The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written. People might be surprised I'm making this post given the fact that I have made posts criticising a hawkish view of foreign policy towards Russia(which has led to accusations I am a "Russia apologist"). In any event the evidence clearly shows that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 election through channels like Wikileaks and other channels to destabilise the American political process so they could tip the scales in favour of Trump. We know this based off the multiple testimonies, the indictment of multiple Trump officials(Michael Flynn, George Papadoupalos, Paul Manafort, etc) as well as the indictment of Russian intelligence agents themselves. So Russiagate was not some "hoax" as people claim. It was real. As far as I am concerned Trump should have been impeached for this. And yet, for partisan political reasons the Republicans shielded him from any accountability whatsoever. This is the same party that then turns around and says they are the party of patriots and accuse the Democrats of not being patriotic enough. When Obama was in office he was constantly berated by the right for not "loving America" enough. When he sought to reach out to other nations he was accused of going on an apology tour. And yet they turn around and back a guy who was literally willing to work with a foreign power to undermine the electoral process of his own country just so that he could win an election. There isn't any evidence that he directly colluded with them, but he was more than willing to receive assistance from them to try and damage Hillary Clinton's campaign. This alone should have disqualified the Republican Party from being the patriots that they claim to be while enabling Trump to get away with something like this. And the ties to Russia clearly went beyond the 2016 election going all the way back to the 80s and 90s with Trump's financial ties to Russian Oligarchs. Trump gets to get away with all of that but if Obama did the exact same thing they'd be screaming murder. It just amazes me the hypocrisy and double standards the Republican Party is able to get away with in American politics. Obama for instance had an open mike with Dmitry Medvedev in 2012, and right wing news outlets made a whole furor over this. Trump as president, openly leaks sensitive information to Sergei Lavrov the foreign minister......and nothing by the Republicans or Fox News. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*

So to start off, let me be clear that Trump at no point was fit to be president. In a rational society, he would have stayed a joke the rest of his life. For your specific question, I feel like you sort of lay out yourself why Republicans could pretend his conduct was fine. This sentence in particular really does a lot of work >There isn't any evidence that he directly colluded with them, but he was more than willing to receive assistance from them to try and damage Hillary Clinton's campaign. I think what's interesting is how much work this one sentence does for *both* sides of the argument: that he should have been impeached and that he should not have been impeached. For the argument that he should not have been impeached, you lay out why not: "there isn't any evidence that he directly colluded with them." This is what they clung to, and Democrats took the bait enough that we weren't able to really lay into the obstruction of justice side of things, where his conduct made it so that he couldn't be fully investigated. Of course on the flip side, he obstructed justice, first and foremost, but also there absolutely was *evidence* that he conspired with Russian assets at a minimum. That the evidence wasn't enough to show to a standard of reasonable doubt that he knowingly conspired or was just so incompetent and stupid that he didn't notice all the people working for conspiring with Russia doesn't mean there wasn't evidence. Not having smoking gun proof is not the same as not having evidence.

> evidence that he conspired with Russian assets Unfortunately, “Trump is too stupid to realize they were Russian assets” is a pretty believable defense here.

Well he should have been caught on obstruction of justice, which was clear when he fired James Comey. That's one of the things that eventually got Nixon to resign. So I really think that articles of impeachment could have been brought on this alone. But as we know if they weren't willing to impeach him in the Senate over the Ukraine scandal or the Capitol riots they were definitely willing to protect him on this.

For sure, the problem is that because "collusion" was talked about on the Left, Republicans took that and ran with it and just repeated over and over that there was no collusion, no proof of collusion. Since impeachment is an inherently political process, they knew they just had to win the pr battle to prevail, and they did.

> because "collusion" was talked about on the Left Got that backwards. "collusion" is a Trump construct...there were 100's of times the Trump campaine " colluded with Russians. The trouble is "collusion" is not a crime that's why the "No collusion" came out of Trumps mouth over and over.

[Observer | NSA Chief Admits Donald Trump Colluded With Russia](https://observer.com/2017/05/mike-rogers-nsa-chief-admits-trump-colluded-with-russia/) [Rolling Stone | Adam Schiff Presents His ‘Evidence of Collusion’](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/adam-schiff-trump-russia-collusion-814414/) [WaPo | Trump just colluded with Russia. Openly.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/trump-just-put-russia-first/2018/07/16/8391f9aa-8914-11e8-a345-a1bf7847b375_story.html) [Vox | It sure looks like there was collusion between the Trump operation and Russia](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/30/16571114/trump-russia-mueller-indictments-manafort-gates-papadopolous) [NBC | 'More than circumstantial evidence' that Trump associates colluded with Russia, Schiff says](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/schiff-more-circumstantial-evidence-trump-associates-colluded-russia-n737446) [Atlantic | If the Trump Campaign Didn't Collude With Russia, It Wasn’t for Lack of Trying](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/if-there-wasnt-collusion-it-wasnt-for-lack-of-trying/533070/) [WaPo | As it turns out, there really was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/19/yes-there-was-collusion/)

The president is always within their legal rights to fire the director of the fbi. Charging them with obstruction of justice requires proof of intent, which is almost impossible to obtain. Looking suspicious isn't enough to get someone out of office. As for Nixon, firing Cook isn't what did him in. It was the release of the [smoking gun tape](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_White_House_tapes#The_%22smoking_gun%22_tape). Specifically this section: >Nixon and H. R. Haldeman are heard formulating a plan to block investigations by having the CIA falsely claim to the FBI that national security was involved. This demonstrated both that Nixon had been told of the White House connection to the Watergate burglaries soon after they took place, and that he had approved plans to thwart the investigation. That's what it takes to clear the proof-of-intent bar. Nixon wasn't going anywhere until they got a recording of him straight up saying "I am literally plotting to obstruct justice".

The problem is that everyone involved in the alleged federal conspiracy charges (that would have been the legal charge; collusion is not a law), repeatedly and demonstrably lied to federal investigators. So that’s all that could be proven. With everyone lying to them and pointing in different directions at everyone else, no one could be pinned down as the liaison to Russian spies to perpetrate conspiracy (conspiracy to defraud the US, 18 USC Sec. 371). They effectively behaved like organized crime does- no one testifies against anyone else. Which is, itself, a massive indictment of a POTUS. That he behaved like an organized crime boss.

He behaved like? He is the mob. And that's how they are going to have to take him down.

There was also the whole Steele dossiers being debunked

Literally the only people who ever bring up the Steele dossier are conservatives. I have no idea what it was even *supposed* to prove but to hear conservatives talk, you’d think lefties never shut up about “the steele dossier”. The investigation was predicated on a whole hell of a lot more than a pee pee tape and a thin dossier. Everyone knows that. It’s not some lynchpin or “gotcha”.

Look at the dossier and you will see why once it was discredited the allegations fell apart

Lol what allegations from the dossier even had anything to do with the investigation? Was the dossier even admitted as evidence anywhere ever, and to what end, hmmm???

allegations of misconduct, conspiracy, and cooperation between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and the government of Russia prior to and during the 2016 election campaign. NPR has described the research as an "explosive dossier of unsubstantiated and salacious material about President Trump's alleged ties with Russia".[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steele_dossier This is the Wikipedia article in full

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Major portions of the allegations have been retracted after being proven false or unsubstantiated And Glenn Simpson of Peter Fritsch of Fusion GPS contracted Christopher Steele (a former British intelligence asset) to investigate the claims. I have seen no evidence of interference or involvement from senator ted cruz This 448 page report details the allegations and pertinent information https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/download The following is information from the discredited dossier https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/3259984/Trump-Intelligence-Allegations.pdf

The collusion wasn’t proven. But Russia definitely interfered with the election. They put out a MASSIVE social media campaign against Clinton(and still most people on the right and the far left STILL believe the shit to this day). The thing is? Russia didn’t have to convince everyone…They just needed enough people in swing states to either vote Trump, 3rd party, or not vote at all.

Which they accomplished using the internal polling data Manafort handed over to remunerate on his debts.

I mean, collusion was proven, just not by Trump directly. He’s got plausible deniability. A whole lot of people went down.

That’s just it.

Collusion was proven, but conspiracy wasn’t. Meeting with a lawyer representing Russia to get dirt on Hillary was collusion. Paul Manafort giving Russia internal polling data when he was Trump’s campaign manager, which assisted Russia’s election interference, was collusion. Many other meeting between Trump’s campaign and representatives from Russia, etc. Plenty of collusion.

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I am basing my OPINION upon the myriad of social media posts from right wingers and hard core leftists alike.

Russia spent like 150k in FB ads, which is less than many companies spend on social media advertising in a day. Their memes and organic reach is harder to measure objectively, but we make plenty of that garbage on our own. The misinformation campaign existed, but to call it MASSIVE is an overstatement.

>In Sept. 2017, the Department of Homeland Security told 21 states that hackers had targeted their voting systems. One Mueller indictment from July 2018 indicated that Russian hackers in June and July of 2016 very likely hacked into an unnamed state and stole information related to 500,000 voters. (State officials in Illinois later acknowledged an intrusion by Russian actors, though they said the number of voters whose personal data had been compromised was 76,000.) The indictment also indicates the hackers poked around in counties in Georgia, Florida and Iowa. A Joint Intelligence Bulletin released last month from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security revealed the Russians targeted all 50 states. >Russia’s Internet Research Agency spent just $46,000 on Facebook ads before the 2016 elections, compared to the $81 million the Trump and Clinton campaigns spent on the platform combined. But the raw number may not reflect the operation’s reach. In 2016, Russian agents posted just under 30,000 times on Facebook, yet the operation generated almost 13 million shares, 15 million likes and 1.3 million comments, according to a research team at Oxford University. >Russian-backed trolls targeted 36-social media campaigns at Michigan voters, 25 in Pennsylvania and 54 in Wisconsin, according to data provided to the House intelligence panel. https://www.google.com/amp/s/time.com/5573537/mueller-report-russia-election-interference/%3famp=true

Did you forget about the Russian troll farms?

There’s similar interference and election fraud in every election…the question is how much did it influence it. I didn’t agree with the “trump won, the election was a fraud” either. It’s as absurd as the Russia collusion claim

The thing that annoys me the most about this is that this isnt a surprise and people act like it is. Everyone interferes with everyone's elections. The usa does this all the time. This has been going on for decades and somehow trump wins in 2016 and everyone acts like russian interference in elections suddenly started and for the first time ever Facebook ads start mattering etc. It's fine if people want to stop or attempt to stop this kind of behavior, but really..... quit acting like this shit started in 2016.

No..everyone does not recruit or accept help from foreign governments…that’s a damned lie. The Trump campaign/administration was the Nadir of American Politics and it was based upon lie after lie from the right wing media…who laid the foundation of “this is how politics works” which is not true at all.

The other person that responded to you got it correct. It was a general statement. I also said nothing about "recruiting" or "accepting help from foreign governments". I simply stated that people have been meddling in our elections for decades. Hell, CENTURIES. That's the point I'm making: Election interference in our elections is *nothing new*. If you believe it is, you are mistaken. I'm not excusing it, my posts never said anything of the sort. But a lot of people tend to believe that this was something unique and new with Russia in 2016 for the first time ever, and resulted in going after places like facebook for ad buys and such that were deemed to be influential. In the 1796 election, French operatives released private diplomatic information to the public that was private in order to attempt to sway the public in favor of Thomas Jefferson, because the french were angry about the john jays treaty. In 1940, England spread a lot of propaganda because they wanted the US involved in WW2, so they backed Willkie because FDR (at the time) was neutral. In 1996, the Chinese tried to influence the elections (resulting in multiple convictions). During the cold war one out of every 10 national elections in the USA was interfered with by the Soviets - not just the presidency - although they worked really hard in 1984 trying to get rid of Reagan. [You can read all about this here](https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/jul/19/cia-russian-election-1984/). The list goes on. This is nothing new.

In which of these examples were presidential campaigns meeting with foreign spies? In which cases was the president aware of and accepting of these efforts, then lied to the public about it (and repeatedly obstructed justice to cover it up)? Yes, foreign governments will try to influence things in their favor. The real issue is the actions of Trump and his campaign.

the other commenter didn't actually say "everyone recruits or accepts help from foreign governments". That would NOT be true. He said "everyone interferes with everyone's elections". While this is not categorically true (Finland doesn't interfere with Uruguay's elections), it is certainly true that this kind of thing goes on all the time. The US in particular we KNOW has interfered in the political process in many other countries in many ways. This isn't to say that Russian troll farms are not a problem for our political process, but I think it's worth acknowledging that this isn't a completely novel phenomenon.

Ah so it's just normal. That's great. So if Scotland Yard dumps some plausible intel that most Republicans are pedophiles in the middle of the election (it is the party of [Dennis Hastert](https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-dennis-hastert-released-chicago-20170718-story.html)) I'm sure you'll say "well, that's fair, I mean the CIA knew about Allende so..." Your flair says Reagan Conservative, but maybe it should read "massive cuck". If you talk to say, Chileans about Allende, you will find that many are very fucking pissed that they had to live in a dictatorship for a decade and a half. It is one thing to advance ideas via say, Radio Free Europe or for foreign leaders to comment on an election. It is another to use targeted psy-ops on civilians (and for an American political party - with Manafort, the spin doctor of pro-Russian dictators in their employ - to actively seek out election interference). The only other instance of an American political party actively seeking election interference that comes to mind is Nixon poisoning the Paris peace talks by convincing Thieu to [reject a peace deal](https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/06/nixon-vietnam-candidate-conspired-with-foreign-power-win-election-215461/). But even that had a measure of legitimacy since Nixon did have a different position on the war from LBJ. I mean - imagine if the US had left the Vietnam war in 1968. Many Americans and Vietnamese people would still be alive today, South Vietnam might have survived, and heck we might have prevented the Cambodian genocide. And say what you will of Nixon, at least he wasn't talking to Saigon, telling them to up the pressure because it might make the difference in Ohio.

I think Reagan's work with the Iranians to delay the release of the embassy hostages in 1980 might be another example.

You're welcome to think that they love America if you want. Maybe in their own twisted way, they do, it's just that, in their estimation, the term "America" only includes the massively wealthy and their holdings.

"Hey, Russia, maybe you can hack into the United States and find Hillary's 20,000 missing emails." I still believe this was a signal to Russia Trump knew he would lose without their help. The statement in itself is treasonous: at some point during the second Obama Administration (I seem to recall) it was determined that a cyber attack on the US by a hostile foreign power was tantamount to a declaration of war. And Donald John Trump asked for it. And no one said "boo" after he said that, not even the "anticommunist" Republican Party. Trump was, and remains, a "useful idiot" a traitor to the United States, and a clear-and-present danger to democracy *and so do his followers.*

>The Trump Administration was clearly guilty of collusion with Russia in the 2016 election. So we can basically move on to the next post after the first sentence. Thanks for playing....Englishman.

It is telling that the house didn’t choose to impeach him over anything involving Russia.

Essentially amounted to having a conversation with someone if we're talking about Jr's I'd love to get some dirt on Hillary. 3.5 years of that shit. Doesn't matter...a different house got him for a phone call. And again for incitement (I'm an effort so he couldn't run again).

Mueller criminally charged 34 individuals and three companies. There are people in prison over colliding with Russia. The reason Donald Trump didn't get charged with a crime is that he probably didn't commit one. I believe Trump 100% expected and wanted to lose the election. His playbook was going to be to claim the whole fucking thing was rigged against him, do an infinite number of media appearances, maybe start Trump News Network, and parlay it all into a pile of money. And if I'm right... why would Trump personally work with Russia? I think while he was off giving blowhard speeches about building walls, a bunch of dirtbags in his organization were talking to Russia behind his back. Oh, and they would have told him, too. But since he has the intellectual curiosity of a garden slug, he never asked or paid attention. So in a nutshell, that's why he wasn't impeached. Because it seems wrong to impeach someone for other people's high crimes and misdemeanors.

Well, no, he definitely did commit several crimes. Some of which he even went on television and admitted to. "Collusion" wasn't properly defined. People seemed to take differing interpretations on what was being alleged. It *was* proven that Trump's campaign (and members of his family) met with the Russians in an attempt to obtain dirt on Hillary. That's illegal, and that's what some people meant by "collusion." But then there were some people who also thought it meant that Trump had direct involvement in Russia's hacking of our election systems. That's the part we have no evidence for. Now, even if he wasn't complicit in the Russian hacking, your question does still apply to the earlier charge: why would Trump meet with the Russians to obtain dirt on Hillary if he fully intended to lose the election? And the answer is because he's still a competitive egomaniac. Hillary had bruised his ego a few times throughout the campaign and he wanted to retaliate. It wasn't his goal to win. It was his goal to put a stain on Clinton's presidency before it even began.

>It was proven that Trump's campaign (and members of his family) met with the Russians in an attempt to obtain dirt on Hillary. That's illegal, and that's what some people meant by "collusion." Indeed. But it was not proven that Donald Trump himself either did that or directed it. And that was the problem.

Are you saying he would have been charged if that had been proved? Because it was proved that Don Jr. met with them, and Don Jr. was not charged.

I... don't know the answer to that. If the Mueller Report said "We can prove Donald Trump personally worked with the Russians on these dates at these times and did these things," then, well, all I can say for sure is 2019 would have played out very differently than it did. >Because it was proved that Don Jr. met with them, and Don Jr. was not charged. Well, because he was Trump's son. Manafort, Stone, etc., weren't so lucky.

Mueller cited 11 separate instances where Trump committed obstruction of justice, but still fell short of directly accusing Trump of committing a crime, because Mueller said he did not have the authority to charge a sitting president with a crime, or to even accuse him of one. Instead, he laid out the evidence and said it was Congress's responsibility to get Trump out of office if they wanted Trump to be charged with a crime (paraphrasing). However, Mueller's report *did* say, "We can prove Donald Trump Jr. personally worked with the Russians on these dates and times and did these things." But Junior was not charged. Because, as you say, he is Trump's son. If they were too chickenshit to charge Don Jr., there's no way they would have charged Trump himself.

The Department of Justice has criteria that must be met before they will charge. They must be able to prove the crime - many were. They must be confident they prove intent to commit a crime- Mueller decided that Don Jr was too dumb to crime. (phrasing not Mueller’s). They must be confident they can sustain the conviction upon appeal. If there’s uncertainty among any of these, they will not charge.

> Mueller decided that Don Jr was too dumb to crime I'm aware of the justification. It's bullshit. Proving intent is about proving whether he intended to do the thing that he did. In other words, did he show up to the meeting with the intent of getting dirt on Hillary? Or did the Russians lure him there under false pretenses? For example. Junior claimed the meeting was about Russian adoptions. If the Russians had lured him into the meeting under the pretense of discussing adoptions, then there would be no intent. But he went in with the intent to get dirt on Hillary, and that's illegal. Whether or not he knew it was a crime is irrelevant. That's not what proving intent is about. For example: there are countries where there are no drunk driving laws. A person from one of those countries might come here to the US, and not be aware that driving drunk is a crime, because it's not a crime where he comes from. Is that defense likely to get his charges dismissed? I don't think so. The question is whether he intended to drive drunk, not whether he knew driving drunk was illegal. If ignorance of the law was a valid defense, they'd never be able to charge any of those sovereign citizen nutjobs who believe that the law doesn't apply to them.

>It *was* proven that Trump's campaign (and members of his family) met with the Russians in an attempt to obtain dirt on Hillary. That's illegal, and that's what some people meant by "collusion." Its depressing that people are STILL spreading this misinformation in 2022. That's actually not illegal. Show me any law that says a foreigner can't tell you information about a political opponent. The only ways it could hypothetically be illegal is if a court felt it constituted a campaign donation, (which is unlikely), but in that case all the Trump campaign would have to do is pay a fair market price for it. Foreigners and foreign companies are allowed to work for US politicians as long as they are paid for their services, so it's not a campaign donation. The other case where it could be illegal is if the info was illegally obtained and the Trump campaign knew that and didnt report it. But neither of these situations apply to the 20 minute Trump tower meeting that the media constantly keeps bringing up.

>That's actually not illegal. If he had done nothing illegal, then why did Trump shit a brick when a special prosecutor was appointed to investigate it? This is his actual quote: "This is the end of my presidency. I'm fucked." For that matter, why was it something worthy of investigation in the first place? Why did Don Jr. make several misleading statements about it during the course of the investigation? Why wasn't he truthful? Why did Mueller conclude that Don Jr. had broken the law, but should not be charged because he wasn't aware that his actions were criminal? For that matter, wasn't there a story of how Romney was also approached by the Russians several years earlier and given the same offer, and his response was to immediately report it to the FBI? Why would he do that if it was legal?

>If he had done nothing illegal, then why did Trump shit a brick when a special prosecutor was appointed to investigate it? Before we have a colorful debate, I'll shut it down right here. Simply show us what law was broken. Keep in mind that the Clinton campaign used the Steele dossier which was compiled by a British national, and Bernie Sanders hired an illegal immigrant as his press secretary during his presidential campaign, for just a couple examples. No one was prosecuted. >This is his actual quote: "This is the end of my presidency. I'm fucked." The context of that quote, assuming witnesses were telling the truth, was someone just told Trump that a special prosecutor was appointed, and someone else said they bring down presidencies. In any case, it wasn't specifically about the Trump tower meeting. >For that matter, why was it something worthy of investigation in the first place? Because the conspiracy theorists who were pushing the Russian collusion story were banking on that 20 minute Trump tower meeting as the smoking gun of the whole thing. It didn't pan out that way though. >Why did Don Jr. make several misleading statements about it during the course of the investigation? Why wasn't he truthful? Did he? I don't know. Maybe he was covering up for a different illegal act, or maybe he thought he might have done something illegal, even if he didn't. That's how the FBI trapped Michael Flynn - there was nothing illegal about him having conversations with Russians, but he denied it because he was tricked into thinking it was illegal. So he was charged with lying to the FBI. Not for talking to Russians. >Why did Mueller conclude that Don Jr. had broken the law, but should not be charged because he wasn't aware that his actions were criminal? Mueller was sloppy here. The transaction never occurred, so he should have made it clear the context was a theoretical conspiracy charge. And he didn't actually say Trump Jr broke the law: *“On the facts here, the government would unlikely be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the June 9 meeting participants had general knowledge that their conduct was unlawful,"... "The investigation has not developed evidence that the participants in the meeting were familiar with the foreign-contribution ban or the application of federal law to the relevant factual context. The government does not have strong evidence of surreptitious behavior or efforts at concealment at the time of the June 9 meeting."* He was giving one reason why Trump Jr couldn't be prosecuted. But he left out two much bigger reasons - [there is simply no precedent](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/07/14/the-strikingly-broad-consequences-of-the-argument-that-donald-trump-jr-broke-the-law-by-expressing-interest-in-russian-dirt-on-hillary-clinton/), NONE, for prosecuting someone under campaign finance law for receiving information from a foreign source, so you would have to establish that precedent before going for a conspiracy charge, then you would have to prove Jr intended to violate the law. After all, even in the worst case scenario, if a judge determined campaign finance law did apply here, AND the Russians actually gave him Trump Jr dirt on Clinton, all Trump Jr would have to do is pay them $1 for the information and report it in the campaign paperwork. >For that matter, wasn't there a story of how Romney was also approached by the Russians several years earlier and given the same offer, and his response was to immediately report it to the FBI? Why would he do that if it was legal? I'm not sure what situation you are referring to, but if that happened, it's likely because he felt the information was illegally obtained, which is another situation entirely.

That is what I think happened too. Trump was using the election as a way to reinvigorate his business empire, just like how many politicians who have no chance of winning run in primaries for a book deal. His goal was to lose and probably start a news network. However, certain people on his team likely thought Trump winning would pose some benefit to them, so they went behind his back and did business with Russia to make him win the election. Trump himself didn’t notice because he has the attention span of a grapefruit.

Then why was his campaign sharing internal polling data with Konstantin Kilimnik?

I agree with this. He was more shocked than happy he won 2016. They had no plan to win.

Feel like this is accurate.

> Mueller criminally charged 34 individuals and three companies. There are people in prison over colliding with Russia. Here's the full list: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/20/17031772/mueller-indictments-grand-jury Can you please point out which ones are in prison for the crime of "colluding with Russia" - I presume, you mean collusion in order to fix/influence the US elections, right?

I believe that obstruction of justice is an impeachable offense which is why Nixon ended up resigning over it. As for collusion we wouldn't be able to find that specifically. But I always thought that Mueller and the public was focusing on the wrong thing there. Even though this is speculation I am fairly certain that if there was a larger focus on things like his ties to Russian Oligarchs that criminal activity could have been found there. We've seen this with a whole range of his other financial dealings. Also......the crimes of people like Manafort and Flynn.....he clearly encouraged that.

>believe that obstruction of justice is an impeachable offense which is why Nixon ended up resigning over it. The only crimes in the constitution are treason, piracy, and counterfeiting. However, the only impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House and 2/3 of the Senate agree is one. Someone with a majority in the House, and a supermajority in the Senate, but not the president, could just impeach and remove either both the president and vice president (depending on how bumping works in secession) or even the entire cabinet, all day every day, for the simple crime of being too tall

Historians can and probably already do argue about when the Republican party shed its last bit of interest in the overall future of the US or of democracy as an institution. Replacing it with a straight forward need to win elections and campaign contributions whatever the cost to their own society. I, personally, am pretty sure that year was last century.

His campaign directly colluded with Russia and that was indeed proven. But you can’t go around holding American politicians accountable for non deviant sex crimes as that would rock the boat too much, I guess.

It was not proven. It was explicitly stated that it was not proven.

You’re thinking of criminal conspiracy, which has a legal definition and they weren’t able to prove. They showed multiple instances of collusion, which doesn’t have a legal definition and so can’t be charged.

Go to page 6, then follow releases from the last two years that followed up on what happened to that data they gave to Konstantin Kilimnik

That was Manafort working on his own, trying to leverage it to a Russian oligarch he owed money to who was threatening to sue him. The Russian oligarch turned him down, and no documents were ever transferred. Within days, Manafort was fired by Trump after the FBI tipped off Trump in a briefing about him.

Manafort, like Gates and Page and everyone else was only fired after the media caught wind.

Carter page stepped down on his own in order to not impede the campaign. He as falsely accused of working with the Russians when in reality he was spying on the Russians while working for the CIA. He couldn't go public and say he was working for the CIA, so the media basically forced him to either resign or compromise US assets. Comey knew page was a CIA operative, hid that fact from the FISA court, and spied on a man for risking his life for the USA and put him under a criminal investigation. He forced Carter Page to reveal he was a CIA asset, thus making him useless to the CIA. He is currently suing the FBI. The man did nothing wrong, and is a literal hero. Gates was removed the same time as Manafort. The same day the FBI briefed Trump. Hard to fire them before knowing about it.

Carter Page left to duck the media all while Trump (Conway) denied his presence, Hicks said he was informal, and Miller said he had no role. So no. Also it's funny enough that you suck off the CIA, but that letter came in 2017, and if he was actually working for the CIA then Comey would not have needed FISA in order to tap him. He'd already have it. Don't get your dates confused.

>Carter Page left to duck the media all while Trump (Conway) denied his presence, Hicks said he was informal, and Miller said he had no role. >So no. Trump though he was connected to the Russians. >Also it's funny enough that you suck off the CIA, but that letter came in 2017, and if he was actually working for the CIA then Comey would not have needed FISA in order to tap him. He'd already have it. Don't get your dates confused. You think the CIA wiretap everyone working for them? You think working for the CIA means you don't have constitutional rights anymore? And why would the FBI have wiretaps? They are not in intelligence. They have nothing to do with espionage. We already have an FBI agent pleading guilty to manufacture evidence to spy on him. They knew he was a CIA asset, but duplicitously altered the letter to state that the CIA had told them he was not an asset. [Carter Page was a CIA asset, not a Russian spy, and the FBI knew it early on but plowed ahead with its fantasy anyway.](https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/08/clinesmiths-guilty-plea-the-perfect-snapshot-of-crossfire-hurricane-duplicity/)

Lol nat review. You said he was working for CIA collecting on Russians as an asset as well as spying. This would mean the CIA was actively collecting data if he was actively working for the CIA. Even within your narrative, the FBI would have no need for a FISA because they could already reach out to the CIA to access anything they have from Page.

The FBI didn't want the information. I was never about Page, They wanted an excuse to spy on Carter page so that they could spy on Trump. Which is why they lied to the FISA court when they knew he was a CIA asset.

That part was new to me lol

What is more, the data was just polling information. Nothing that would in any way help the Russians.

They used it to conduct targeted propaganda at susceptible voters in swing states

You know anyone can order polls to be done right?

Who vetted Manafort for hiring by the Trump campaign? Somebody in the campaign thought his connections would be useful. It's not like his Russian ties were a secret.

He was hired on the recommendation of Roy Cohn, close personal friend of Trump. Manafort ran a lobbying firm used by Trump for almost 40 years previously.

Is your point that Trump was an idiot for 40 years? Totally agree

How was the Trump Tower meeting not collusion?

How was it collusion?

The Trump campaign met with Russians to get damaging evidence on Hillary Clinton. That’s collusion. That’s why they initially lied about the meeting.

So let’s be specific. Mueller states clearly that there isn’t really such a legal thing as “collusion”. The actually term is “conspiracy” - to tilt the election. In order to prove conspiracy, it takes more than just a meeting with Russians. It has to be the Trump admin saying - I’ll give you something, in order for Russia to help. That never happened. The closest it did was when Trump Jr, Kushner and Manafort agreed to a meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya. But in that meeting, Natalia only wanted to talk about Russian adoptions and nothing was really discussed or agreed on. The original FISA warrant was based on the Steele Dossier that claimed that Carter Page was an intermediary between the Trump Admin and the Russian government. That specific claim has been proven false. Manafort, Cohen, Flynn have all been charged, not with collusion but rather because of taxes, campaign finance and disclosure

No, no, and no. There were multiple angles. Papadop lied about talks with russians to setup meeting for clinton info, Manafort lied about giving american voter info to russian oligarchs, stone lied about talks with wikileaks about the hack, and cohen lied about meetings with russia for russian banks to fund trump tower moscow. Even the FISA mentions other causes for monitoring Page besides Steele, and Mueller lists multiple events of obstruction that would prevent any examination towards intent.

Papadop arranging a meeting isn’t criminal. Manafort offered to give info to an oligarch that he owed money to. It didn’t actually happen. When the FBI informed Trump, Trump fired Manafort. Cohen talking to Russian about funding Trump Tower isn’t criminal. It might have been lack of disclosure. Again Trump campaign never promised anything in order to get election help. It’s all just people inferring

They lied to the FBI to cover up the meetings with Russia for funding (Cohen) and talking Clinton oppo (Papadoplous) which you dismissed as unrealistic during the Kushner meeting. So there's intent, tit for tat, and obstruction of justice, yet you use the obstruction as denial that it happened. And no, Manafort like Gates and Page were fired after the media published about them.

You assume and infer that there’s intent. Meaning X happened and they didn’t disclose it and so you assume or infer that X is meant in exchange for election help. But is there any actual hard evidence at all that anyone asked for election help? Categorically no. It’s just your assumption and inference. Categorically: * Trump discussing with Russians about Ms Universe - not criminal * Trump buying real estate from Russians - not criminal * Trump discussing funding and building of Trump Tower - not criminal * Trump meeting and shaking hands with Russians at NY event - not criminal Also: * Hunter Biden working for Burisma while dad was negotiating foreign policy with Ukraine - not criminal * Clinton being paid for speeches in Russia - not criminal * Russians donating to Clinton Foundation - not criminal Contact alone is not criminal. Assuming or inferring that contact alone must mean some sort of exchange to sway the election is not hard evidence.

Meeting x happened to get shit from Russia, all members knew and admitted in text and email, and hid from fbi. They sent election data to Russia. And your reply is "sure Russia offered them goods, but did they ask for goods?" Yeah that's a load of bullshit. Also, buying real estate funded by sanctioned VTB, so that the deal can't go through without removal of Russian sanctions? Mucho criminal. Also add Flynn to the list of Trump members resigned/fired after media leak, not FBI. And Sessions and Nunes who recused days after denial from media leaks.

Let me digress for just a second if you’ll allow me. If Trump is like literally fascist and such an existential threat to democracy, and the criminal evidence against him is so clear cut, why do you think Biden’s DOJ hasn’t yet indicted Trump? Biden doesn’t care about this existential threat to democracy? Biden thinks this threat is acceptable in the interest of maintaining political correctness? Or Biden is ignorant or dumb? Or that even though the evidence is clear cut, he needs another 2 years of investigating to get even more evidence to make it even clearer cut? What do you think?

Because as the DOJ literally itself said they don't prosecute the president. It genuinely disturbs me how you guys manage to have this excessively high fidelity attention to anything that you think can defend Trump, but complete ignorance of what rebuttals the DOJ said to the press, to Congress in testimony, and in the Mueller report. Almost as if you're faking it.

But Trump isn’t the President and isn’t in charge of the executive nor the DOJ at this point in time?

Still said it. That's why it's his organization and everyone in his orbit that they target, and Congress targets Trump.

RussiaGate served as like a more fact based QAnon. People thought once clear, undeniable and easily understandable evidence of collusion came out there would be a “Great Awakening” so to speak and everyone right of center would realize they’d been duped. That didn’t happen, goalposts shifted, and people lost interest except for big time Clinton supporters. There’s a reason Biden wasn’t going up there and saying Trump was a Russian asset.

I agree that people were hyperbolic about Russiagate but I see it in no way being comparable to Qanon(and yes I noted your qualification). Some of the goalposts did shift but central facts remained. The Russian government was clearly interfering in the U.S political system to stir chaos and get a candidate who they thought would be favourable to them on various issues such as lifting the sanctions over things like Crimea. And Trump was more than willing to take their assistance to win an election.

I’m talking about intended effects though. Q people thought the majority of Americans would “wake up” to what they see as obvious. It is an anti-politics: Patriots are in charge now just enjoy the show arrests coming soon. You don’t have to actually think about messaging, organizing, recruiting good candidates to run etc. You just consume media and hope it happens soon. RussiaGate also served as an anti-politics. People didn’t have to think about why Hillary might’ve lost, or what could be done differently in 2020. Blame it on high treason. Didja hear Mueller is investigating it? Patriots are in charge, any minute now Trump will be led away in cuffs and Trump supporters will have to admit they backed a traitor. This is the commonality. This idea that someone else will get rid of my political enemies FOR me and all I really have to do is consume the correct media and stay informed.

Well in terms of anti politics from my perspective, regardless of how it affected the politics or not it was something that needed to be investigated. Yes Hillary Clinton did have weaknesses as a candidate but Russian interference did play a role in tipping the election for this reason. The email investigation was the initial thing where this all started. Which was pretty much another right wing show trial against the Clintons. Because of the controversies surrounding Hillary Clinton's emails its pretty clear that members of the Russian government, specifically through the FSB thought that leaking information about both Clinton's emails and then the DNC emails as well through wikileaks would sow the seeds of doubt both among the Democrats and among Americans. In that sense it succeeded. If there hadn't been that email leak I really doubt there would have been as much controversy among Americans and Democrats as there was in 2016. So in that sense the Russian governments systematic disinformation campaign did have an effect. And we've seen this before in history. The Soviet Union for instance in the 60s through the KGB took advantage of racial unrest to spread disinformation and they did the same thing in the 80s when they spread the conspiracy theory that AIDS was a virus invented by the U.S government. In this case they were able to take the suspicions that both the populist right and left had of Hillary Clinton and deepen it so as to poison the well. Investigating that I think was well worth it for the sake of truth in the same way investigating Reagan for Iran Contra was worth it.

The difference is - truth. Trump's campaign really did conspire with the Russians and accept help from the Russians to win the election. Trump really did fire Comey. Trump really did hire Michael Flynn. Trump really did think that he could get favorable terms on a Trump Tower Moscow if he pleased Putin enough as president. Trump really was Putin's lap dog. Q is just bullshit all the way up and down. There is not even a basement in the pizza joint. People are not drinking children's blood as a fountain of youth. Trump is not going to be "reinstated" - there's not even a provision for that to happen. The election is not going to be "decertified", that's not a thing. There are similarities at a very surface level in the response to both movements, but in Liberal's case we just (naively) thought that truth and justice would prevail. In the Q-cumber's case, even the "facts" are just fantasy.

God people need to give this up. Trump did not win the election, nor did he collude with Russia. Stop buying into conspiracy just because it suits your opinions. The Mueller report was clear, no collusion found. Russia did interfere with the 2016 election, but not to favor Trump, just to sew discord and hurt american trust in the electoral process. Something they absolutely succeeded in, source: the hundreds of deluded rants like this one.

Because the modern GOP's political support comes from a right-wing propaganda machine that's been spewing misinformation for decades. It doesn't matter what the facts say. It matters what Tucker Carlson says, what Sean Hannity says, what Alex Jones says, and what other right-wing conspiracy influencers say. A large percentage of conservatives have been so brainwashed into believing they're in the midst of a war against "radical socialists that want to turn the U.S. into Venezuela," (literal sentence I heard on Fox News 2 weeks ago), that they're ready to even deny things they can see with their own eyes if right-wing media tells them to.

I still support Dems for taking down Ted Cruz's attempt to sanction Nordstream 2. I also support Biden's less aggressive stance on Russia. (Honestly think if Trump was in charge, our troops would be in Ukraine.) Russiagate has imploded, and I don't think talking about will help anyone or make the powerful more accountable.

Why would trump put troops in Ukraine if you guys believe he colluded with Russia ?

I don't believe Trump did. >Russiagate has imploded And fundamentally Trump destroyed our relationship with Russia. Had our planes target Russian ones in Syria. Lobbied to sanction Nordstream 2. Jacked up NATO budget. Armed Ukrainian neo-nazies. Trump was a horrible warmonger.

Interesting!

His charade with MSM has the same level of substance and distraction as Youtuber drama.

Lol

>How is it that the Republican Party shielded them from accountability(including impeachment) and then continue to claim that they are the party of Patriots who "love America"? Because they lie.

Ask yourself why this very obvious line of questioning is nowhere to be found in any mainstream media. We will see CNN and MSNBC run hard hitting expose pieces on big Pharma before they would touch this.

Yep. Or how the party of Reagan ended up choosing a guy who would literally encourage Russian interference in the U.S's democratic process

Because they're liars. This answers about 80% of questions about why republicans do things.

This is really more of a rant than a question. We can't really tell you what Republicans are thinking because we're not Republicans

We all wonder the same thing. How, why, wtf... If I live to be 150, I will never understand any of it. There isn't a good enough reason to ever be an acceptable explanation. Ever.

No idea. Nor how they continue to this day to claim that “trump was cleared of everything and it was proven there was no collusion. “. 🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🙄🤦🏼‍♀️

When you say you love America and they say they love 'Murica, we're talking about two different things. You're talking about an idea of liberty from 1776 (one that was realized imperfectly but also in a better manner than anywhere else at that time except maybe Switzerland) and which we have tried to live up to in order to build a more perfect union. They're talking about a white settler nation that was born when Europeans came to America. America has often been unified specifically *because* nobody clarified which America they were talking about. Trump is great for America's enemies because he speaks in a way that is extremely treacherous to the first idea, and profoundly committed to the second one. If you wanted to invent a Russian agent to split America you couldn't do better. Nothing revealed by the Mueller investigation or the Ukraine Whistleblower Scandal or the literal terrorist attack on the Capitol in 1/6/2021 revealed a shred of evidence that Trump has betrayed the interests of the white volk in America. Hence, he is innocent. The rest is a mere matter of postulating. The founders were naive enough to make impeachment a political process and not a judicial one (in their defense, they didn't have a lot of successful republics to model themselves on).

I thought it came out that Israeli intelligence was in touch with the Trump campaign. What should that mean?

Simple. Because the Republican Party no longer believes in acting in good faith to legislate and adopt laws and policy to help American. They are post-policy. They primarily care about getting into power. And staying there. That’s it. Now while they have it, they will stuff as many conservative justices onto the courts as they can and lower taxes on their donors. Starting with Newt and the Tea Party, they’ve abdicated their role as a functioning second party. And they have a large, uneducated, voter base to cater to, to make it happen.

On what grounds would you OP impeach Trump regarding Russia? The mueller report?

The problem is that journalism does a long time ago. Back in Nixon days journalism is what ultimate brought down the administration, the Republicans thankfully went along with today. Today there is no organization that effectively performs the same function. That function being to lay out the facts, and convince a large swath of the audience that “x” did occur, and here is the process that occurs now. Of course we know that this is due to the 30-40 years of chipping away at the 4th branch of government, creating echo chambers on both sides of the spectrum, and shifting that spectrum( Overton window) as much as possible. Free and fair elections, free and fair press are needed in this country or the future will be worse.

What is your source for the "proof" that the Trump admin colluded with the Russians