The Russia Investigation: Trump Pardons Flynn (14 Viewers)

packersfan said:

moleculo said:

full disclosure: I am a never-Trumper, and a reformed conservative.  I'm not entirely comfortable describing myself as a liberal, but I'm probably swinging closer to that side as the (R)'s get more and more crazy.  I did not vote for Trump and don't like most things about him, but he is our legally elected president and he deserves the benefit of the doubt.  I do hope he succeeds in making America Great Again; I do believe Trump has tapped into something forgotten in American politics, the middle class.

Click to expand...

I think Trump did a far better job connecting with the middle class than Clinton did and that was one of the reasons he won the election. Unfortunately, he's a rich entitled elitist who at no point in his business career has shown any interest in the middle class or furthering their causes. As a member of the middle class I see nothing in Trump that leads me to believe he has my best interests at heart. I'll need to move up a few tax brackets before he's even aware of my existence. 

Click to expand...

Card Trader said:

Sure 

Click to expand...

moleculo said:

no, I hear ya.  I'm just trapped by the notion that we voted for this guy - this is what we want.  We are so desperate for something new that we are willing to tear it all down, throw norms out the window, and see what else is out there.

We want a guy who will fight first for what he believes in, regardless of American normalcy.

We want a guy willing to have ****-measuring contest in the middle of a debate.

We feel so threatened we want someone who feels equally threatened by everything.

We want a guy who is willing to call out the media for being blatantly one-sided (actually, I do believe that the media has gone down a bad path and is in dire need of reform - Trump may not be wrong here).

We want a guy who gives us his thoughts in 144 unfiltered characters.

We want a guy who will define new norms of international diplomacy, including bilateral trade agreements, nuclear proliferation,  NATO and other alliances, etc.  We want America first!

This is who we are.  Embrace it.  We get the president we deserve.

Click to expand...

moleculo said:

full disclosure: I am a never-Trumper, and a reformed conservative.  I'm not entirely comfortable describing myself as a liberal, but I'm probably swinging closer to that side as the (R)'s get more and more crazy.  I did not vote for Trump and don't like most things about him, but he is our legally elected president and he deserves the benefit of the doubt.  I do hope he succeeds in making America Great Again; I do believe Trump has tapped into something forgotten in American politics, the middle class.

I'm not actively cheering one way or another in this whole sordid affair, I'm mostly fascinated in the story as a current event.  It's got potential for all of the drama and intrigue of a Clancy novel.  Frankly, the implications of the story as outlined by the Financial Times scare the crap out of me.  If true, and Trump was a knowing accomplice to Russian Mafia money laundering, he will be impeached and will spend time in jail.  I find that fascinating, regardless of political persuasion.

Click to expand...

adonis said:

I'm not there yet.  I don't think we always get the president we deserve.  We don't deserve Trump.

From so many people I talked to, reasonable conservatives, I've literally heard this many times as well "Trump was my 14th choice out of 14." I know a few people who were gung-ho about him, but they weren't people worthy of respect really...those i respect who voted for him said the thing about him being nearly their last choice.

I think this election was largely about what they didn't like happening in the country, and they wanted to shake things up.  They are OK electing a wildcard guy, just like many were OK electing Tea Party folks to the house to just muck up the system.  I find that there's a huge lack of respect for the work of congress, or government in general, and that has lead to a "blow it all up" attitude among many on the right, that has lead to getting stuck with Trump.

But we have him.  The question is, how do the sane among use react? Do we pretend he's just like any other President, and give him the benefit of the doubt, or do we acknowledge his true outlier status in terms of normal human behavior and continue to point out when he is out of line?  For my own sanity, I find myself having to do the latter...I just can't bring myself to accept that a president who attacks the press, attacks private citizens, attacks the intelligence community, but has not a bad thing to say about Russia or Putin, is OK...or business as usual...or he gets the benefit of the doubt.  I just can't do it, and to be honest, I don't see why so many other people are so willing to let go of their standards either and let this stuff be OK.  Maybe it's to preserve their sanity as well.

Click to expand...

Ministry of Pain said:

So anyone who voted for Trump is deplorable in your opinion?

Click to expand...

moleculo said:

no, I hear ya.  I'm just trapped by the notion that we voted for this guy - this is what we want.  We are so desperate for something new that we are willing to tear it all down, throw norms out the window, and see what else is out there.

We want a guy who will fight first for what he believes in, regardless of American normalcy.

We want a guy willing to have ****-measuring contest in the middle of a debate.

We feel so threatened we want someone who feels equally threatened by everything.

We want a guy who is willing to call out the media for being blatantly one-sided (actually, I do believe that the media has gone down a bad path and is in dire need of reform - Trump may not be wrong here).

We want a guy who gives us his thoughts in 144 unfiltered characters.

We want a guy who will define new norms of international diplomacy, including bilateral trade agreements, nuclear proliferation,  NATO and other alliances, etc.  We want America first!

This is who we are.  Embrace it.  We get the president we deserve.

Click to expand...

moleculo said:

Yes, I know...daily Kos is a left wing rag and therefore not to be believed.  They put together a summary of the FT piece that bears reading.  If you are on Team Trump, read this with the understanding that this is what the opposition is reading - consider it opposition research.

link




 
 
 

Click to expand...

The Future Champs said:

I think this is a repost, but just in case:   Computer server in Trump Tower connected to Russian bank.

Click to expand...

It’s also worth stepping back and looking at the bigger picture here. If Trump did want to set up a secret means of communicating with Russia, why do it this way? Setting up a special Trump server is conspicuous, needlessly complicated, and requires help from IT staff who might get suspicious. It’s a safe bet that if Trump had wanted to secretly communicate with the Russian government, Russia’s intelligence service would have supplied him with a way to do it that’s easy to use and much less conspicuous.

Click to expand...

moleculo said:

full disclosure: I am a never-Trumper, and a reformed conservative.  I'm not entirely comfortable describing myself as a liberal, but I'm probably swinging closer to that side as the (R)'s get more and more crazy.  I did not vote for Trump and don't like most things about him, but he is our legally elected president and he deserves the benefit of the doubt.  I do hope he succeeds in making America Great Again; I do believe Trump has tapped into something forgotten in American politics, the middle class.

I'm not actively cheering one way or another in this whole sordid affair, I'm mostly fascinated in the story as a current event.  It's got potential for all of the drama and intrigue of a Clancy novel.  Frankly, the implications of the story as outlined by the Financial Times scare the crap out of me.  If true, and Trump was a knowing accomplice to Russian Mafia money laundering, he will be impeached and will spend time in jail.  I find that fascinating, regardless of political persuasion.

Click to expand...

moleculo said:

I get the feeling that in 2-3 years, there will be momentum building to better vet candidates.  could be as simple as a minimal criteria to participate in the debates - a full reveal of finances going back 10 years, security clearance, etc.

Click to expand...

moleculo said:

no, it doesn't.  There is no constitutional amendment to include some people in the debates but not others.  Everyone has a constitutional right to run for president, but there is no constitutional right to be invited to the debates.

If a bi-partisan committee can agree on rules of a debate, certainly they can agree on a minimal job requirement.

Click to expand...

Rove! said:

In 1992 could Bill Clinton have even gotten security clearance?

you had multiple affairs, rumored coke use, a close brother with a drug addiction, questions about his overseas activity....

Depending on who was doing the clearance, he could have been DQd right out of the gate...

Click to expand...

adonis said:

There was no equivalent argument, in terms of evidence, made against Hillary.  Regardless with Trump, what we have are at least these things:

- He's on record calling for Russia, a foreign nuclear adversary, to hack Hillary's emails and release them to benefit him, at a time when they were doing JUST THAT.  Was it a freudian slip of some kind, letting the world know that he knew what was going on?  It's really too much to assume it's just coincidence with what we know now about the massive campaign Russia was knee deep in at that point.

- His son is on record saying "Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia."  For years, his business has had strong ties with Russia.  Not china, not mexico, not any other country...but Russia.

- He has NO BAD THING to say about Putin, ever.  This isn't hyperbole...not only does he not say bad things, he praises the man.  When pressed, he doesn't do it.  It's uncanny...it's as if he's been cursed to utter not a negative thing about Putin or Russia and he's stuck to it perfectly.  Even if this was all there was, this would be very odd.

- The Financial Times, a reputable and respected organization, is finding links between his business and bad folks in Russia.  The investigation seems to just be gearing up, so we'll see what happens here, but it's not terribly surprising as it'd be a strong motivation behind not releasing his tax returns.

- The freaking Intelligence Community put out a report saying they had high confidence that Russia was engaged in an effort to smear Hillary and get Trump elected.  They have high confidence Russia, approved/guided by putin, was engaged in a propaganda dissemination campaign that had a goal to get Trump elected.  Our president was helped along to win the presidency by a foreign power who he will say nothing bad about, whom he has business ties with, who the IC says helped him along...no smoke yet?  Let's keep going.

- Paul Manafort, Trumps former campaign manager, is under investigation by the FBI for ties to Russia.  Other folks on his team, and his cabinet nominees, many have unusually close relationships to Putin and Russia in general.  Odd on its own, concerning in context of everything else.

- When the Intelligence Community was releasing information implicating Russia, instead of Trump accepting the information like any sane human would do, he lashed out at the Intelligence Community rather than accept that Russia was behind the hacking.  Since the briefing, he still refuses to directly meet this question head on as he's not willing to discuss it anymore.  He has a major problem being willing to admit that Russia was behind the hacking and they were working to get him elected.  

- The tactics that Trump used to become president, to win the election, bear a striking resemblance to the methods Putin is using to discredit democracies across the world.  Undermine confidence in elections (Trump: The system is rigged) and cast doubt on the outcomes.  Discredit the traditional sources of truth in a country, specifically the media and the intelligence community, both of which he's targeted, with journalists being someone he's targeted repeatedly and brutally.  And regarding propaganda, many times in the campaign, his rhetoric and information mirrored what the Russian media was putting out.

What's odd here is that politics as normal has been so disrupted, that we don't even have our frame of reference anymore that ANY SINGLE ONE OF THESE THINGS being true in previous years would've been a scandal of epic proportions.  Yet, you pile them all together with Trump, and people want to give him the benefit of the doubt.  "Just wait to see what he does"...but good lord, he went on a multi-year defamation expedition on Obama about his birth certificate with about 1/10000000th of the evidence of probable cause as I just laid out above. This isn't similar to anything that could be factually said about his opponent during the campaign.  The difference in scale, and the legitimacy of the information, are worlds apart.  Almost everything I said above is based on highly reputable sources, aside from my editorializing.

There is a ton of smoke, and it's silly to say we should just sit back, give the man the benefit of the doubt, and wait and see.  He is not normal, this is not a normal president-elect, the situations described above individually are very concerning, but when added together paint a very concerning picture.  And what's more, I'm not including everything I could be...just the most solid, well known stuff.  We're still only a couple months out from him winning the election and investigations take time...there's every reason to believe there's more to this story.  I am not a conspiracy theorist, and most of the time scoff at loose conspiracies even if they're focused on people I don't like...but this seems much more real.

Click to expand...

packersfan said:

If enough people really cared about who this guy is he never would've gotten the Republican nomination, much less won the election. But we live in a country where his behavior is condoned, supported and celebrated so here we are. 

Way to go us. 

Click to expand...

Ministry of Pain said:

adonis said:

I'm not there yet.  I don't think we always get the president we deserve.  We don't deserve Trump.

From so many people I talked to, reasonable conservatives, I've literally heard this many times as well "Trump was my 14th choice out of 14." I know a few people who were gung-ho about him, but they weren't people worthy of respect really...those i respect who voted for him said the thing about him being nearly their last choice.

I think this election was largely about what they didn't like happening in the country, and they wanted to shake things up.  They are OK electing a wildcard guy, just like many were OK electing Tea Party folks to the house to just muck up the system.  I find that there's a huge lack of respect for the work of congress, or government in general, and that has lead to a "blow it all up" attitude among many on the right, that has lead to getting stuck with Trump.

But we have him.  The question is, how do the sane among use react? Do we pretend he's just like any other President, and give him the benefit of the doubt, or do we acknowledge his true outlier status in terms of normal human behavior and continue to point out when he is out of line?  For my own sanity, I find myself having to do the latter...I just can't bring myself to accept that a president who attacks the press, attacks private citizens, attacks the intelligence community, but has not a bad thing to say about Russia or Putin, is OK...or business as usual...or he gets the benefit of the doubt.  I just can't do it, and to be honest, I don't see why so many other people are so willing to let go of their standards either and let this stuff be OK.  Maybe it's to preserve their sanity as well.

Click to expand...

So anyone who voted for Trump is deplorable in your opinion?

Click to expand...

Rove! said:

adonis said:

There was no equivalent argument, in terms of evidence, made against Hillary.  Regardless with Trump, what we have are at least these things:

- He's on record calling for Russia, a foreign nuclear adversary, to hack Hillary's emails and release them to benefit him, at a time when they were doing JUST THAT.  Was it a freudian slip of some kind, letting the world know that he knew what was going on?  It's really too much to assume it's just coincidence with what we know now about the massive campaign Russia was knee deep in at that point.

- His son is on record saying "Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia."  For years, his business has had strong ties with Russia.  Not china, not mexico, not any other country...but Russia.

- He has NO BAD THING to say about Putin, ever.  This isn't hyperbole...not only does he not say bad things, he praises the man.  When pressed, he doesn't do it.  It's uncanny...it's as if he's been cursed to utter not a negative thing about Putin or Russia and he's stuck to it perfectly.  Even if this was all there was, this would be very odd.

- The Financial Times, a reputable and respected organization, is finding links between his business and bad folks in Russia.  The investigation seems to just be gearing up, so we'll see what happens here, but it's not terribly surprising as it'd be a strong motivation behind not releasing his tax returns.

- The freaking Intelligence Community put out a report saying they had high confidence that Russia was engaged in an effort to smear Hillary and get Trump elected.  They have high confidence Russia, approved/guided by putin, was engaged in a propaganda dissemination campaign that had a goal to get Trump elected.  Our president was helped along to win the presidency by a foreign power who he will say nothing bad about, whom he has business ties with, who the IC says helped him along...no smoke yet?  Let's keep going.

- Paul Manafort, Trumps former campaign manager, is under investigation by the FBI for ties to Russia.  Other folks on his team, and his cabinet nominees, many have unusually close relationships to Putin and Russia in general.  Odd on its own, concerning in context of everything else.

- When the Intelligence Community was releasing information implicating Russia, instead of Trump accepting the information like any sane human would do, he lashed out at the Intelligence Community rather than accept that Russia was behind the hacking.  Since the briefing, he still refuses to directly meet this question head on as he's not willing to discuss it anymore.  He has a major problem being willing to admit that Russia was behind the hacking and they were working to get him elected.  

- The tactics that Trump used to become president, to win the election, bear a striking resemblance to the methods Putin is using to discredit democracies across the world.  Undermine confidence in elections (Trump: The system is rigged) and cast doubt on the outcomes.  Discredit the traditional sources of truth in a country, specifically the media and the intelligence community, both of which he's targeted, with journalists being someone he's targeted repeatedly and brutally.  And regarding propaganda, many times in the campaign, his rhetoric and information mirrored what the Russian media was putting out.

What's odd here is that politics as normal has been so disrupted, that we don't even have our frame of reference anymore that ANY SINGLE ONE OF THESE THINGS being true in previous years would've been a scandal of epic proportions.  Yet, you pile them all together with Trump, and people want to give him the benefit of the doubt.  "Just wait to see what he does"...but good lord, he went on a multi-year defamation expedition on Obama about his birth certificate with about 1/10000000th of the evidence of probable cause as I just laid out above. This isn't similar to anything that could be factually said about his opponent during the campaign.  The difference in scale, and the legitimacy of the information, are worlds apart.  Almost everything I said above is based on highly reputable sources, aside from my editorializing.

There is a ton of smoke, and it's silly to say we should just sit back, give the man the benefit of the doubt, and wait and see.  He is not normal, this is not a normal president-elect, the situations described above individually are very concerning, but when added together paint a very concerning picture.  And what's more, I'm not including everything I could be...just the most solid, well known stuff.  We're still only a couple months out from him winning the election and investigations take time...there's every reason to believe there's more to this story.  I am not a conspiracy theorist, and most of the time scoff at loose conspiracies even if they're focused on people I don't like...but this seems much more real.

Click to expand...

I stopped reading after your first "point"

Trump was clearly taunting Hillary about the subpoenaed emails that her team had deleted.

As the emails were subpoenaed, based on a treaty (signed by Bill Clinton), Russia and the US agreeing to cooperate on legal matters, Russia would be legally obligated to turn over any of these emails in question  to the United States.

Click to expand...

moleculo said:

Russia’s intelligence service would have supplied him with a way to do it that’s easy to use and much less conspicuous.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Sabertooth said:

He deserved the benefit of the doubt.  Sure.  The problem here is that there is less and less doubt by the day.  I mean, no we don't have a picture of him receiving a check from Putin.  But come on.  How much circumstantial evidence needs to mount here?  Does he need to admit it?  Even if he did, his supporters would be like, "It was locker room talk.  Everybody talks like they are a traitor from time to time."    

I seriously wonder if there is anything, anything at all, that he can do that would give pause to his true believers.  

Click to expand...

Mile High said:

We know there isn't anything he does his followers won't believe. Just look at his tweets yesterday about him mocking the disabled reporter. 

Click to expand...

timschochet said:

Adonis, I'm not going to say you don't make some good points. You do. I guess I'm just skeptical of every conspiracy until it comes true. So much of it turns out to be BS. I firmly believe that most of the stuff about Hillary was total BS. 

Believe me, Donald Trump is the last guy I want to defend. But I think we end up wasting so much time on stuff that will never be proven...

Click to expand...

moleculo said:

this guy is an interesting twitter follow: Adam Khan.  He doesn't seem to be anyone in the know, just a twitter guy, but has some interesting Trump/Russia conspiracy stuff.  I won't link anything that isn't backed up by legit news, but he has some interesting posts.

Click to expand...

adonis said:

I barely ever give these types of theories weight, but when you look at the solidity of this evidence, it's pretty compelling.  The most significant piece is the Intelligence Report on Russian activity in our election.  That alone is more weight, and alone would cause folks to ask questions about what did Trump know about Russia working on his behalf.  If that was all there was, the evidence would be strong, and warrant questions.

However, that evidence is paired with some other less "strong" pieces, but equally factual.

Most conspiracy theories rely on loose ties, on innuendo, on "i heard it from a well placed source", on a lot of speculation about back room dealings that had to have happened due to schedules overlapping on a given day visiting a city.  This isn't that kind of theory, hell, it's not even a theory.  It's basically just saying there's tons of smoke, and it's hard to believe there's so much circumstantial evidence all around one subject where there won't be anything deeper revealed.  It could be nothing, but to me, Occam's razor tells me to believe the most simple option and that would be that Russia and Trump, to one degree or another, were colluding on this.  To believe otherwise requires a huge deal of explaining away coincidences, trusting Trump with little basis for doing so, assuming a lot of things contrary to where a lot of public knowledge on the subject is leading us.  

So yeah, which outcome is simpler: Russian connections were working with Trump to influence the election or, Trump was perfectly clean from all outside influence despite his numerous ties to Russia, despite all of the things listed above.  One strains credulity, the other doesn't...Occam's razor points in an opposite direction for me.

Click to expand...

shader said:

How is he any different than a conspiracy theorist that was against Obama or Hilary?  

That's the problem with this junk.  It will suck up all your time, and it's probably not true anyway.  And if it is, I imagine the truth will come out...or it won't.

There are internet posts and twitter accounts with page after page of nefarious Hilary Clinton ties and links, and if you sat there and read it all, you could really begin to worry.

Having "Russian ties" is going to obviously happen when a guy does business in Russia.  But when you go past that into the deep conspiracy stuff, it's a total waste of time and detracts from things that are much worse.

Like Trump throwing a fit over Meryl Streep.  I mean seriously the guy is acting like a 16 year old girl. That should worry you as to whether he's emotionally ready for the White House.  

Click to expand...

shader said:

moleculo said:

this guy is an interesting twitter follow: Adam Khan.  He doesn't seem to be anyone in the know, just a twitter guy, but has some interesting Trump/Russia conspiracy stuff.  I won't link anything that isn't backed up by legit news, but he has some interesting posts.

Click to expand...

How is he any different than a conspiracy theorist that was against Obama or Hilary?  

Click to expand...

Ministry of Pain said:

See Eephus I'm afraid what is happening is anything the media wants to report on Trump true or untrue it's all gonna be put out there. A lot of folks will not listen but then you are going to have folks who live in urban sprawls come face to face with a fraction of those folks who doesn't buy into these media driven witch hunts...let me put it another way, give this a few more months as this is the tip of the iceberg...then we will send MoP into the field in a black or minority driven section of Dade or Palm Beach and let's see what happens when He sticks a mic in someone's face and act like he is anti-Trump and want to get their reaction...let the fireworks begin. 

Click to expand...

packersfan said:

In my opinion, where this differs from the Hilary nonsense and idiotic birther stuff is we have been told without question by the Intelligence Community that Russia committed a cyber attack on our country. We also know Trump has business ties to Russia. Given that, I think it's a legitimate question to ask and investigate those ties in full which means Trump should be ordered to release his tax statements and reveal the extent of his business relationship with Putin/Russia. 

And once again I'll say that if Trump has nothing to hide he should quickly jump at the chance to prove it. Instead he creates more and more diversions hoping to push people's attention and focus away from the legitimate questions and concerns. By doing that all he does is create more and more questions about why he's hiding this relationship and what he stands to gain personally from it. 

I'm not interested in theories. There's more than enough actual evidence to focus on that should have all Americans extremely concerned about the President elect. But I agree the endless speculation isn't helpful at all. There is one person, though, who could put an end to it all easily and quickly but he continues to refuse to do so.

Click to expand...

packersfan said:

In my opinion, where this differs from much of the Hilary nonsense and the idiotic birther stuff is we have been told without question by the Intelligence Community that Russia committed a cyber attack on our country. We also know Trump has business ties to Russia. Given that, I think it's a legitimate question to ask and investigate those ties in full which means Trump should be ordered to release his tax statements and reveal the extent of his business relationship with Putin/Russia. 

And once again I'll say that if Trump has nothing to hide he should quickly jump at the chance to prove it. Instead he creates more and more diversions hoping to push people's attention and focus away from the legitimate questions and concerns. By doing that all he does is create more and more questions about why he's hiding this relationship and what he stands to gain personally from it. 

I'm not interested in theories. There's more than enough actual evidence to focus on that should have all Americans extremely concerned about the President elect. But I agree the endless speculation isn't helpful at all. There is one person, though, who could put an end to it all easily and quickly but he continues to refuse to do so.

Click to expand...

packersfan said:

In my opinion, where this differs from the Hilary nonsense and idiotic birther stuff is we have been told without question by the Intelligence Community that Russia committed a cyber attack on our country. We also know Trump has business ties to Russia. Given that, I think it's a legitimate question to ask and investigate those ties in full which means Trump should be ordered to release his tax statements and reveal the extent of his business relationship with Putin/Russia. 

And once again I'll say that if Trump has nothing to hide he should quickly jump at the chance to prove it. Instead he creates more and more diversions hoping to push people's attention and focus away from the legitimate questions and concerns. By doing that all he does is create more and more questions about why he's hiding this relationship and what he stands to gain personally from it. 

I'm not interested in theories. There's more than enough actual evidence to focus on that should have all Americans extremely concerned about the President elect. But I agree the endless speculation isn't helpful at all. There is one person, though, who could put an end to it all easily and quickly but he continues to refuse to do so.

Click to expand...

packersfan said:

In my opinion, where this differs from much of the Hilary nonsense and the idiotic birther stuff is we have been told without question by the Intelligence Community that Russia committed a cyber attack on our country. We also know Trump has business ties to Russia. Given that, I think it's a legitimate question to ask and investigate those ties in full which means Trump should be ordered to release his tax statements and reveal the extent of his business relationship with Putin/Russia. 

And once again I'll say that if Trump has nothing to hide he should quickly jump at the chance to prove it. Instead he creates more and more diversions hoping to push people's attention and focus away from the legitimate questions and concerns. By doing that all he does is create more and more questions about why he's hiding this relationship and what he stands to gain personally from it. 

I'm not interested in theories. There's more than enough actual evidence to focus on that should have all Americans extremely concerned about the President elect. But I agree the endless speculation isn't helpful at all. There is one person, though, who could put an end to it all easily and quickly but he continues to refuse to do so.

Click to expand...

Jayrod said:

By who?  Under what authority?  The problem here is that there isn't a law, so this does not have to be done.  It has always been a gentlemen's agreement, but unfortunately the man we elected is not a gentleman.

Click to expand...

Jayrod said:

By who?  Under what authority?  The problem here is that there isn't a law, so this does not have to be done.  It has always been a gentlemen's agreement, but unfortunately the man we elected is not a gentleman.

Click to expand...

moleculo said:

Now this is where this gets similar to the Birther thing.  I think that Obama allowed that to dangle in the wind as long as he did becase it made his opponents look foolish and gave a nice distraction.  Could Trump be playing the same game?  The more eye-balls looking into alleged Russian connection, the fewer eyeballs vetting his Cabinet.

Click to expand...

maybe there is something there, maybe not.

Click to expand...

It’s also worth stepping back and looking at the bigger picture here. If Trump did want to set up a secret means of communicating with Russia, why do it this way? Setting up a special Trump server is conspicuous, needlessly complicated, and requires help from IT staff who might get suspicious. It’s a safe bet that if Trump had wanted to secretly communicate with the Russian government, Russia’s intelligence service would have supplied him with a way to do it that’s easy to use and much less conspicuous.

Click to expand...

Joe Summer said:

moleculo:
 

"If Hillary did want to set up a secret means of communicating with [insert enemy here], why do it with a conspicuous email server?"

Click to expand...

Joe Summer said:

moleculo:
 

"If Hillary did want to set up a secret means of communicating with [insert enemy here], why do it with a conspicuous email server?"

Click to expand...

adonis said:

17 Intelligence Agencies issued findings that Russia was working on Trumps behalf for him to win the election.  Releasing hacked emails, engaging in distributing propaganda, etc.

Click to expand...

Rove! said:

Can you list these 17 agencies and which specific piece of information each of them found?

Click to expand...

Amused to Death said:

I don't believe the "specific" info has been made public.  I believe they have been presented to Trump.

Here's 16 of the agencies, in addition to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. 

Click to expand...

Jeremy said:

I would tend to agree with those that say Trump's hostile attitude toward the IC is most likely due to him being an insecure baby that can't handle people questioning how he won the election.  It probably comes from the same place as his claim of there being 3 million illegals who voted for Hillary because he can't accept he lost the (meaningless) popular vote.  He's just THAT insecure. 

But I would feel better if he would give us SOMETHING to assure us he's not directly working with the Russians (or being blackmailed by them).  Maybe one time acknowledge that Putin and Russia could be a threat.  Maybe don't kiss his ### on twitter?  Maybe acknowledge Putin's past butchery when asked about it instead of saying 'well, we don't really know for sure...'  (well before this election controversy came about).   

When it looked like Romney might be SoS, that gave me some comfort (we know how he feels about Russia), but then he went the other way with it and appointed a guy who's wined and dined with Putin. 

I don't want to be "conspiracy theory guy", but the list of circumstantial evidence Adonis posted is pretty concerning.  And I thought he protested way too much when Hillary accused him in the debate of being a puppet. Sure seemed like she struck a nerve there.  I keep waiting for that moment where I can say "ok, yeah.  It's just his ego that's causing him to disparage our IC while defending our enemies", but it's hard not to feel like he's afraid of what they might find. 

Click to expand...