It seems pretty simple to me.
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Trump denies there is any collusion and says no one he’s ever been affiliated with has ever colluded with or has ties to Russia.
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Trump lies about literally everything.
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Trump is lying about the collusion.
Some of us have always understood that, as a matter of longstanding DOJ policy, Trump was not going to be indicted. At this point we have no idea what the Mueller report will say about Trump, but him not being indicted was always the expected outcome.
Evidence that isn’t solid enough to bring charges.
I don’t even know what I’m reading here. It’s a left leaning blog referencing claims made by another blog with no links to a source.
It’s not just about Trump here. No American has been charged with helping the Russians influence the 2016 election. Do you think Mueller wouldn’t have brought those charges if he found something he could use?
That is very clear. Try reading the article and the looking at the documents it clearly references. It is about a matter of public record and if you’re ignorant of the matter, you shouldn’t be opining about what Mueller did or didn’t find.
Edit: Try ‘Manafort polling data Russia’. It’s kinda hard to miss.
Screw you dude. I’m sorry I’m not willing to go down a rabbit hole of blog speculation. If you want to show me actual sources of information I would be happy to look at them. Until then, maybe you can explain why Mueller isn’t charging anyone with helping the Russians?
Again, try ‘Manafort polling data Russia’. It isn’t a blog post, it’s in Mueller’s court filings about Manafort.
Well, dude, I don’t actually know what the report says, and you don’t actually know what the report says, and even Greenwald doesn’t know what the report says.
You know what’s really bad? I’ve gone past being disgusted by idiotic right wing attitude and talking points. I’ve gone past just writing those people off and ignoring them. I’ve even gone past being fucking sick and tired of their reality denial, bad faith, subversion of democracy, disrespect for the rule of law and general ass-hattery. I’ve gone beyond being “pissed” in a hot and angry way.
This is bad b/c I’m ready to fight. To actually fight. I’m an overweight 50-something lawyer fer Christ’s sake, and sitting here today, I feel like I need to actively avoid putting myself into social and physical contact with asshats like Malathor and his ilk b/c I honestly don’t know if I could stay within the lines of civil behavior.
For example, we have a rule in my board gaming group, which includes several heavy-duty Trump/Limbaugh/Breitbard types, of “no politics while gaming” and strict observance to that rule has allowed sanity to reign despite all the ugliness. However, the right-wingers always do push that line with bullshit sayings like referring to Maxine Waters as “Maxi-Pads” and AOC as “Alexandria Occasional Cortex” (examples from the past few weeks).
And in recent days, man, I don’t know. I think I’m going to actively avoid that group b/c I don’t know if I can maintain civility any more.
I’ve just fucking had it with the bad faith, goal post moving, constant fucking sniping at liberals, etc. etc.
News reports indicate that he is not going to be charging anyone with colluding with Russia to influence the election. So again, if the evidence is so clear, why is that?
If you not going respond in good faith when you make a false statement and someone corrects you on it, why are you even offering the conversation? It is simply not true that Mueller found no evidence of collusion with Russian agents. It isn’t true. It is false, and the evidence is a matter of record. Now, do you agree your statement was wrong, or not?
I’m simply asking a very reasonable question that you don’t seem to want to answer.
I’ve answered it. The news reports you’re talking about are written by people who have not read Mueller’s report.
So you think he’s preparing to bring charges against people for their involvement with Russia,
Well, and that’s been Trumps game from the beginning. “No collusion.” Because collusion is not a legal term, rather it’s a vague concept and thus, by definition, it’s impossible to prove.
I think you’re arguing in bad faith. Did Mueller uncover evidence that Manafort provided polling data to a Russian agent, or didn’t he?
I’ll answer this question: First, under DOJ rules as currently written, the President while sitting in office, cannot be indicted, even if sufficient evidence for an indictment is found. So, one possible reason for the current situation is that Mueller found evidence of “collusion” between Trump himself and Russia but is unable to recommend indictment due to DOJ rules. The second answer is even better: there is no crime of “collusion” so no one can be indicted for it.
Also, framing this as being about “collusion” is not just legally wrong, it is looking at these issues from a very microscopic POV and ignoring the massive elephants in the room of the President of the US abusing his power, committing crimes, conspiring to commit crimes, and lying about it many times over.
In fact, by focusing on “collusion” a poster is IMO already showing bad faith.
Lastly, for all you worshiping the (implied, as-yet-unverified) “findings” in the Mueller report, what are you going to do when Mueller finds substantial evidence that Trump interfered in the Russia investigation by firing Comey etc.? I guess you will just say that Trump was not indicted for “obstruction of justice” and use the legal terminology to hide the reality?
As a side note, “obstruction of justice” is just as much a rhetorical red herring as “collusion”. Again, the President cannot be indicted under DOJ rules as written, so he’s not going to be charged with “obstruction of justice”. He will likely be found to have interfered with the investigation, and in a sane Congress, that would be considered an impeachable offense of abuse of power (using the powers of an office to shield yourself from investigation or prosecution is one of the classic abuses of power going back a thousand years of Anglo-American legal history.)
I’m trying to reign in my uncivil attitudes but Christ on a crutch, do you Trump lovers really want a second Civil War? B/C the attitudes of the right sure as hell feel to me like that’s where the asshats are leading us.
This is an excellent response. Kudos.
I have to go now, but I think it’s ridiculous that you suggest I’m a Trump lover.
That last paragraph was not directed at you personally @delirium. I do think the way you are framing this issue is not in good faith, however, as discussed above.
“hey guys, there are no more indictments coming!”
“But there were already 37 people indicted. And potentially others that have already been submitted under seal.”
“But those weren’t collusion!”
“But collusion isn’t necessarily a crime, so you wouldn’t expect the indictments to be about collusion.”
“So there is no proof of collusion!”
“Yes there is. We know that Trump’s campaign manager gave polling data to the Russians. Roger stone is currently indicted for lying about trying to get data that the Russians stole and have to WikiLeaks. Numerous members of Trump’s campaign met with Russians, then lied about it, numerous times.”
“YOU’RE THE PUPPET”
Some people are pointing out on Twitter what it would be like if Mueller had held all of his indictments under seal, and then announced them on Friday en masse. The shock would be something to imagine, but I suspect even that would not be enough to stop the ‘no collusion’ nonsense from the right, and from fellow travelers of the right.
And on that point, Greenwald is a professional contrarian. He was a contrarian on the left when Bush was in power, then switched to being a contrarian on the right when Obama was in power, and then became effectively an anti- anti-Trump contrarian. He’s an opportunist. Endorsing his view just helps him make more money at it.