For example, Fusion GPS paying Veselnitskaya, using her to lobby _against_ the magnitsky act, and also supplying the infamous "dossier" which was paid for by the DNC.
The whole thing is a cobweb or power players who use connections and ignorant US media to parrot back narratives, divide events into political tribes, and isolate people from the truth. It's a dumpster fire where people end up believing things that are untrue and they don't even know why.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/analysis-mueller-and...
Thus, this is the thinnest conceivable gruel for spying on a campaign with FISA warrants, framing an incoming national security advisor, multiple impeachment efforts, four years of media hysteria deeply interned with leaks and special council, and countless lives ruined. In the course of history, there are simply no excuses for this kind of casual slander, excepting smack dab in the middle of an outrageously powerful police-bureaucratic state.
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-paul-manafort-russia...
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/manafort...
Because apparently we're going to pretend that NBCnews is somehow not a reputable news source, the link to the actual document so we can stop trying to change the subject:
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5677512/Manafort-...
Page 6, copy and paste the blacked out text:
>The same is true with regard to the Government’s allegation that Mr. Manafort lied about sharing polling data with Mr. Kilimnik related to the 2016 presidential campaign. (See Doc. 460 at 6). The simple fact that Mr. Manafort could not recall, or incorrectly recalled, specific events from his past dealings with Mr. Kilimnik – but often (after being shown or told about relevant documents or other evidence) corrected himself or clarified his responses – does not support a determination that he intentionally lied.
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5677512/Manafort-...
If you have an issue with that site you can go to literally dozens of others, how about the BBC?
Fuzzy thinking around it was and is being used to excuse extraordinary abuse of the law and legal system.
To be illegal, information sharing has to violate some law. This does not. It is simply not illegal to share information with Russia citizens, the Russian government, or anyone affiliated with Russia.
Not even "secret" information, unless that information is governed under very specific laws. All this media puffery is absolute manipulation, and your distributing it shows that you either don't understand the law or don't wish to.
I can't tell if you're intentionally stating falsehoods with the hope nobody will fact check you, or if you're just completely ignorant of the law. He was accused and convicted of acting as an unregistered foreign agent. Is it absolutely, unquestionably illegal to be a political operative for a foreign government and not register. For good reason. He broke the law, he went to prison. It was entirely illegal.
And NONE of that has anything to do with the original question or answer. Which is: what proof is there that he gave polling data to the Russians. Which I provided, and you still haven't refuted.
I assert strongly that no one on earth should care in the slightest.
Sharing non-classified information is completely legal. Working for a foreign business is legal. Getting paid is legal. Almost everything is legal.
Acting as an foreign agent without disclosure is illegal, in limited scope. The FARA violation related to Ukraine.
Now, please answer my question.
There was plenty of legitimate crime going on but the standard for a president shouldn't be conviction beyond a reasonable doubt. His open encouragement of Russian hacking even under the guise of "sarcasm" was grotesquely inappropriate. His refusal to confront Russia was shameful. His continued conspiring with his agents in Ukraine were plain as day and showed his willingness to break any rules he could to meet his ends.
Trump, who won his campaign on ludicrous conspiracy theories spent his final days in office fomenting insurrection and suing relentlessly to overturn the election based on lies. His crimes done in broad daylight are 1000x worse than the ones we can't thoroughly prove.
The basis for the (actual) Russian collusion investigation had a reasonable starting point. Joseph Mifsud[0], the guy that nobody can find right now. It was absolutely worth investigating and it's disappointing that it became the dog-and-pony show it did.
And Russia interfering with foreign elections is real[1]. There are plenty of other sources as well that cover the ongoing efforts by GRU and other Russian groups to influence the election process in many countries.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Mifsud [1]https://www.blackhat.com/us-20/briefings/schedule/index.html...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kxG8uJUsWU
Clearly a joke at the expense of the ineptitude of his opponent's campaign. The fact people point to this as their "evidence" is pretty clearly desperation and self-delusion.
There was no evidence. You were lied to.
It never should have got past a few low level intelligence lackeys. The fact you had the chairman of the house intelligence committee as well as countless other powerful politicians, "trusted" journalists, ex-intelligence agency heads, etc. all insisting for years that there was "ample evidence" for it, is just utterly insane in my view. It was obviously just pure lies and dishonesty for political advantage.
Funny you don't mention the Senate committee (led by Republicans) which found the same evidence.
Can you actually quote the report to support your claims? The report actually says that there was evidence to support communication/collusion between the Trump campaign & Russian officials, but not enough evidence [that we know of] to support criminal charges.
This is for two reasons: 1) The "dirt" given at the Trump tower meeting was not valuable enough to prosecute under campaign finance laws. 2) The individuals present at the meeting did not know that their conduct was illegal, so they could not be charged under the law.
So really, Mueller's report said that there was not enough evidence to meet a criminal prosecution, but there was evidence. That's a very different claim than "no evidence."
It's also not possible to prove a negative ("there was never evidence"), and given the numerous cases of obstruction, it is possible that the evidence needed to support criminal charges was covered up.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/01/26/us/politics/t...
> in the end, The Mueller report admitted that no evidence was ever found to substantiate Trump or his associates or campaign ever working with Russians to interfere with the election?
and
> there never was any evidence for... the conspiracy theory that Trump or his campaign colluded with Putin to hack (or otherwise subvert) the election
These claims are strictly not true; Mueller found many instances where the Trump campaign directly worked with Russian officials in order to "get dirt on" Clinton or provided demographic information to Russian officials that helped those officials run (illegal) advertising/marketing campaigns for Trump. Just none of them were prosecutable based on the available evidence, according to Mueller.
Edit: I see you edited to remove your strong claim and dilute it with an interpretation that you have provided, which is legally meaningless.
https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/download.
> The meeting was proposed to Donald Trump Jr. in an email from Robert Goldstone, at the request of his then-client Emin Agalarov, the son of Russian real-estate developer Aras Agalarov. Goldstone relayed to Trump Jr. that the “Crown prosecutor of Russia . . . offered to provide the Trump Campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia” as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” Trump Jr. immediately responded that “if it’s what you say I love it,” and arranged the meeting through a series of emails and telephone calls. (Page 110, under the heading "June 9, 2016 Meeting at Trump Tower.")
They are also not legally meaningless, and they aren't even my interpretation, which you would know if you had actually bothered to read the Mueller report or look up the relevant sections. Mueller himself said the reason why he did not prosecute is because (to him) it did not have sufficient evidence to prosecute. But just because the Justice Department wouldn't be able to convict doesn't mean that it is legal to accept information on a political opponent from an agent of a foreign government.
> On the facts here, the government would unlikely be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the June 9 meeting participants had general knowledge that their conduct was unlawful. The investigation has not developed evidence that the participants in the meeting were familiar with the foreign-contribution ban or the application of federal law to the relevant factual context. (Page 187 of the Mueller report.)
> The Office would also encounter difficulty proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the value of the promised documents and information exceeds the $2,000 threshold for a criminal violation, as well as the $25,000 threshold for felony punishment. (Page 188, ibid.)
> "no evidence was ever found to substantiate Trump or his associates or campaign ever working with Russians to interfere with the election"
Parse this again and again. What does this mean? Who would be "interfering?" In what? Is there a legal obligation to conceal factual information? Is there a legal obligation not to seek it? It's telling that they tried to proxy a value under campaign FINANCE violations, so desperate were they to find a crime.
Are you really trying to suggest that actions done by an individual are illegal only if the government can successfully prosecute that individual for their action? Clearly the legality of an action and the ability to prosecute an action are separate concepts.
> It's telling that they tried to proxy a value under campaign FINANCE violations
This very obviously falls under campaign finance regulations. Federal regulations prohibit campaigns from accepting "things of value" from foreign nationals, and opposition research on a political opponent is also clearly a thing of value, seeing as campaigns hire people to perform opposition research all the time. Dirt on a political opponent also obviously falls under something that would be revealed by opposition research.
> Parse this again and again. What does this mean? Who would be "interfering?"
The Russians would be interfering in our elections through ads/marketing that support Trump, and providing things of value to the Trump campaign. If the Trump campaign helps the Russians accomplish those goals (through accepting information or giving the Russians demographic data) that would be illegal. It's really quite simple to understand.
I believe that asking questions or counterfactuals to your statements leads to merciless dead-ends, just like the Mueller report, and I challenge observers to ask those very questions.
In this very specific and unusual case, agents of the US government chose not to alert the campaign of suspected influence, but rather 'monitor' on the side and comb through their documentation for a crime, in full public political and media theatre.
Would that it happened to you, you might object.
So did Clinton. The Steele dossier had information from Russian officials and other Russians. Steele himself isn't an American either.
At Least 27 Phones from Special Counsel’s Office Were Wiped before DOJ Inspector General Could Review Them https://news.yahoo.com/least-27-phones-special-counsel-21293...
Otherwise it's just a private citizen meeting with foreign diplomats, which happens all the time and there's nothing nefarious about that.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-iran-pompeo/pompeo-sl...
Maybe it's all politicking, but then if it's good for the goose it's good for the gander.
If Pompeo had evidence of Kerry having illegal talks, he had the opportunity to provide this evidence to the FBI, seeing as he was part of the administration at the time. Instead he chose to 'slam' Kerry during a news conference.
But still no answer to the question if Kerry pretended to represent the US government, which would have been illegal.
That's the equivalent of an ad-hominen attack.
Anyone still trying to stir up this nonsense partisan battle is just distracting from the recent major world events.
Being lost in the moment of a blizzard of “crises” that really aren’t is intellectually paralyzing. Probably intentionally so.
The fact that the Senate committee (led by the Republicans) also found plenty of connections between the Russia government and the Trump campaign says enough.
Is that true though? He didn't present any evidence of a crime. Congress could have impeached Trump successfully with some hard evidence, so was Muller protecting Trump by only insinuating there was evidence but not presenting any? I don't think vague connections "says enough". If the president really was conspiring with Russia I would want the FBI to present its findings instead of giving more vague insinuation.
Statements that Congress could have impeached Trump can only be viewed as stated in bad faith. Congress did impeach Trump, but for political reasons the Senate refused to remove him.
[1] https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/07/24/rober...
It really seems like they were not able to establish an effective cooperation but would you not want the FBI to investigate such cicumstances?
We have to remember that many journalists in the west are funded by the security apparatus or any of it subsidiaries.
The government finally connects the line from Trump’s campaign to Russian intelligence [2]
[1] https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/548447-treasury...
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/04/15/governmen...
Aaron Maté and Glenn Greenwald discusses this on the Grayzone
What you think is irrelevant, US intelligence classifies the data as sensitive. The fact is that Manafort lied about sharing the data with Kilimnik, that Barr tried to keep it a secret.
But lets see what the Senate report actually says:
"It is our conclusion, based on the facts detailed in the Committee's Report, that the Russian intelligence services' assault on the integrity of the 2016 U.S. electoral process[,] and Trump and his associates' participation in and enabling of this Russian activity, represents one of the single most grave counterintelligence threats to American national security in the modem era."
Trump and his associates' participation in and enabling of this Russian activity
Where can I read about that classification for this polling data?
That part of the report your are quoting is from the addendum of the senators Heinrich, Feinstein, Wyden, Harris and Bennet, all five are members of the Democratic party, so it is not what the report concludes, it just their viewpoints. Nice try.
What the report does concludes is
"The Committee found that Manafort's presence on the Campaign and proximity to Trump created opportunities for the Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump Campaign. The Committee assesses that Kilimnik likely served as a channel to Manafort for Russian intelligence services, and that those services likely sought to exploit Manafort's access to gain insight info the Campaign. Taken as a whole, Manafort's high-level access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services, particularly Kilimnik, represented a grave counterintelligence threat."
Likely is something you use when you don't have hard evidence.
I see that you get your talking points from Mate. But the fact that he or you don't have access to classified info doesn't mean you get to decide that the data is not sensitive. Manafort lied about it and both he and Kilimnik tried to tamper witnesses, that's not something one does over top-level polling data.
That fact that Mueller didn't get enough hard evidence to secure a conviction doesn't mean that there is no evidence. Clinging to 'Russia hoax' doesn't do justice to the amount of circumstantial evidence there is. Lawfare [1] did a much more honest attempt at discussing the report then Mate/Greenwald will ever do.
[1] https://www.lawfareblog.com/collusion-reading-diary-what-did...
But doesn't X amount circumstantial evidence together prove collusion? Not necessarily, you still need to weigh each circumstantial evidence.
Lets take the WikiLeaks example, assume that it is 100% true that it was the GRU that was feeding WikiLeaks with the stolen documents. Trump campaign benefited from those leaks and Trump encouraged WikiLeaks to do more, does this prove Russian collusion? No. There is no proven coordination between the Trump Campaign and GRU via WikiLeaks. GRU could have played on these events during the 2016 election and used that to benefit the candidate they would prefer, assuming Trump. Putin is on the record for criticizing the US interventionist policies, policies that Clinton represents, and they could have used this opportunity to help the Trump campaign and the Trump campaign gladly accepted this opportunity to get an advantage, but I would say that should be viewed as interference from GRU, not collusion with the campaign.
That is why the claim from the Senate report that "Kilimnik may have been connected the GRU's hack" is interesting, but the report doesn't provide any evidence only speculation on redacted material. That is of course impossible to asses the truthiness of.
Usually socialist in the west, that supported the USSR, are anti-Russia today because the perceive Russia as nationalistic and conservative. It is okay to criticize Sanders past political praise of USSR, but mixing that up with Russia today is just nonsense.
The current President of Russia (and now dictator for life) dislikes communism because it was an economic failure that didn't sustain his dictatorship.
Soviet was expansionist to spread communism around the world.
Russia interfere in countries that has a large Russian minority, like Crimea or Georgia. Not really the same as how the Soviet Union worked.
Russians can now travel freely. Orthodox Church is no longer forbidden.