Quote:
Originally Posted by Adder
I'm saying that the evidence shows that Trump personally, as well as other members of his campaign, asked for, knew about and accepted help from the Russian government and did nothing to prevent it (any other campaign would have been reporting the Russian contacts to the FBI). That's not exoneration. At most, that's got really lucky they couldn't be charged.
I'm also saying that Mueller did not have access to any Russian witnesses (nor Assange) and the two most likely Trump participants - Stone and Manafort - did not cooperate. It safe to assume they know things that might have aided the prosecution.
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I am running for Congress. Russians, acting in concert with Wikileaks, start leaking all sorts of nasty shit about my opponent. I decide to take a political risk and welcome this, even encourage more of it. But I do not directly coordinate with the Russians. I simply receive info from them and use it to my advantage. I also telecast to these Russians that I understand they want me in office over my opponent. To get more info into the public sphere of the sort these Russians are peddling, I even state overtly that I want better relations with them, so they'll keep leaking such info through Wikileaks.
Is this "dancing from afar" a crime?
No. No it's not. And if it's not a crime, you've got nothing but finger wagging. "These people are immoral." Pay for a beer with that. The public doesn't care about this investigation as it relates to political charges. You think it cares at all about someone claiming it proved the Trump campaign is immoral or engaged in dirty tricks? You realize how low our public opinion of politicians is generally, apart from Trump. You also realize Trump is admittedly, openly amoral and immoral (it shifts situationally). Calling him an immoral politician is like pointing out the moon's existence.
Re Stone, Manafort, and Assange, I'll say it again: If you cannot adduce info adequate to charge, you have nothing. Mueller had 22 months. He had thousands of subpoenas, hundreds of interviews, and he couldn't come up with adequate evidence of a crime in re the conspiracy. Now you say it all would have been different if only they'd had cracked Stone, Manafort, and Assange? Please. Mueller came up snake eyes on conspiracy, as I always figured he would. But congrats -- you've got the dumb bastard in jeopardy on obstruction. Run with that angle. It's the only one you have.
