Durham says CIA found data alleging Trump-Russia connection not 'technically plausible,' was 'user c

I voted against Trump twice. But that particular episode was obviously a sarcastic rhetorical flourish, not a serious request.

 

And one that resulted in the hacking of the DNC within hours of the statement.
The moment it happened, I yelled (my wife was the only one there) "he can't do that! He's asking a foreign power for help in the election!" THE MOMENT IT HAPPENED.
It does seem to be sarcastic rhetoric, and that's what I thought later, but after looking back at the whole picture, I'm not so sure.
Trump is, at least, an entertainer. He does say and do a lot of things just for entertainment value. Unfortunately, some of his other actions/words/behaviors can bring into question those that would normally be written off as entertainment or joking.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm not nearly as convinced as you are.
Off topic for a second, if I may take the liberty, wasn't that (2016) one of the worst presidential elections as far a choices?
I made a joke (thought it was at the time) in December of 2015, that we would have to choose between Clinton and Trump. Ha ha ha!
A year later, it wasn't so funny.............

 

No one is laughing at betraying the country, and no one endorses what happened two years ago. What I'm poking fun at is the fact that in two years, despite Mueller laying out the legal groundwork and despite Biden needing any sort of political win we still haven't seen the orange one in handcuffs.

I am laughing at what I believe to be the left's great wish and conspiracy theory. Two years in, and actually technically 3 years removed(2019) from the Mueller report. What if Trump is never 'held to account' and simply perishes? Can you live with that likely outcome? Can you even acknowledge that it's likely.

 

I voted third party in 2016. Clinton carried my state easily.
I seriously doubt that Trump's comment "resulted" in hacking of the DNC. An operation like that requires lead time and planning.

 

I agree. I voted third party as well in 2016 and 2020. I was never a Trump supporter but was disgusted with the left's vile tactics trying to destroy his administration..

 

I understand. During the Trump administration I wrote many times that the fact that I despised Trump did not require me to admire his opponents.

 

We will never know for sure. It is hard to tell for sure, though, isn't it?
An operation like that does not take a lot of lead time and planning. It is entirely plausible that Russian operatives heard that request, and acted that quickly. Especially if they already knew how to get in. Timing was a little coincidental, was it not?
Again, we will never know for sure. In it's totality, though, it doesn't look good.
I wanted to go third party in 2016, but the longer the campaigns went on, the more I was convinced that Trump did not need to be president.
When he won, I told my wife "I hope he proves me wrong and is at least a decent president". He did not...................

 

It IS illegal to solicit anything of value from a foreign citizen or government.

No, internal polling data is not classified, but the point is that they gave it to Russian agents to solicit help in the election. Do you really think that its OK for a US Presidential campaign to work WITH a foriegn government win that election ? Thats a serious question.

No it doesn't mean he was a spy. He solicited help fro a foreign government, and got it. In its simplest form, you cannot think that that is OK, no matter who it is. But even more, they received something of value by giving them that polling data. The russian government (as proven by the Mueller report) DID help Trump in the election thru their social media campaigns

What "conspiracy theory" this is literally all been proven in court.

Do you honestly think its good for ANY politician to solicit help from a foreign government in a US election ?

 

For chrissakes..

I've tried to be respectful and take this discussion seriously (or as seriously as I can) since I realize that this entire conspiracy theory has been media lead, and a few years ago, earnest people could seriously have legitimate questions. But anyone who thinks that Trump's "Russia if your listening..." press conference was Agent Trump contacting his handlers for further instructions/guidance/assistance, is just an idiot. A dumb person. I'm sorry, but there is really no excuse to believe something so stupid, media lead or not. If you believe that there is no where to go in having an intelligent conversation.

 

I'm sure I've already asked this, but what evidence is there that Manafort was soliciting help from a foreign government? You simply make the big leap and never provide any evidence whatsoever. Is it in the Mueller Report? Is so where at? What's the quote?

It's why my patience over this issue has waned over the years. There is never any evidence presented, it's just your feelings on what you feel sure happened.

 

Ok.
I can assure you that I'm not a dumb person, or idiot. If you would like me to prove that, I will.
If you have an opinion, does that automatically make anyone with a different opinion wrong, stupid or an idiot?
I didn't use the word "ignorant" lightly, sometimes people take it the wrong way, but used it because it means "lacking knowledge or comprehension of the thing specified" (Webster's)
It wasn't meant to demean you, but you seem to be offended by it.
You have a point about Trump asking for Russia's help. It is debatable, but none of us could be absolutely certain either way. Definitely not certain enough to call someone stupid or an idiot. It really is more of a reflection on you than anyone else.
And you completely ignored the rest of it to concentrate on the one thing you wanted to make your stand on. Agree with me or I won't talk to you. Great philosophy in life.
I agree. There is no where to go in having an intelligent conversation. At least that's something...........

 

same here some policies were good, I seen nothing from sleepy sloppy Joe

 

The reason why I concentrated on that "one thing" as you put it, is that if in discussing Russian Collusion, that "one thing" comes up, then there seems to be no point in going forward. I don't believe a serious person could accept that as evidence of Trump's KGB bona fides. So if someone does buy something as incredible as that, where is there to go?

There is actually so much else that one could argue is debatable, but not that. I can't get past the absurdity of such a concept and can't take seriously any argument that's a part of.

 

There it is.
Politico
Prosecution: 'Overwhelming' evidence of guilt for Clinton campaign attorney

 

Understandable. I'm not trying to change your mind about it, I was expressing my personal opinion.
I put an explanation of the process my thinking went through regarding that one incident. In fact, there are many aspects of Trump's behaviors and words that, depending on one's prejudice, can be taken more than one way. That ambiguity is one of the traits that I think hurt Trump as a leader. He knew how to fire up his base, but he never figured out how to reach out to those who weren't already in his camp.
It's the totality of the circumstantial "evidence" that makes me think that there was some collaboration between the Trump administration and the Russians. As Mueller pointed out, it's a "sticky wicket" as they say, with lots of shady facts and innuendos, but not much hard evidence. It may not be legally feasible, but I can still form an opinion.
Example: examined on it's own, Trump asking for Russia's help with the emails looks like an entertaining stunt, a performance if you will. But finding out later that Don Jr. took a meeting, "loved it", knowing it was Russian agents helping the Trump campaign, then trying to lie about it, and Trump falsifying that letter, lying about it, and then find out that the Russians hacked the DNC account within hours after the request, makes my OPINION move toward the "something is amiss here" end of the spectrum. Add in the Helsinki stuff, and other stuff, and it only moves the needle further that way.
You have hinged your opinion on the one event, the Hillary email speech. I hinge mine on the Don Jr. meeting and the Manafort supplying polling data, and the Helsinki event (all of it). The Hillary email event is still not proven, but tinged by the other events, in my opinion.
Thank you for your rational response. Sorry I sounded a little arrogant, I didn't want to come off that way. I work hard at NOT trying to sound arrogant, for some personal reasons.
And you are perfectly entitled to your opinion, and I respect that you have thought about it.

 

Reading the defense's argument was a whole big circular reasoning argument and all it did was confirm in fact that Sussman had Clinton contacts, deliberately chose to hide those contacts and didn't tell the FBI about them. Not only that, but the circular argument of wanting to go to the FBI before the press, but in of themselves having said information is another circular argument. They went to the FBI specifically to create the noise that would be released in the media.

 

All of your pieces that you've carefully put together look like you've stopped following the issue since the Mueller Report came out. A lot of what you know for a fact isn't really true.

Let's look at the Trump Tower meeting. You described it as a meeting with a "Russian agent." Do you mean an FSB or GRU spy? Natalia Veselnitskaya is a lawyer who was hired to lobby to get the Magnitsky Act repealed. She lied about having dirt on Hillary in order to get the meeting with Don Jr and campaign principals We know what happened in the meeting and what it was about, and there is nothing about any sort of collusion.

Then the DNC hacking. I'm guess you never knew that Comey testified that the FBI never did a forensic analysis to determine the if there was a hacking. The FBI was refused access to the servers to do a proper investigation, so they depended on Crowdstrike's forensic analysis. However much later we learned from Shawn Henry, the President of Crowdstrike, that there was never any evidence that there was a hack or that data from DNC servers was taken.

This has all been in the news by the way, and I think a fairminded person who really wanted to know what happened would have been following the issue and would know all this. What do you think?

 

How would they have found her hidden servers in a few hours, found an exploit that was needed to access those servers and then crack the encryption that they use?

The answer is they didn’t do it in a few hours.

 

I'm expecting that outcome. It's not humorous, and it's not good for our country.

 

No, it's not good for the left's conspiracy theory. It has nothing to do with the country. I suppose the best way to make it even is to allow liberals to burn his corpse, effigy style. Maybe that'll call the whole thing even LOL.

 

Err, what?

The President being a stooge (see Mueller Report and Mueller Report 2, neither of which have a clue about) for the Russians has "nothing to do with the country"?

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/26/secret-alternative-mueller-report-goes-public-00035507

Who am I kidding? You won't read this, just like you failed to read the Mueller Report itself.

 

Except that they responded with an email dump. Wow.

 

This may help. It definitely isn't a "smoking gun", but I've explained all that in this thread.
Sometimes a series of coincidences have a reason.

 

Yes, and . . . ?

 

Everyone's read the report, people just didn't come to your preferred conclusion including the people in high places. Hence I offered that when Trump inevitably dies of a heart attack or stroke or other natural cause, you let out all of the angst that no one agrees with the conspiracy theory by burning the at that point dead corpse.