Of course they would lie. Seems probable the meeting was more substantive than claimed, given some of Don Sr’s tweets later the same day. I think people are just trying not to get ahead of the facts.
magnet
3922
In retrospect, this was genius. GWB recognized that the second part of the saying (“shame on me”) could be turned against him, and a little voice in his head stopped his mouth before it could do more damage.
Well, at least it was genius compared to the next Republican president.
The Who will never lead you astray.
I respectfully disagree that it was a better move. W. already had a reputation for malapropisms and for not being the brightest Bush in the history of American presidents. Flubbing a very common expression did nothing to improve that perception.
“Darmok and Jalad on the ocean. Shaka, Shaka…better get some more walls.”
Though I suppose the modern politician’s basic play is to never ever admit fault or weakness.
I tend to doubt that.
Putin and his KGB/GRU/Whatever they are now pals are more sophisticated than this. If they wanted to contact Manafort or Kushner or even Trump himself, they would have done it with greater subtlety than blasting out that they wanted to provide RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE through unsecured email.
I think it is very probable that the meeting itself produced nothing of value – hence Trump’s promise of dirt on Clinton that he failed to deliver on the following week.
Now it IS possible (since Putin’s chess is at least in 2D if not 3) that the whole thing was a long-game setup that Putin could use to embarrass Trump on the ludicrously unlikely chance that he won the election and became POTUS… but I don’t think so.
I think it was an enterprising Kremlin-backed lawyer who saw a chance to reconnect with the now-nominee Trump to get her assigned issues on the table in front of him. She (having met Trump before) knew that a boring subject like the Sanctions were not going to be exciting enough to open the door, so she concocted this mythical “Clinton Dirt” thing to get the meeting. She probably didn’t know that there was also a separate scheme in the works regarding the DNC and Podesta emails.
Now AFTER she got the meeting and was able to demonstrate the Trump team’s enthusiasm for Russian assistance, did Putin and Co. start to sit up and think about direct cooperation? Maybe.
Or, even more likely to me, the email was a sounding board for Russian intel. Have these goofball lawyers and whatnot float the idea to the campaign to see if there was interest enough that they’d show up for a meeting. When they did…they thanked the goofballs for their time and if there was further collusion it happened a little more off the record.
Then again, it may be that the Russians never expected Goldstone to put this shit in an email in the first place, that they expected him to understand the sensitivity.
Or it could also be that the Russians didn’t realize what kind of jeopardy this might put a US candidate in if caught.
As someone put it on Twitter earlier, this whole thing is like the plot from House of Cards, with the cast of Arrested Development.
Trump wins my award for low-information content with this quote:
“Sometimes you’re not going to get along on things and sometimes you will. But we had a good meeting, it was a face to face meeting, it was a long meeting. It was two hours and 15 minutes. Everyone was surprised by the amount of time but that was a good thing and not a bad thing. Yeah, I think we get along very well and I think that’s a good thing, that’s not a bad thing. People said, ‘Oh they shouldn’t get along.’ Well, who are the people that are saying that? I think we get along very, very well. We are a tremendously powerful nuclear power, and so are they. It doesn’t make sense not to have some kind of a relationship,” Trump said.
Guap
3930
So Trump wants to be a Russian Oligarch and use the Presidency to institute himself into a position of ownership in Russia, huh? And he is exchanging top secret operational intel, probably state secrets, and who knows what else, making himself and his family rich like the nepotisic charlatans they are?
Ok, but is it treason? I’m tired of people pointing out the terrible self serving way Trump acts and then that’s the only recourse. Maybe we need a new “We are so embarrassed we need a recall” Amendment.
“U.S. intelligence agencies starting in the spring of 2015 detected conversations in which Russian government officials discussed associates of Donald Trump, several months before he declared his candidacy for president”
https://www.wsj.com/article_email/russian-officials-overheard-discussing-trump-associates-before-campaign-began-1499890354-lMyQjAxMTI3MjE5MjExMzI0Wj/
Regardless, I see no reason to take the word of anyone in the Trump administration that there was nothing else to it.
Wasn’t it just the next week that he started referencing the 33,000 missing emails in Twitter, hinting at the DNC timed leak to come?
Like I said, TW is likely correct: the meeting itself produced nothing of value. But it did (perhaps) signal to the Russians that the Trump campaign was receptive.
I still can’t process the fact that the story is still “we wanted to get dirt on Clinton from the Russians, but unfortunately we just had to talk about sanctions.” So they hoped to collude and commit campaign espionage crimes with Russia, but instead just had to settle for conspiring with Russia about undermining US foreign policy…
6 months ago, admitting to talking to the Russians about sanctions during the campaign would have been enough to disqualify people from administration jobs! Have they forgotten the start of public troubles with Flynn were about discussing sanctions with Russia before the inauguration? Are they so completely blind to the ethics they can’t even see the lines?
Same day.
@Tin_Wisdom it seems plausible to me that something small like that might have been given to them at that meeting, with the promise of more to come later.
And 2 days before, just after Jr. setup the meeting, senior made public statements: “I am going to give a major speech on probably Monday of next week, and we’re going to be discussing all of the things that have taken place with the Clintons. I think you’re going to find it very informative and very, very interesting. I wonder if the press will want to attend. Who knows?” That speech never really happened, hmmmm.
http://oianews.com/trump-teased-major-news-on-clinton-hours-after-don-jr-set-meeting-on-russian-dirt
