both reports as “smoking guns” and proof of collusion. What say you, Ricochet members?
Published in General
Sounds like they got nothin’. Does the release of these stories indicate some upcoming event in Mueller’s kabuki? I say the leftwits are doing battlespace prep.
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But “Crossfire Hurricane” was started in July of 2016. And British spy Stephen Halper (at the behest of Team Clinton?) was probing the Trump campaign as early as March of 2016. So “started” after Comey was fired is misleading.
Overall, the Team Obama abuse of IRS, CIA, FBI, NSA, … is the greatest scandal in US history. Until this treason is prosecuted, the lesson is that the deep state is above the law.
Russia has leverage over Trump. Describe this leverage.
Russia has leverage over Trump. He ran for POTUS anyway. Discuss.
Trump knows that he has committed international crimes. He ran for POTUS anyway. Discuss.
I’ll take a stab at these, but let me put my leftwit hat on …
I can’t. Conor McGregor is a jerk, tho, and so is Ashley Judd. That’s relevant, right?
They told him to run for President. Just look at his background – totally fabricated, an obvious Manchurian (Potemkininian?) candidate.
Interpol was on the way to pick him up but had to answer a call at Ashley Judd’s house. They’ll be knocking on the WH door to haul him off just as soon as Mueller files his report.
Exactly. Maybe I’m wrong, but doesn’t someone have to address this in a clear way? I’ve never heard it. Or have I?
You’re thinking like a person of the right, using the paradigm that what really happens in the world is what matters. Try thinking like one of the left, who assigns reality first to their own feelings, then to their thoughts, and only to the world when it especially intrudes. The last thing they want is to hear any problem analyzed or concretely addressed.
Poor Trump. Just can’t get a break.
These stories were intended as hit pieces against Trump but they actually detail how corrupt the senior levels of the FBI and DOJ were. There isn’t actually a lot of new news here, it’s just that the NYT and WaPo are only now getting around to informing their readers that rabid Leftist hacks in the executive branch attempted a coup against the president based on nothing but their own vindictive hatred for Donald Trump. It’s a disgrace and these people (Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Lisa Page, etc) should be prosecuted and put in prison for their crimes against the nation.
For the depth and breadth of people who are absolutely certain there is something there w/r/t Russian collusion, etc. it seems to them that it’s just a “matter of time” before something comes out. I’ve heard that since they called up the special counsel. It’s been quite a long time, and given the resources used by the previous administration to cover up Hillary’s actual crimes (see: personal server), you’d think Mueller would have something by now. They’ve leaked every possibility (however remote and ludicrous) to the eagerly lapdog media who run with it for days, speculating and speculating as if clicking their collective heels together enough times will make collusion appear out of thin air. All of these strategic “insider” reports that the major media outlets keep foisting on the public as “proof” are to plant seeds of doubt ahead of the next Presidential election cycle. The fundamental problem of course is length of memory and the real danger that the media will overplay their hand and be perceived (correctly in some cases) as having an axe to grind against Trump.
This is a long way from “Russians meddling in our election.” If Mueller had anything damning, he’d have released it before the midterms to boost Democrat votes. If anyone, otherwise sane, thinks there is a “smoking gun” after this lengthy, unfocused and overtly political inquiry, I am afraid there’s no convincing him or her of the reality that it’s all been a sham and a waste of money.
I’ve decided that the press is just desperate at this point. Full of piss and vinegar, they throatily scream “Trump is a crook” so many times a day, it’s becoming a dull buzz in the background of an already weak press credibility metric.
Definitive proof of the Deep State and Media hostility to President Trump, and nothing more.
Jumpin’ Jack Flash is a gas…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YFjXz29qOA
Can you please cite these details?
I think it’s more than that. These people were surprised by 2016, and not in a good way. They fully expected to keep their power and influence in government. They won’t be satisfied until they’ve clawed it back again. Nothing is too corrupt an action because no one is more virtuous (I know, lefties aren’t known for their coherence) and better intended. I believe they would have done something similar to any Republican who might have defeated Hillary (and there were no other Republicans who would have defeated Hillary).
Can someone here offer a reasonable justification for Trump’s insistence on meeting Putin without a note taking aide present?
What possible benefit is there for the country to have our diplomats and national security personnel operating without knowing what was discussed and/or agreed to?
Obama was rightly criticized for trying to get a private message to Putin about post-election flexibility but completely private, hours long meetings are met with silence or rationalization by many of the same people.
So Trump’s private meetings with Putin didn’t happen or are not a big deal?
Did you read the articles?
When everybody and his brother are leaking to the press, including the intelligence community and long time ‘civil servants’, it strikes me as down-right prudent to make sure you walk away with the only written record on your side of the table, and the functionaries have only hearsay to peddle. PDJT has evidently had prior experience dealing with weasels, and has learned to treat the permanent Washington establishment as such.
I would like to know, from the Trump/Russia theorists, just what’s the evidence that he’s acted at their behest, compared to others such as, for instance, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Are you saying Trump can not trust his own aides?
How do you expect the national security staff and diplomats to function without knowing what the President said or committed to?
I believe you have the issue inverted and that your comment begs a significant question. There are many reasons why two leaders may wish to speak off the record, and no reason I can see that might suggest that Mr. Trump would or did not relay the relevant content of any discussion to his staff, as appropriate.
You fear “his own aides” cannot trust Trump, which is an inversion of the actual relationship. His aides are not the entrusted custodian of the Republic – President Trump is. Is it that you project your own disquiet onto “his own aides,” or do you have firm indication that they feel that way, that they are exercising legitimate oversight over the President?
If so, those little kids need a spanking.
There are numerous White House “aides” who were not hired by Trump, but by his predecessor, and NO, he cannot trust them. Personally, when he was first elected I advocated him firing every single employee who worked there before, and hiring a brand new staff. He did not do that, and he is suffering for it now.
Are you suggesting the President personally brief the entire national security staff and diplomatic corps? Absent a written record of the conversation, that is exactly what would be necessary for those people to have the information necessary to do their jobs. Jobs, by the way, they do on behalf of the United States, not for the personal benefit of Donald Trump.
The only one suggesting a need for oversight is you. The fact Trump feels the need to speak to Putin without others present is concerning and if you were concerned with Obama whispering to Medvedev but not by this, you should ask yourself why.
And this explains his unwillingness to allow any aide into the meeting? What about all the WH aides he did hire?
Its time for a special prosecutor to investigate the Russia probe including, its relationship with everything from Hillary’s email scandal, to the Clinton foundation, the Clinton campaign, the Russians, whether or not the FISA judge violated the law when they approved a warrant based on the steele dossier, whether or not the intelligence community and members of the obama administration violated the law with its unmaskings, and any crime that may come up in the course of the events.
Especially mail fraud, because everybody is indictable for mail fraud.
Why would you require a special prosecutor? If there is cause for such an investigation, why doesn’t Trump’s AG initiate one?
It’s nice to know that the FBI has taken upon itself the responsibilty to vet the duly elected President of the United States and then to selectively leak its findings to certain media outlets.
I’m sure they’ll cite as their authority for those actions the well-known “Mark Felt clause” of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution.