That's what it turned out to be. I didn't say anything about what it was setup to be. That's your argument.
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"Donald Trump Jr. Just Tweeted Out Pretty Clear Evidence That He Broke The Law [...]"
- Thread starter Jeremiahcp
- Start date
That's what it turned out to be. I didn't say anything about what it was setup to be. That's your argument.
I think the key difference you are missing is that the Russians were trying to influence the election and undermine the democratic process by working with a candidate. With Obama, he was meeting as an acting president. The latter is a normal function of the office.
Except that you forget Trump Jr has already confessed to breaking the law.
What are the odds they consider it a volunteered service and thus explicitly by statute not a contribution?
leibowde84
Veteran Member
It's not an argument. Intent is everything, and Don Jr.'s intent for the meeting was to get compromising information on Hillary Clinton from the Russian Government. It literally says exactly that in the emails HE released.
Sure, I understand. Personally I don't see it as a crime. Intent not withstanding.
I think the intent of the law is to prevent people in positions of power from selling out the country for financial gain. I acknowledge there is a gray area with regard to with what constitutes value.
Maybe the courts will go against me here, but if they do I think it's pretty hypocritical since the US tries to influence the politics of other countries anyway.
If someone has actual incriminating evidence, that's the fault of the person the evidence is against. I mean if I commit a crime and some foreign national has knowledge of it and goes to the authorities I'm not going to accuse the foreign national of a crime for tattling on me. If I hadn't done the crime in the first place, there'd be no evidence to worry about.
But if I'm wrong and he gets convicted then I'm wrong. It's not a crime to have an opposing opinion.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
This is a classic example of moving the goalposts. Every major player in the Trump campaign guaranteed that no one in the campaign colluded with the Russians. Collusion is not necessarily illegal, but Trump Jr. seems to have certainly lied about his conversations with Russians in asking for help with compromising information on Clinton. That is obviously enough to merit further investigations into conversations between members of the campaign and any Russian officials.
Remember those conversations picked up by the FBI incidentally. As I'm sure you know, all conversations between any U.S. citizen and foreign adversary (like Russian officials) are automatically listened into by the intelligence community (this was in no way an Obama directive, as it has been going on since the Cold War). Now, because of the Trump Jr. emails, the FBI is looking into all of those conversations between Trump campaign members and Russian officials. So, because of his dishonesty about the meeting in question, Trump Jr. has brought those conversations back into the spotlight. No one to blame but himself.
Also, it is against campaign law for anyone to accept anything of value from a foreign national. Opposition research obviously qualifies as it is extremely valuable. So, at the very least, Trump Jr. attempted to break the law.
Who is "they" and what is "it," and is there any reason to consider any of that to change anything about the fact that Junior "knowingly and purposefully set up and attended the meeting in which he knew the Russian lawyer had expressed or implied a promise to contribute a thing of value in connection with a federal election"?
Yes, and DT Jr is going to have to deal with whatever comes of it. I just don't think anything is going to come of it.
If it does, I'll say you were right and I was wrong.
Still I can't promise that I won't continue to find these political shenanigans hilarious, cause I do.
The righteous indignation folks feel about Trump and his cronies is as funny as hell and highly entertaining. I hope he gets another 4 years just for the sake of my entertainment.
Come on. "They" are the people that will decide whether to prosecute. "It" is the interaction you have characterized as criminal.
A volunteered service is by statutory definition not a contribution and wouldn't be illegal. This is why some legal pundits I have heard or read are saying there will be no prosecution.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
Well, I can't blame you. I get a YUGE kick out of Trump being constantly frustrated and infuriated by the media holding him accountable for what he and his "cronies" say and do. He is a horrible person with a complete lack of ethics and morality, so it seems right that he should get what's coming to him.Yes, and DT Jr is going to have to deal with whatever comes of it. I just don't think anything is going to come of it.
If it does, I'll say you were right and I was wrong.
Still I can't promise that I won't continue to find these political shenanigans hilarious, cause I do.
The righteous indignation folks feel about Trump and his cronies is as funny as hell and highly entertaining. I hope he gets another 4 years just for the sake of my entertainment.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
Actually it can be as it was in at least one court case that was decided on that according to a constitutional lawyer I was listening to a could of days ago. However, according to this same lawyer.
I agree with you, however, that there's not enough there there to get Trump impeached right now-- but stay tuned for further developments. If his approval rating drops much more, some congressional Republicans may decide to bail. Remember, he's only been president for half a year, and the investigations are quite far from being concluded.
That doesn't apply outside of the legal system, and it doesn't even apply to all players in a courtroom. Certainly the DA that filed charges thinks the defendant is guilty.
People like you and me are free to judge by our own standards. I think that most of us found O.J. Simpson guilty of murder and Bill Cosby guilty of date rape even though neither was found guilty of those crimes formally.
How about Nixon? Was he guilty? Once again, not formally. He just quit his job and went home a free man but I'd hazard a guess that most informed observers found him guilty.
Another important distinction between a formal judge or juror and somebody outside of the process is that we have more verdicts available to us, including probably guilty and probably innocent. Innocent is apparently not an option in court. Available verdicts as I understand it are guilty, not guilty, or no verdict (hung jury/mistrial).
And finally, we are free to change our verdicts if additional evidence suggests that we should. We don't need to wait for the process to play out before making tentative judgments.
My position is that Trump is very probably guilty of criminal activity given what we know about his character and the incredible number revelations in just six months. What criminal activity is he guilty of? We don't know just what yet. He may be guilty of collusion with the Russians, obstruction of justice, emoluments violations, and/or money laundering.
If he is, we don't yet know which combination of crimes he has committed, and we sure don't know if he'll ever be held accountable for any of them if guilty. But I for one have seen enough already to judge that the Trump family is probably a criminal enterprise. I see societal parasites with a sense of entitlement and no respect for the rule of law or fair play.
It isn't necessary that Trump leave office, and possibly not desirable - at least not yet.
This process has the potential of doing considerable damage to the Republican brand, and may well cost them both houses of Congress in 2018 and the White House in 2020. The evidence for that is the results of the special election held in Georgia last month in which a Republican incumbent in a very red district who had won by 21% just before being made the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and was succeeded by another Republican who won by 4% just seven months later.
This is assumed to be because of some combination of Trump's toxic presence in the White House and represent a repudiation of congressional Republicans, especially for their plan to cut health care benefits to the poor and give more tax breaks to the wealthy.
Either way, as long as this matter is center stage, the Republicans have a problem. Trump could make this all go away by resigning today. The congressional Republicans can mitigate the damage by initiating impeachment proceedings. Most could not survive an analogous loss of 17% of their vote totals.
You're confessing to experiencing schadenfreude at what you perceive to be the consternation of liberals. This might not be the best time to do that.
That is fair. However, if you're buying jewelry out of the back of a guy's trunk, there's a good chance it's been stolen.
It is a crime to accept something of value, or the implied promise of something of value, from a foreign national in connection with an election.
Then we do dip into personal and patriotic ethics. Do you think it is morally acceptable to work with a foreign country to influence our elections? As a patriotic American, how can you be ok with the idea that other Americans are abetting other countries in subverting our democracy?
You have never ever utilized your own knowledge and intelligence to examine evidence and come to a preliminary conclusion? You always wait until the conviction until you consider something to be a problem, and after the verdict, you accept it without question? How did Benghazi or Clinton's emails play out for you?
Your position is ludicrous. This helpless and incurious stance of wait-and-see is nothing but a shield to avoid having to objectively view the evidence and admit that it doesn't look good.
As for what good does public interest and engagement in the possible wrong doing of our government do? I would think that Republicans, of all people, would appreciate the benefits of citizen watchdogs, who aren't beholden to governmental authority figures telling them what to think.
Those weren't moral equivalents but legal ones. For many crimes, it is illegal to plan and attempt it, even if success remains elusive.
Interesting. I note that the primary person doing this investigative work, on her own, was an American. It appears that her concerns and investigations did bring concerns regarding Russia's meddling and Manafort's shady ties to light. Ukraine obviously has no love of Russia; they did release a government dossier showing Russia's dirty deeds. This all seems rather above-board, tbh. There was no hacking, there was no close ties to the Clinton campaign, Ukraine's embassy seemed aware that they had to walk a fine line to avoid improper campaign influence, and there was no (literally) fake media and bots flooding social media with Ukrainian opinions.
You have facts and evidence.
1. Russia engaged in an intense and sophisticated attack on our democracy to influence our election in favor of Trump. This is the conclusion of our intelligence agencies.
2. Trump has multiple people in his campaign and administration with Russian ties. Some, like Manafort, Page, and Flynn have already had to be let go because of it.
3. Trump has attempted to get the intelligence agencies to drop the investigation into Russia's meddling and his campaigns possible collusion. He fired the FBI director, in part and by his own words, because of the Russia thing.
4. We have Jr's emails stating that he went to a meeting to obtain information to influence the election from the Russian government.
This is just some of the facts and evidence available. Feel free to actually consider some of it before pretending it doesn't exist.
If you don't find the Obama video objectionable, then why are you presenting it as some counterweight to the current conversation discussing the possibility of Trump colluding with Russia to get elected?
You claim that the Ds and the Rs are screaming about the same stuff. But if you do not think that the thing the Rs were screaming about is problematic, then isn't that evidence that they aren't screaming about the same stuff?
You have one side making up problems out of nothing-- the President informing Russia that he will have more lee-way after his election-- and you have the other side with knowledge, via our intelligence agencies, that Russia influenced our election with the intention of getting Trump elected and mounting evidence that Trump's campaign was complicit in that.
And you want to label these the same thing?
I understand that there's a lot of mud slinging on both sides and that this makes it difficult to determine what is true and what is false, what is a "nothingburger" and what is actually problematic.
But I think in this case, there's a clear disparity here. You have already acknowledged that the Obama video was nothing. Do you also believe that everything about Russia and Trump is nothing? If you do, I'd highly encourage you to investigate the evidence available.
Worse is that so many on the Right are willing to ignore wrong-doing as long as it brings discomfort to those on the Left.
They are literally willing to sell out our country for their entertainment. I hope it's worth it.
Former FBI Director Robert Mueller is the special counsel leading the federal criminal investigation regarding collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. I am certain he is rarely hoodwinked about criminal acts.
How would any rational person conclude that the Russian lawyer was offering to volunteer her services for the Trump campaign, or that Junior believed that she was offering to volunteer for the Trump campaign? The email that Junior got from Goldstone states clearly that the Russian prosecutor was offering to provide, not someone lick envelopes or hang flyers for Trump, but “to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary.” Those are things of value, not someone volunteering their services for free. Those valuable, and obviously illegally obtained, documents are what excited Junior, and are the reason the Junior went to such efforts to set up the meeting with this Russian lawyer, with which he included his brother-in-law and the campaign manager who is under multiple criminal investigations such as things payments of huge sums from Ukrainian officials.
I don't believe Robert Mueller will overlook the fact that what Goldtone said the Russian prosecutor and lawyer were offering, and what Junior was seeking to obtain, were those valuable documents and information that were claimed to incriminate Clinton--since this is what was stated unambiguously in the emails.