Comrade Trump

[falafel]

Funding? Staffing?

Have they been defunded? De-staffed?

[falafel]

I don't think anyone said anything about it starting with Trump.

Then why is everyone acting like this wasn't an issue until Trump came along?

[Jeff Lebowski]

JL I think it's time for you to find a black helicopter emoji.

That is a great idea. Too many folks here falling for conspiracy theories. Would be a good companion to the foil hat emoji.

[BlueK]

Then why is everyone acting like this wasn't an issue until Trump came along?

Why does Trump still deny it even happened?: "I asked Putin. He said he didn't do it and I believe him!"
THAT is actually a big part of this being an issue this time.

So it actually stopped this time but happened before? You can't logically argue both sides of this.

[Shaka]

That is a great idea. Too many folks here falling for conspiracy theories. Would be a good companion to the foil hat emoji.

:foilhat: is one of the finer emojis.

[falafel]

Why does Trump still deny it even happened?: "I asked Putin. He said he didn't do it and I believe him!"
THAT is actually a big part of this being an issue this time.

So it actually stopped this time but happened before? You can't logically argue both sides of this.

I'm not sure what you mean by the bolded part here, or who is arguing that.

[frank ryan]

No one said we should allow it, or even like it. But pretending Russian efforts to influence our elections began with Trump is probably a little naive.

Pretending that they didn’t step up efforts with Trump is naive. The intelligence community has asserted this is unprecendted.

[falafel]

Pretending that they didn’t step up efforts with Trump is naive. The intelligence community has asserted this is unprecendted.

But, if that is the case (and I have no reason to argue for or against on that point), what does it tell us? I don't think anyone is arguing against the idea that Putin preferred Trump. Are we supposed to think that because Russians stepped up their hacking efforts this go-round, Trump was behind it all? That he asked for it? That he orchestrated it? Or just that he benefited from it?

Where should my outrage be directed? Seems like it should be directed at the Russians, not Trump.

[BlueK]

But, if that is the case (and I have no reason to argue for or against on that point), what does it tell us? I don't think anyone is arguing against the idea that Putin preferred Trump. Are we supposed to think that because Russians stepped up their hacking efforts this go-round, Trump was behind it all? That he asked for it? That he orchestrated it? Or just that he benefited from it?

Where should my outrage be directed? Seems like it should be directed at the Russians, not Trump.

that's what they're investigating. It's weird, if nothing else, that Trump's son in law and about a half dozen other associates conduct secret meetings with various Russians with Kremlin connections repeatedly during and after the campaign which they then lie about later. Or is that normal? Why continually lie about these meetings and associations? Why is Kushner meeting with Putin's personal banker (from a bank it's currently illegal to do business with) and then first deny it happened before both sides later claim completely different reasons for said meeting? That's why they're following the money trail as well. That's why the administration is freaking out now as people like Flynn start pleading guilty to stuff, and start to have people talk to Fox Noise! to start putting out distractions. You can say this isn't something nefarious proven beyond a doubt yet. Cool. But there is a lot of weird circumstantial evidence and behavior out there they are and should be investigating.

[BlueK]

Unless there is a recorded conversation of one of these meetings out there where a guy in a Russian accent introduces himself saying, 'hi, I'm from the Russian government and I'm here to help," I'm not going to believe anything happened. (apologies to Ronald Reagan)

[frank ryan]

that's what they're investigating. It's weird, if nothing else, that Trump's son in law and about a half dozen other associates conduct secret meetings with various Russians with Kremlin connections repeatedly during and after the campaign which they then lie about later. Or is that normal? Why continually lie about these meetings and associations? That's why they're following the money trail as well. That's why the administration is freaking out now as people like Flynn start pleading guilty to stuff, and start to have people talk to Fox Noise! to start putting out distractions. You can say this isn't something nefarious proven beyond a doubt yet. Cool. But there is a lot of weird circumstantial evidence and behavior out there.

Vince Shaka Lombardi can make fun of me all he wants for thinking Russia and Trump likely colluded. Certainly, Trump is not a decent human being and has no kind of moral compass that would prevent him from working with him. There are also just tons of strange things about Trump. He was invited to Moscow by the Russian in government in 87 and when he came back he spent 100 k on an ad criticizing NATO. That’s not normal.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/ilanbenmeir...1ya#.mdxkyppQk

[Shaka]

Vince Shaka Lombardi can make fun of me all he wants for thinking Russia and Trump likely colluded. Certainly, Trump is not a decent human being and has no kind of moral compass that would prevent him from working with him. There are also just tons of strange things about Trump. He was invited to Moscow by the Russian in government in 87 and when he came back he spent 100 k on an ad criticizing NATO. That’s not normal.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/ilanbenmeir...1ya#.mdxkyppQk

I prefer LaVell "Shaka" Edwards.

[Uncle Ted]

Grab the popcorn!

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LOL... "God Hillary" should win big:

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The GOP is going to have a hay day with this one...

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[Walter Sobchak]

Is that what I said? Let me help with the answer for you: No. I did not say that. Obviously I would prefer Russia keep its ugly bear nose out of our business.

But here is the reality: Putin/Russia likely has a dog in every election. We have interests in most other countries' elections too. I have no doubt the Russian have done this before. And I also have no doubt that the Russians have been very happy about the outcome of prior elections. Comrade Jimmy Carter, anyone? But so what? Are you suggesting Trump helped the hacker hack Podesta by phishing his password or in some other fashion? If not, then why is this 'news' in this thread?

Simply put, because frank and BlueK aren't being objective.

Ex-Spy Chief: Russia’s Election Hacking Was An ‘Intelligence Failure’
Former acting CIA director Michael Morell says the agency missed the meddling until it was too late.

By SUSAN B. GLASSER December 11, 2017

The politics of spying in America has never been more intense. President Trump has taken to publicly bashing his intelligence agencies and continues, a full year later, to question their conclusion that Russia intervened in the 2016 U.S. election on his behalf. For their part, an array of career spooks have come out of the shadows where they spent their careers to challenge the commander-in-chief in once unthinkably public terms.

Michael Morell is one of the career types who’s broken with decades of practice to confront Trump. A veteran of nearly three decades in the CIA, Morell rose from within the ranks to become the agency’s longtime deputy director, twice serving as its acting leader before retiring during President Barack Obama’s second term. In the summer of 2016, he broke with tradition to endorse Hillary Clinton over Trump, and he has continued to sound the alarm ever since.

But in a revealingly self-critical and at times surprising interview for this week’s Global POLITICO, Morell acknowledges that he and other spy-world critics of the president failed to fully “think through” the negative backlash generated by their going political. “There was a significant downside,” Morell said in the interview.

Morell, who grew up as a superstar CIA analyst and eventually graduated to become President George W. Bush’s personal daily intelligence briefer during the momentous events before and after the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001, was also reflective about the costs of the massive shift in emphasis toward counterterrorism after that attack – in particular, a failure to focus on the threat posed by a resurgent Russia under President Vladimir Putin until it was arguably too late.

The Russian 2016 hacking, Morell told me, was in fact a U.S. “intelligence failure” in multiple ways. It was, he argued, at the least “a failure of imagination that’s not dissimilar to the failure of imagination that we had for 9/11,” with America’s spy agencies apparently unable to have conceived of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter and electronic hacking of Gmail being used to attack the country’s election.

[...]

Glasser: So, Russiagate? Or whatever we want to call it. I don’t know if you have a better name for it than that. Based on your intelligence analyst hat, looking at the dots that are out there—how do we construct a narrative around them that makes sense? Is there enough information to construct a narrative? What do you make of the evidence that’s public, recognizing that it’s a very small amount of the evidence, presumably?

[...]

Morell: So, let’s talk about what I think the possibilities are, going forward. So, I would not be surprised if Bob Mueller concludes that the Trump campaign did not violate the law with regard to its interactions with the Russians. I’m really open to that possibility. Why? Because, as you know, The New York Times, The Washington Post, every media outlet that is worth its salt has reporters digging into this, and they haven’t found anything. And I think that, had there been something there, they would have found something. And I think Bob Mueller would have found it already and it would have leaked. So, I’m really open to the possibility that there’s no there there on a crime being committed by the campaign and the Russians. Right? That interaction leading to criminal charges.

The second point I’d make is that I wouldn’t be surprised if there were single individuals who were associated with the campaign who violated the law with respect to their interactions with the Russians on the election. Paul Manafort comes to mind. I think he has little to no integrity. There’s no way you spend that much time with the old Ukrainian government and not bump up against Russian intelligence officers a lot. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were single individuals who faced criminal charges here with regard to their interactions with the Russians, and Paul Manafort’s a possibility. But that’s different than a conspiracy by the campaign, right?

The third thing I’d say is, every FBI investigation that I’ve ever had visibility into or been involved in, the people who they’re looking at actually don’t end up getting charged with the crime they were being investigated for. They get charged with something else. Right? And that something else in this case could be the laundering of Russian organized crime funds. And if that was done by the Trump organization—if that was done knowingly—it’s a criminal violation.

If it was done unwittingly, because you didn’t do the due diligence that’s required under U.S. law for where the money is coming from, from overseas—it’s a civil penalty. And the Trump organization gets fined. What the politics of all that is, I have no idea. That’s the third thing I’d say.

The fourth thing I’d say is, the obstruction of justice issue. In my view, when I read the statute, boy, it looks—you know, it looks like you could make a case. Now, the hard part is intent. Right? You have to intend to violate the statute. You have to intend to obstruct justice. That’s the difficult piece to prove here.

You need something on paper, or you need somebody who heard the president say something about what he was trying to do here, or you need him to tell you that. Right? Well, he’s not going to do that. And so, while it looks like it to all of us, that that’s what he was trying to do—you’ve got to get to that intent part, and that’s what’s hard from a criminal perspective.

[Uncle Ted]

Yep, Peter Strzok was the same dude that headed up the "God Hillary" private server investigation...

Electronic records show Peter Strzok, who led the investigation of Hillary Clinton's private email server as the No. 2 official in the counterintelligence division, changed Comey's earlier draft language describing Clinton's actions as "grossly negligent" to "extremely careless," the sources said.
[...]
The shift from "grossly negligent" to "extremely careless," which may appear pedestrian at first glance, reflected a decision by the FBI that could have had potentially significant legal implications, as the federal law governing the mishandling of classified material establishes criminal penalties for "gross negligence."

http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/04/politi...mey/index.html

But wait, there is more... he started the investigation in the Russian meddling or the investigation on how the "idiot" could beat "God Hillary":

CNN has also learned that Strzok was the FBI official who signed the document officially opening an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, according to sources familiar with the matter. As the No. 2 official in counterintelligence, Strzok was considered to be one of the bureau's top experts on Russia.


But the news of Strzok's direct role in the statement that ultimately cleared the former Democratic presidential candidate of criminal wrongdoing, now combined with the fact that he was dismissed from special counsel Robert Mueller's team after exchanging private messages with an FBI lawyer that could be seen as favoring Clinton politically, may give ammunition to those seeking ways to discredit Mueller's Russia investigation

Then there is this letter from some dumbass law professor:

SO I JUST HAD AN INTERESTING EMAIL EXCHANGE WITH THE SPECIAL COUNSEL’S PRESS OFFICE:


Me:


I’m hearing from a source that Lisa Page was involved in approving Peter Strzok’s warrant requests to the FISC and possibly elsewhere. Can you confirm or deny if this was the case? And please tell me what her job title and function are in your office. Thanks.


Them (via spokesman Joshua Stueve):


Lisa Page, who was an attorney on detail to the Special Counsel’s office, returned to the FBI’s Office of the General Counsel in mid-July.


Me again:


Thank you but that doesn’t answer my question. What role did Lisa Page have in the handling of warrant applications, and in particular those involving Peter Strzok?


Them again:


I’ll decline to comment further.


Well, then.


Page, remember, is the FBI lawyer with whom Strzok was having an extramarital affair and exchanging anti-Trump texts. Perhaps someone with more resources than I will be able to get to the bottom of this. (Bumped).

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/283195

How many text messages did they have between these two again?