And for 2 years we've had people playing to their bases building up tension and anger on both sides. Yes we have an answer from Mueller but we also have more hate on both sides. I don't see how this is a net gain for the USA.
Collusion
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If they saw all of the circumstances that led to the opening of the Russia investigation and ignored it, that would be a dereliction of duty. Our intelligence community is not tasked with investigating things that can only be proven 100% of the time. They are tasked to investigate based on circumstances in front of them.
I'd also slow down a bit. Lets see what the Mueller report says. Barr specifically stated that the report did not exonerate Trump. Lets understand what that means.
I mean... I don't necessarily feel like trying to understand why a foreign adversary tried to influence an election in favor of one candidate over another can be interpreted as anything but a net gain.
That is something that needs to be investigated by our intelligence community.
Was Trump standing next to Putin placing doubts on US intelligence a net gain?
Based on the circumstances, we needed to investigate Trump/Russia... Not because it would be a net gain, but not doing so is a potentially much greater net loss in the future.
And you people just keep on fishing for bullshit. I found out that the Waterfste investigation report did not go public for several years. Why should this be different? All you dopey Dems want to do is scan the report and mince wording to keep the investigation going. Then, you will give the bullshit line” court of public opinion” and “ polls show that the general public......”. Give it up, haters. . Time to investigate Obama, Lynch, Hillary, Clapper , Comey, Rosenstein, etc. Meuller is a puppet to a cous-de-tat that did not work. He is a despicable man.
Lol... Absurd.
To your other points, good or not, this issue just isnt going to go away until the public has an understanding of what is in the Mueller report. We havent seen a complete sentence from the report yet.
You always play right into my hands. The public is not the law. The law is set up to not care about the opinion of the public.
You don't understand why foreign adversaries tried to influence our election? The same reason we influence elections.
But you want to get to the bottom of everything instead of moving forward. Let's investigate everything forever. Let's investigate Trump's connections with Russia more. More research into the Trump tower meeting. Let's look into why foreign adversaries just happen to have big hearts and donate to the Clinton Foundation. Let's look into why Comey had a letter to exonerate Clinton before investigating her. Millions of American's are more worried about their higher pay, better medical benefits, having a job in general, but let's spend our resources on investigations that will ultimately do nothing for the average person. Nobody in politics is looking to piss off the average person because everything done in politics is calculated concering votes.
Amazing how for 2 years when they couldn't impeach the President it was all they talked about, now that they can, they won't unless something changes. So for 2 years CNN, MSNBC and every other liberal network had politicians lying and lying about how they would impeach him knowing full well they would never do it because it would cost them votes in the end. 2 years fo lying to the American people, 0 accountability for their words and continuing to raise the level of heat in this country.
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Congress hasn't even seen the report yet.
Mueller apparently said that there was not enough evidence to convict Trump of a crime related to conspiracy, but did not believe that the same threshold was met for an obstruction charge. Why?
Congress and the American public should understand what that means.
I don't need to see the full report personally, but I think we don't yet have enough information to make a judgement on its contents.
Funny you bring that one up. A few on this board were VERY critical of Comey because of that. Are you ok with this investigation concluding without an interview of Trump?
It's about precedent.
Trump Jr walked into a room looking for dirt from a foreign adversary.
Lets not make that an ok thing to do in the future. There is a long list of stuff none of us should be ok with from the Trump campaign. You have to investigate it now or you let this go on in the future.
That is not how I would characterize the dems position over the last 2 years at all.
If the evidence shows he should be impeached then he should be impeached. If it doesn't then he shouldn't. That was the stance of reasonable politicians. He still may be impeached. I am not suggesting that is likely but there are several other investigations that are ongoing.
Democrats should not move on impeachment at all unless we see something that is worth impeaching him for and as of today that bar has not been met. Impeaching him in the house would be an entirely political theater move and really just plain stupid at this point.
Goalpost is and has always been the Mueller report.
Once congress see's the report, this can be over. Until then we know that Mueller did not believe there was sufficient evidence to prove a criminal conspiracy, and Barr believes obstruction could not occur without proving a criminal conspiracy.
There are a few questions that still need to be resolved.
btw since hoopsfan brought it up. It was your thread calling Comey a political hack because he didn't interview Hillary ... You maintaining that position since Mueller didn't interview Trump and Don Jr?
Ivestigate, but put a cap on the spending of the investigation. It's insane how people drag their feet and the cost just keeps rising and rising. There's nothing wrong with investigating but make it efficient.
What rock have you been living under. Getting campaign dirty info from anyone and everyone has existed for a long time. To think one side was clean and the other is dirty is ridiculous. If you want to look into it, look into both sides. Heck you might want to look into both sides of the last 10 elections or more.
Are you telling me you never saw democrats on tv talking about impeachment? No democrats that won in 2018 ever talked about impeachment? One of us needs to get our ears checked because I heard the word impeachment many times.
You're basing that one zero knowledge of the investigation though. It's based on an arbitrary timeline. They take how long they take.
When Al Gore's campaign received illegal election material, they went right to the FBI with it.
When Trump Jr received a message that he could receive illegal campaign material he responded with "If it's what you say it is, I love it" and brought Kushner and Manafort along to get the information.
Stop saying all sides are the same.
Impeachment was a very small part of the messaging in 2018. From what I saw, most were not bring it up unless they were asked and when asked most said they would support it depending on the investigation.
Mueller also did not believe there was obstruction other wise he wold have indicted. Copped out by leaving it up to Barr.
A little different, Comey wrote a memo exonerating Clinton and then still interviewed her after that. That's political hackery, ie, cover for his already formed opinion.
Mueller never interviewed any Trump, must not have deemed that necessary on any level.
I think Mueller is a political hack as well, this really was a witch hunt.
A witch hunt that resulted in Trump's campaign manager, deputy campaign manager, national security advisory and personal attorney all being indicted or convicted of felonies. "I hire the best people."
Good job repeating propaganda from Dear Leader, though.
He specifically said there was not enough evidence for conspiracy. He did not use the same language on obstruction. Why?
Like I said. The goalpost has been Mueller's report, not the Barr report.
They aren't different.
At a certain point in time, an interview will not change the results on an investigation. A Trump interview at this point would have just been a perjury trap.
If this were a witch hunt, they would have subpoenaed an interview with the witch and gotten him with perjury because he lies constantly. I am personally glad that didn't occur.
Heck that's our government in a nutshell. Keep wasting money on things taking how long they take and nothing ever gets done.
Ok so you believe in the last 30 years there have only been 2 instances where illegal election material was given to candidates? I have a buy 2 bridges and get the third half off deal with your name on it. It's usually buy 2 bridges get the 3rd free, but if you're crazy enough to believe that you'll pay half price for the third.
Agree to disagree.
Hopefully the Report will lay out the rationale.
One answer might be that any obstruction charge would be met with the cry of "witch hunt" by the far right. Passing on the obstruction charge has resulted in the far right saying, "I think Mueller is a political hack as well, this really was a witch hunt."
We don't know. That is one of the unanswered questions.
Without knowing what Mueller said in his report, to have an opinion there, we need to understand what is the grand jury case which Barr is referring to and what are the other matters which have been farmed out by Mueller which Barr referred to.
No, I just believe if you have no idea what you are talking about regarding an investigation then you can't possibly have an opinion on the efficiency of it.
In a historical sense, this investigation was shorter than most special counsel appointments.
So, anyone should be able to get away with breaking laws in the future because someone probably got away with it in the past.
Awesome...
You have as much clue as I have about the investigation and you've posted your opinion quite often on this thread. What makes your opinion ok and mine not? Must be you have the right opinion because you're liberal.
I guess when I phrase it that way, now all sides are the same. LOL
I would like to see the report. The letter by Barr was carefully written with many questions. First, Mueller was looking for conspiracy with the Russian government. Well, that doesn't mean collusion which has no legal meaning. Did he get help from Russians that were not from the "government"? Perhaps no criminal act but no American should be getting help from Russians.
I also think there may not be any smoking gun for the conspiracy with the Russian Government.
With regard to the obstruction, did Mueller think it was outside his authority to recommend an indictment or thought pursuant to DOJ rules he could not indict a sitting president for Obstruction. Perhaps, he thought the obstruction case was there but there was a complication to it. Namely, that there was not enough evidence as to the underlying crime to actually charge obstruction. So there may be a strong case of obstruction but to what? Perhaps, he thought there was certainly enough evidence for an obstruction charge but he didn't think he had the kill shot evidence for the President. (The standard to go after the President is way higher than an ordinary citizen). Or all of the above. I do not think the answers to this is as cut and dry as Trump wants it to be. I hope we get to see the report. My feeling is that Trump will block as much of it as possible.
I have no opinion on the efficiency of the investigation because I have no knowledge of the investigation. If the Mueller report is 6,000 pages of tic tac toe games I'll agree with you.
Indeed. I want to see it but I would settle for just congress seeing the report if it can't be made public. The house is a mess but I would trust just the republicans on the senate intelligence committee to review the full report and provide a summary to the public.
The end is NOTthe Mueller report.... you have the Chair of House Intelligence calling for more investigations...related to Trump's finances... still saying there is evidence of collusion there are Dempcrats also calling for more investigation.... ...... AND you have the President calling for investigations into Democrat culpability in all of this....
The Mueller report seemed to exonerate Trump from collusion with the Russians.... and if that's true...don't we want to know how this mess got started in the first place and get underneath the underlying cause of this?Trump calls it an attempted coup and I agree. People in high places throughout our government (starting with the Obama Dept of Justice and the DNC) went through extreme gyrations to get this mess moving forward.... from the aftermath of the failed Hillary campaign...... even before the election
If Trump colluded and obstructed... he should be held accountable.....
If not, someone set this up... from the wiretapping of the Trump campaign...from the set up of Carter Page..... from the debunked Steele dossier, (who paid for that?)..even Steele couldn't corroborate what he had written...... to Bruce Ohr and his wife who worked for Fusion GPS, ... to the arrogant Trump haters in the FBI and other parts of the gov't and DNC who "colluded" to first see that he wasn't elected and then tried to bring him down..... the list goes on and on..... and the media gleefully lapped all this up..... and regurgitated it endlessly in group think # RESIST mantras,..... George Soros $ behind much of this, I believe...........
The list goes on.... there is a trail of crumbs that needs to be followed and If Trump didn't collude.... .someone needs to be held accountable for the travesty that ensued. Will that happen..... I doubt that..... but it would be nice to know the WHOLE story
..... so all Democrats, Liberals, Progressives..... whatever..... calling for full disclosure and transparency.... be careful what you ask for... the truth may hurt
The Mueller report seemed to exonerate Trump from collusion with the Russians.... and if that's true...don't we want to know how this mess got started in the first place and get underneath the underlying cause of this?Trump calls it an attempted coup and I agree. People in high places throughout our government (starting with the Obama Dept of Justice and the DNC) went through extreme gyrations to get this mess moving forward.... from the aftermath of the failed Hillary campaign...... even before the election
If Trump colluded and obstructed... he should be held accountable.....
If not, someone set this up... from the wiretapping of the Trump campaign...from the set up of Carter Page..... from the debunked Steele dossier, (who paid for that?)..even Steele couldn't corroborate what he had written...... to Bruce Ohr and his wife who worked for Fusion GPS, ... to the arrogant Trump haters in the FBI and other parts of the gov't and DNC who "colluded" to first see that he wasn't elected and then tried to bring him down..... the list goes on and on..... and the media gleefully lapped all this up..... and regurgitated it endlessly in group think # RESIST mantras,..... George Soros $ behind much of this, I believe...........
The list goes on.... there is a trail of crumbs that needs to be followed and If Trump didn't collude.... .someone needs to be held accountable for the travesty that ensued. Will that happen..... I doubt that..... but it would be nice to know the WHOLE story
..... so all Democrats, Liberals, Progressives..... whatever..... calling for full disclosure and transparency.... be careful what you ask for... the truth may hurt
Definitely need full transparency. That means the Mueller report, the Steele dossier, the FISA warrant applications, etc. All of it needs to be publicly disclosed.
Absolutely. Add Trump's tax returns to that list as well. Ambassador Mcfaul testified today, that would be a very important way to understand the foreign business dealings as a tool to understand potential compromising issues.
But again... Trump could have declassified the FISA documents a year ago if it helped him. Just like the Nunes memo and the testimony of Ohr, Lisa Page and Stzrok - My guess is that it is a better political talking point from the right to have everything hidden so they can pretend there is a conspiracy against Trump because once we see it, there has been nothing there.
Or, if Trump knew all along that he was innocent of any collusion, why not hold on to the FISA documents until after the investigation vindicating him was complete. Great TV...take all the shots from the investigation and then flip the script.
In august 2018, I could see that argument
In March 2019, not so much.
If that were true, he would have used it in 2018 to try and prevent democrats from gaining a majority in the house.
I play checkers. The President is playing ten dimensional chess. I could easily envision him holding information that was damaging to the Democrats for months and months, waiting for the perfect time to flip the script and release it. If nothing else, the President is a man of subtlety and patience.
But since the investigation just ended, that's a moot point. And if it's a choice between saving the House or ensuring a second Presidential term, which do you think he would do?
Mueller deserves a lot of credit for giving his decision based on the evidence even it does not match his opinion and the opinion of some of the other political hacks he used to work who are continuing to get as much face time as they can so they can sell their books in the future. Brennan is the only one willing to admit that "maybe" he was wrong.
IMO if Hillary actually campaigned outside of her comfortable footprint and got a few more votes we probably aren't having any of these conversations. I still blame her arrogance on losing this election WAY more than the Russian interference. The fact remains she was a very volatile candidate. People either loved her or hated her and Trump took full advantage of the folks not getting any attention by the liberal progressive movement and her campaign. I would imagine both parties paid significant attention to the outcome for the future. Obama campaigned everywhere and got plenty of the independent vote in fly over states and won the election. Hillary and her campaign folks seemed to miss that in a huge way because they thought they had it in the bag. Trump is an ahole but he simply outworked her in the end and paid attention to the fact that we are a Republic and there are lots of folks out there not believers in the progressive movement. I had a driver in Cleveland for a car service that I took to the airport. He was hired by Trumps folks for two weeks. He told me they told him their target are the folks in middle America that are feeling left out and that is who they want to appeal to. This was before he won the primaries and I didn't think much of it at the time. I know lots of folks who voted for Trump because they hated Hillary. Did the Russians have anything to do with that? I think not for the most part.
Next election should be interesting. I'm still hopeful someone good on the Repub side runs and beats Trump in the primaries. I think right now Biden wins the election. Will he be a puppet to the Dems or a real President who thinks on his own? Hopefully the latter.
IMO if Hillary actually campaigned outside of her comfortable footprint and got a few more votes we probably aren't having any of these conversations. I still blame her arrogance on losing this election WAY more than the Russian interference. The fact remains she was a very volatile candidate. People either loved her or hated her and Trump took full advantage of the folks not getting any attention by the liberal progressive movement and her campaign. I would imagine both parties paid significant attention to the outcome for the future. Obama campaigned everywhere and got plenty of the independent vote in fly over states and won the election. Hillary and her campaign folks seemed to miss that in a huge way because they thought they had it in the bag. Trump is an ahole but he simply outworked her in the end and paid attention to the fact that we are a Republic and there are lots of folks out there not believers in the progressive movement. I had a driver in Cleveland for a car service that I took to the airport. He was hired by Trumps folks for two weeks. He told me they told him their target are the folks in middle America that are feeling left out and that is who they want to appeal to. This was before he won the primaries and I didn't think much of it at the time. I know lots of folks who voted for Trump because they hated Hillary. Did the Russians have anything to do with that? I think not for the most part.
Next election should be interesting. I'm still hopeful someone good on the Repub side runs and beats Trump in the primaries. I think right now Biden wins the election. Will he be a puppet to the Dems or a real President who thinks on his own? Hopefully the latter.
I think he would probably prefer an opposing body without subpoena power over his tax records and business dealings... especially after Cohen was reported to have flipped on Trump.
The idea that Trump would be sitting on something in 2018 to help him win in 2020 just seems uncharacteristically Trumplike.
Probably immeasurable but they were certainly trying to have something to do with that.
Can't really see a republican beating Trump in a primary.
I'm not sold on Biden being the pick yet either. Some interesting theories out that he could join the race and announce his VP pick at the same time and agree to step aside after 4 years. He would need someone really high profile to sign on though. Not sure he can pull that off. So far my favorite candidate is Buttigieg.
