It doesn't matter if it actually happened or not, YouTube's exact words are "We also disallow content alleging widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of a historical U.S. Presidential election." Nothing in there about only disallowing it if somebody believes it happened.

...but it did happen, and has actual admissible evidence to support it. If it weren't for the unprecedented obstruction from the WH on the matter, we'd know even more currently - but, we'll have to wait for a year or so to get more of the story.

Still blown away how trumpism has infected the HN crowd this deeply.

I this is a good example to bring up. One person sees "Russian Intelligence officer is an associate of Trump's campaign manager, and they worked together on some 'narratives', whatever that means. And if it were something more clearly bad, The Hill would have given a clear explanation.", and another person sees "Definitive evidence of collusion." One person sees a suitcase full of ballots hidden under a table after lying about whether counting was done, another person sees a normal ballot counting process and a misunderstanding.

The same people (YouTube employees) who don't agree with you in the first place are now in the position to decide whether your argument is reasonable enough to make. Nobody is rightly in the position to put guard rails on speculation over events, and I think we'll all be better off when we finally understand this.

It's fairly definitive, the report didn't mince words:

> Among the probe's newest revelations is that Konstantin V. Kilimnik, an associate of Manafort's, was a "Russian intelligence officer." Manafort's contacts also posed a “grave counterintelligence threat,” according to the report.

> "Manafort worked with Kilimnik starting in 2016 on narratives that sought to undermine evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election," the report added.

> "At nearly 1,000 pages, Volume 5 stands as the most comprehensive examination of ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign to date — a breathtaking level of contacts between Trump officials and Russian government operatives that is a very real counterintelligence threat to our elections," Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the panel's vice chairman, added in a statement.

Per my interpretation, this all amounts to something troubling, but not definitively something solid pointing to let's say a quid pro quo. So to me this doesn't close the question of whether "it happened".

> “grave counterintelligence threat,”

Somebody's opinion about what could happen or might have happened.

> "very real counterintelligence threat"

The opinion of a member of the opposing political party about what could happen or might have happened.

> narratives

This sounds like something that could be part of collusion but I'd need to see the rest. It's open to interpretation and I don't trust the media enough to assume they wouldn't imply something like this without having something big behind it. Indeed they hint at things without actually stating them because they're not actually true all the time.

The fact that you're retreating to the semantics of the word narrative and ignoring all surrounding words is a dead giveaway that your blinders are growing longer.

Well, that should be enough to convince you that I shouldn't be in charge of what claims people get to make on YouTube.

Anyway, it kind of sounds like Manafort is involved in a conspiracy of some sort to cover up wrongdoing by the Russians. But it just feels like weasel wording. It sounds bad but I'm not sure what it really means. Is the implication that the Russians did Trump the favor of the social media campaign, and Manafort is doing them the favor of helping them cover it up? That's the quid pro quo? I don't want to give anyone the benefit of the doubt here, I want to hear the point.

Except it didn't:

https://www.npr.org/2019/03/24/706318191/trump-white-house-h...

"Special counsel Robert Mueller did not find evidence that President Trump's campaign conspired with Russia to influence the 2016 election, according to a summary of findings submitted to Congress"

It couldn't find anything on collusion, but the question of obstruction is still open... and what exactly were they obstructing investigators from finding? Evidence of collusion maybe? We won't know because they obstructed the investigation.

Let's not remove the end of that quote so quickly:

"Special counsel Robert Mueller did not find evidence that President Trump's campaign conspired with Russia to influence the 2016 election, according to a summary of findings submitted to Congress by Attorney General William Barr."

I think Attorney General William Barr did not correctly summarize the findings of the Mueller report, and was acting to drive an incorrect narrative.

Given that, I think it's entirely appropriate to also look at the Republican-controlled Senate report that the OP linked, which says it did.

>Given that, I think it's entirely appropriate to also look at the Republican-controlled Senate report that the OP linked, which says it did.

Wrong, it said it did not find collision.

Here's the summary from the lead on the US Senate Special Committee on Intelligence:

https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases...

“We can say, without any hesitation, that the Committee found absolutely no evidence that then-candidate Donald Trump or his campaign colluded with the Russian government to meddle in the 2016 election."

More fuel for the fire:

https://www.lawfareblog.com/republican-senators-misrepresent...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/08/19/marco-rub...

Rubio says this, but that doesn’t comport with the contents of the report. Trump’s Campaign manager giving internal campaign data, to a man who the Senate Intel Committee characterizes as a “Russian intel Agent”. and then lying about it to the American people and the FBI is clearly evidence of collusion.

For Rubio to make this statement, he needs to explain this finding of his committee.

If you read my link it was not referring to the Mueller investigation.

In August, of this year, the US Senate Special Committee on Intelligence concluded its investigation and found that collusion occurred with Russian nationals, and possibly Russian intelligence. _Separately_ from Mueller.

Your own article disagrees with you:

> The committee's findings are a more in-depth look at the interference than Mueller's investigation, but the findings run parallel to the conclusions of Mueller's probe, which found overwhelming evidence of Russia's efforts to interfere in the election through disinformation and cyber campaigns but a lack of sufficient evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with the Kremlin to impact the outcome of the 2016 election.

Mueller didn't indict a single US citizen for conspiring with Russia.

It didn't happen.

The article isn't about the Mueller report, it's about the Senate Committee. The Senate Committee did conclude that collusion with Russian nationals, and possibly intelligence, occurred; they did so _separately_ from the Mueller investigation.

I'll quote it again since you didn't read:

> the findings run parallel to the conclusions of Mueller's probe, which found overwhelming evidence of Russia's efforts to interfere in the election through disinformation and cyber campaigns but a lack of sufficient evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with the Kremlin to impact the outcome of the 2016 election.

That's from the article you linked.

a lack of sufficient evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with the Kremlin to impact the outcome of the 2016 election.

Do you see that part?

I do see that part, did you see the rest of that quoted paragraph?

The _subject_ of that quote is the Mueller investigation, _not_ the Senate Committee.

> the findings run parallel to the conclusions of Mueller's probe, which found overwhelming evidence of Russia's efforts to interfere in the election through disinformation and cyber campaigns but a lack of sufficient evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with the Kremlin to impact the outcome of the 2016 election.

It's stating that _Mueller's probe_ found evidence of efforts, but not sufficient evidence of conspiracy. This is _not_ stating that the committee did not.

It says they found the same thing: a lack of sufficient evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with the Kremlin to impact the outcome of the 2016 election.

It's possible to parse that quote two ways, but it's pretty easy to find another source (or read the Senate report yourself)

To quote The Intercept[1], on Paul Manafort in the Senate report:

One of Manafort’s closest aides during his time in Ukraine was Konstantin Kilimnik, who the Senate report identifies as a Russian intelligence officer. Kilimnik also served as Manafort’s liaison with Deripaska.

While he was working for Trump during the 2016 campaign, Manafort stayed in contact with Kilimnik and gave him the Trump campaign’s internal polling data, which showed that the key to defeating Clinton was to drive up negative attitudes about her among voters.

The Senate report says that the intelligence committee “obtained some information suggesting Kilimnik may have been connected to the GRU’s hack and leak operation targeting the 2016 election.” The report adds that “this information suggests that a channel for coordination on the GRU hack operation may have existed through Kilimnik.” The report adds that in interviews with Mueller’s prosecution team, “Manafort lied consistently about one issue in particular: his interactions with Kilimnik.” Manafort decided to “face more severe criminal penalties rather than provide complete answers about his interactions with Kilimnik.” The Manafort-Kilimnik relationship, the Senate report concludes, represents “the single most direct tie between senior Trump campaign officials and the Russian intelligence services.”

To emphasise a direct quote from the Republican-led Senate Committee: "the single most direct tie between senior Trump campaign officials and the Russian intelligence services."

Now it's possible that Manafort was doing this because he was greedy and getting money from the Russians (he was getting paid by them), and it's possible to argue that it wasn't collusion because Trump fired him.

And of course "collusion" is a messy thing anyway - there is no clear definition, and no crime called "colluding".

The whole report is worth reading[2].

[1] https://theintercept.com/2020/09/03/trump-russia-senate-repo...

[2] https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu...