Why No Evidence of Collusion With the Russians ?

[Ten oz]

The problem is that impeachment is a political process and not a legal one. Right now we have a Republican led Congress, and the Republican congressman are going to weigh the impact of an impeachment on their re-election chances.

If they are from a heavily Republican district/state, there are going to be a large number of Trump supporters who's vote they would lose if they went for impeachment. Votes that could go for a challenger in the primaries. (So even if his state/district still elects a Republican to the office, it might not be him.)

If the state is more evenly split and could go either way in the general election, He still has to win the primary in order to have chance to run in the general. If the Republican voters lean pro-Trump, but the general populace run pro-impeachment, he is in a tough spot either way and has to decide which position would be the least damaging to his re-election chances.

Yes, it is a political process which is why I questioned if enough people would care. It will would take Republicans fearing mid term election losses if they don't acted and that is only possible if there is a massive wave of support for impeachment. Sadly I don't expect that to happen and congressional elections are so gerrymandered it is hard to envision any events which might leaad to Democrats winning a majority regardless of how investigations play out.

 

As for 2020 I think Trump is actually already in a stonger position than he was ahead of 2016. For starters Imcumbency has advantages. Trump will have power in 2020 to shape world events which in turn will give him power to manipulate the issues candidates will be forced to addressand debate. A polutician with integrity wouldn't abuse such power but Trump is shameless. Worst of all Trump has already began a nation wide "investigation" into voter fraud. This will lead to subtle changes in how people will need to register to vote in key battle ground states. Will power over the White House, Senate, House, and the Court I suspect a voter supression effort unlike we have ever seen where registered voters are dumped in mass and forced to jump through hoops at the last miunute on the pretense of stopping fraud. Trump will be very hard to beat in 2020.

[swansont]

I started this thread based on hearing "still no evidence for collusion" repeated so many times by Fox News and other Trump supporters. This is questioning the veracity of their claim.

State television is prone to omit, and lie. Not a difficult thing to figure out. When they reported on Jr's emails, they omitted the part of the email that mentioned that part that said the offer was coming from the Russian government

[thatsneakyguy]

Transcript of Trump Jr.'s Russia meeting emails

 

This looks like the incriminating part:

 

 

On Jun 3, 2016, at 10:36 AM, Rob Goldstone (obscured) wrote:

Good morning

Emin just called and asked me to contact you with something very interesting.

The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.

This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump - helped along by Aras and Emin.

What do you think is the best way to handle this information and would you be able to speak to Emin about it directly?

I can also send this info to your father via Rhona, but it is ultra sensitive so wanted to send to you first.

Best

Rob Goldstone

<snip>

———

On Jun 3, 2016, at 10:53, Donald Trump Jr. (obscured) wrote:

Thanks Rob I appreciate that. I am on the road at the moment but perhaps I just speak to Emin first. Seems we have some time and if it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer. Could we do a call first thing next week when I am back?

Best,

Don

Sent from my iPhone

———

 

[Airbrush]

The claim that Trump was not aware of the meeting between his son, son-in-law, Manifort, and the Russians, until very recently, is not plausible considering his close family unit. Trump's children and wife are robots to the dad. Trump has an off-the-scale overpowering personality, along with narcissistic personality disorder. That is how it is not plausible. He is a control freak on steroids.

 

Clearly Trump is the kind of guy that would WANT to know about this at the time it happened. He may even understand that it would not look good for him to participate, and he would most likely make it plain to his son and team that the appearance should be he doesn't know about it. Even the Secret Service would have a problem with Trump, himself, meeting a team of Russians at that time. If Trump was never informed about the meeting, I think he would be very angry at his son for not tipping him off. Trump likes to know that kind of big news in a timely manner. I'm sure Mueller is aware of this.

Edited July 17, 2017 by Airbrush

[Ten oz]

The claim that Trump was not aware of the meeting between his son, son-in-law, Manifort, and the Russians, until very recently, is not plausible considering his close family unit. Trump's children and wife are robots to the dad. Trump has an off-the-scale overpowering personality, along with narcissistic personality disorder. That is how it is not plausible. He is a control freak on steroids.

 

Clearly Trump is the kind of guy that would WANT to know about this at the time it happened. He may even understand that it would not look good for him to participate, and he would most likely make it plain to his son and team that the appearance should be he doesn't know about it. Even the Secret Service would have a problem with Trump, himself, meeting a team of Russians at that time. If Trump was never informed about the meeting, I think he would be very angry at his son for not tipping him off. Trump likes to know that kind of big news in a timely manner. I'm sure Mueller is aware of this.

 

I don't think Trump cares about optics one bit. I could sit here all afternoon linking videos of Trump contradictions. Everything from Ivanka won't be working in his admin to his healthcare plan will cover everyone, Free of how things will look at some future point doesn't weigh heavily into Trump's decision making process.

[CharonY]

A little while ago Bill Bowder has given his testimony to the Senate. While it is not specifically about the Trump administration, it provides the backstory the Magnitsky act and why Natalia Veselnitskaya was interested in it.

[iNow]

Interesting that you bumped this today. Mueller has at this time also empaneled a grand jury. It's incredibly unlikely he'd have taken that step if there were were no "there there" or if he and his team weren't ready to file charges against members of the campaign.

[imatfaal]

excellent twitter thread/legal primer from Seth Abramson on the Fed GJ, its particular powers, and likely consequences in this case

https://t.co/4kKRDze2B5