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How can there possibly be so much smoke and no fire? Trump/Russia/Yates/Comey

Moderate Right said:
The Clintons made it a common practice to make sure there was so much smoke in the room that you could not see the smoking gun.
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Even if I 100% agree that that is true....what does that have to do with this? Or do you just take any oppurtunity to bash Clinton no matter how unrelated to the conversation it is?
 
jimithyashford said:
So, in your opinion, it is just flat out not possible, completely off the table that the Trump Administration is covering something up? It's inconceivable that all of these terminations and resignations and recusals have anything at all to do with anything untoward being hidden?

That is what you believe?

What do you think of the White House's flat out refusal to provide documentation of Mike Flynn's vetting when requested by the chair of the Sentate oversight Commission, the body Constitutionally tasked with overseeing the white house's conduct and with full legal authority to make that request? The White House refusing to comply is completely coincidental? Has nothing at all to do with anything?
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I didn't say that. I was addressing your comment that they couldn't investigate properly because of being stonewalled.

Anything is possible. I would think they would have some kind of proof by now.
 
Lutherf said:
Sometimes there's a lot of smoke because the production crew is running a massive smoke machine.
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Amen, brother. It's all smoke and mirrors. The Left has only illusion to offer us.
 
Angel said:
Amen, brother. It's all smoke and mirrors. The Left has only illusion to offer us.
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The Republicans have waited EIGHT long years to gain control of the government. They are NOT about to help incriminate one of their own. They would only be interested in a special investigator if the Democrats were in charge. This is exactly why our government is so screwed up.
 
beerftw said:
No and especially in sessions case, recusal was the right thing, he was one of those called out for talking to the russians, and had been close to the trump campaign, if he knew he could not investigate without bias, he did the right thing stepping aside.

On nunez would you rather him be there and be bias slowing or halting the investigation, or stepping aside to let someone else do it.

You seem to have an issue with people doing the honorable thing, of course if sessions and nunez had remained in the investigation and nothing turned up you could scream bias destroyed the investigation, while both stepping aside gives you no excuse when the investigations turn up nothing.
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Then I simply must say I disagree with you and I feel you are being naive. I explained a few sample mechanics of how recusal can be used as a weapon to stymie investigation, if you completely and utterly reject those mechanisms as being even possible in this scenario, then we really can't carry on with a productive conversation. However, you not acknowledging that such political maneuvers exists and likely are being deployed doesn't make it not so.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
You make it appear as though Trump had executive power since the beginning of the hacking investigation - which is ridiculous. Trump's recent rise to power (a couple of months ago) and the ability to (possibly) implant a few political hacks into important positions has not changed the picture entirely. There are no doubt hundreds of folks looking into this matter and many of them have been at it for far longer than Trump or his appointees have been in power. The Trump/Russia investigation will continue for as long as the demorats (and their supporters) manage to keep at it - see Benghazi.
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Again, if you are saying it is flat out, off the table, just not at all possible or applicable to this scenario that an administration can stonewall investigation and hide evidence, then I really don't know what else to say. Seems to be that anyone with even an ounce of sense knows that is possible, but if you are just flat out taking it off the table, then I don't know where to go from here other than to say that you are being naive.

Well I do have a question for you I guess, your direct and clear answer to this question would be appreciated:

The Senate Oversight committee submitted a formal request to the White House to provide all documents pertaining to the appointing and vetting of Mike Flynn to the position of National Security Adviser. The White House refused. Said flat out no.

Now I would like to point out two things.

1- The Senate Oversight Committee has the authority, constitutionally outlined, to ask for this. The entire reason that committee exists is for exactly the purpose of overseeing and vetting White House business and appointees. The White House refusing to comply is unprecedented.
2- Regardless of what you think of the Trump Administration as a whole, Mike Flynn was fired by Mike Pence, retroactively registered as a foreign agent, took a ton of money to lobby for Turkey while sitting on the Cabinet, basically this dude was seriously shady, the Trump administration canned him for it, so this man and the way he ended up on the national security council is like a totally legit thing that the Senate Oversight committee should want to investigate so it doesn't happen again...right?

And yet the White House flat out refused to cooperate with the committee tasked to oversee them. How can you be ok with that? How does that not seem suspicious as hell to you? How does that not trigger alarms in your brain? What explanatory mechanism do you use to tell yourself that this is normal and ok and no big deal?
 
holbritter said:
I didn't say that. I was addressing your comment that they couldn't investigate properly because of being stonewalled.

Anything is possible. I would think they would have some kind of proof by now.
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Right, and I asked you if it is possible that the reason they do not yet have such proof is precisely BECAUSE of stonewalling and stymieing investigatory efforts? So you seem to be admitting that is possible, so what, you just don't think its likely? What makes you think it's so unlikely? You do know that the Senate Investigatory committee made a request of all documents pertaining to Mike Flynn's appointment (something completely within their authority to ask for) and the white house flat out said no. That's unprecedented, the white house doesn't tell the oversight committee no, but they did. The White House visitor log, something that is supposed to be a matter of public record, was, for the first time in modern history, refused to be made public by the White House and was redacted following a visit by Devon Nunez, the chair of the House investigation Committee, who afterwards promptly cancelled all future hearings and rendered the committee inactive.

You are speaking like it's incredibly unlikely that such a stonewalling could be occurring.....as we watch it occur. All of the above are like....textbook examples of covering up and stonewalling investigation. How can you be playing off something as silly and unlikely as you watch it occur?

I don't get it. How in the hell can these things not trigger alarm bells in your head? How can this possibly not seems suspicious to you?
 
Angel said:
Amen, brother. It's all smoke and mirrors. The Left has only illusion to offer us.
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So, what do you make of the fact that the White House refused to comply with the official request from the Senate Oversight committee to provide documents pertaining to the vetting of Mike Flynn for National Security Adviser? That is the committee tasked with overseeing white house business and administration appointees, making a request completely within their authority to see the records pertaining to Mike Flynn, and the white house flat out refused. Something unprecedented.

That isn't smoke and mirrors, that really happened.

What about Mike Flynn himself being a paid lobbyist by Turkey while acting as National Security adviser? The man registered after the fact as an agent of a foreign government to cover his butt at the advice of his lawyers. That isn't smoke and mirrors, that really happened.

How do you look at things like than and just wave your hand and say "nothing to see here, this is all fine and normal, Liberals are just kicking up a fuss."

I have to believe you're smarter than that. I have to believe that is Obama or Hillary had things like this going on you'd recognize shady dealings when you see it and be all for dragging the truth out into the open. I think you are smart enough, but you are blinded by partisanship, and you'd have the good sense to recognize that is right in front of your face if you just didn't have that partisan shroud on.
 
jimithyashford said:
We've all heard that expression "where there is smoke there is fire" and while that doesn't always hold true, there comes a point at which the amount of smoke is so great that the existence of the fire is beyond plausible deniability.

At this point the shuffling around and outright removal of personnel close to the Trump/Russia investigation and/or which oppose Trump is so prolific that it breeches the bounds of reason for anyone to be "ok" with this, to condone it, or to not at this point be highly suspect.

A quick recap in roughly chronological order:

-Sally Yates warns White House about Mike Flynn and then refuses to enforce Islamic country travel restrictions. For one or both of those reasons, she was canned.

-Mike Flynn retroactively declares himself as an agent of the Turkish government.

-Mike Flynn resigns/is de facto fired. To this day has not yet testified but has offered to do so in exchange for immunity.

-New Attorney General Jeff Sessions recuses himself from Trump investigation.

-James Comey testifies before House committee that members of the Trump team are under active investigation in the Russian election interference case.

-House Committee immediately cancels all future hearings and the chair, Devon Nunez, recuses himself.

-Senate committee uncovers source of Mike Flynn's Turkish lobbying work may be a Russian funded front.

-Senate requests White House provide documentation regarding the vetting process of Mike Flynn to the oversight committee. The White House refuses a lawful request from the body tasked with their oversight.

-Within days senate oversight committee chairman Jason Chaffetz steps down and takes a leave of absence from Congress.

-James Comey has just been fired, story is very late breaking and exact details are not yet clear.


I mean, two committee chairs and the attorney general have recused themselves from the investigation, the House investigation has been indefinitely suspended, the national security adviser resigned, and both the attorney general and now FBI directed have been fired.


To any sensible person this reeks of massive cover up and creeping dictatorship. Bashing the press, slowly removing and replacing non-cooperative persons, refusing to cooperate with Constitutionally mandated oversight by the Senate, and grinding the House investigative body to a halt, all of that is like....dictatorship 101. Anyone with a sense of 20th and now 21st century history must be painfully aware of this fact. How could you not be? If this were happening in any other country on earth we'd be thanking our luck that we were born into a country where that kind of thing didn't fly....and yet here it is.

So I can understand a Trumper maybe finding a way to rationalize away one of those things, or two, or even three. I can understand them figuring out some mental device by which to be comfortable with any couple of items on that list....but at what point is is too much? At what point does even the most stubbornly entrenched Trump voter have to concede that there is just far far too much smoke for there to be no fire?

I hope the answer to that question is not "the point at which we are all on fire".
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Did you stop to think there isn't really any smoke?
 
Vetplus40 said:
The Republicans have waited EIGHT long years to gain control of the government. They are NOT about to help incriminate one of their own. They would only be interested in a special investigator if the Democrats were in charge. This is exactly why our government is so screwed up.
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Yeah, that's a big damn problem. Ideology before country. Ideology is all that matters. It doesn't matter if my guy is a con man and an idiot surrounded by a cadre of thugs and thieves, all that matters is that he has the same ideology as me, and I would sooner hand the country to a gang of idiot and criminals than let someone who believes differently than I about god/taxes/abortion/global warming/gay marriage/immigrant win the day.

That is such a toxic and cancerous way to conduct affairs. I would like to think that if the democrats ran their own version of a trump, a manifest idiot and conman that said something toxic, wrong, or stupid every time he opened his mouth backed by a bunch of extremists with unsavory ties to a contentious super power......I'd like to think that if that happened, I'd have to good sense to recognize a greater good when I saw one and as long as the GOP candidate was at least educated and competent, i'd vote a mixed ballot that year.
 
apdst said:
Did you stop to think there isn't really any smoke?
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I think you've missed the metaphor. The "smoke" in the metaphor is all of the suspicion and investigation and questionable behaviors and unsavory connections. That's the "smoke", and yeah, that all for sure exists.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Yep, after all they only had 17 INTEL agencies and 8 months to find that golden nugget. They had no problem getting confirmation of Russian hacking just no trace of a Trump campaign connection. Maybe, just maybe, that means the Russians had their own reasons to want to dump on Clinton, Inc..
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What would be funny, is if Clinton made a deal with the Russians and for whatever reason, the Russians crawfished the deal.
 
jimithyashford said:
I think you've missed the metaphor. The "smoke" in the metaphor is all of the suspicion and investigation and questionable behaviors and unsavory connections. That's the "smoke", and yeah, that all for sure exists.
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I understand the metaphor. Have you stopped to think that the metaphorical smoke doesn't exist?

Let's face it, you people hate President Trump so much and y'all are so befuddled over Clinton losing, you'll believe anything.
 
apdst said:
I understand the metaphor. Have you stopped to think that the metaphorical smoke doesn't exist?

Let's face it, you people hate President Trump so much and y'all are so befuddled over Clinton losing, you'll believe anything.
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Ugh, ok I will try again.

Mike Flynn was operating as a foreign agent while serving on the National Security council, right? That is the "smoke" that does exist, that did happen, the VP fired him over it. So that smoke does, in fact, exist....correct? The "Fire" is how the hell this guy got the nomination and through the vetting process in the first place.

The White House did redact the visitor log following Devon Nunez' visit, correct, that did happen. That is the "smoke" that did actual occur in real life. The "fire" is what is on it that the White House wont even tell the senate investigatory committee about?

The White House did refused to comply with the Senate Oversight Committee's request for documentation of Mike Flynn's appointment and vetting. That did actually occur. That is the smoke. The fire is what is it that the White House doesn't want the committee tasked with overseeing them to know, so much so that they are willing to openly defy those constitutionally assigned to oversee them?


So, you may argue that there is no fire, but the "smoke" that I am referring to are real events that really did happen. Flynn was a foreign agent, the White house did refuse to supply the oversight committee with documentation on Flynn's appointment and vetting process, the White House visitor log was struck from the record the night of Nunez' visit. These things did occur, you may not choose to see them as at all suspicious or warranting of scrutiny, but you can't deny they did occur. That is the smoke, and many other things like those. The smoke exists.
 
jimithyashford said:
Are the things I mentioned smoke machine effects? The recusal of two investigation chairs and the AG, the firing of the former AG and FBI director, the resignation of the national security advisor, and the refusal to comply with Senate oversight committee information requests? That is all just smoke machine stuff? All just pure coincidence separate unrelated events that liberal media is threading together into a false narrative?
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Reminds of Hillary's State Department stonewalling investigations and the courts.
 
jimithyashford said:
Even if I 100% agree that that is true....what does that have to do with this? Or do you just take any oppurtunity to bash Clinton no matter how unrelated to the conversation it is?
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Do you agree that that is true?
 
jimithyashford said:
Yeah, that's a big damn problem. Ideology before country. Ideology is all that matters. It doesn't matter if my guy is a con man and an idiot surrounded by a cadre of thugs and thieves, all that matters is that he has the same ideology as me, and I would sooner hand the country to a gang of idiot and criminals than let someone who believes differently than I about god/taxes/abortion/global warming/gay marriage/immigrant win the day.

That is such a toxic and cancerous way to conduct affairs. I would like to think that if the democrats ran their own version of a trump, a manifest idiot and conman that said something toxic, wrong, or stupid every time he opened his mouth backed by a bunch of extremists with unsavory ties to a contentious super power......I'd like to think that if that happened, I'd have to good sense to recognize a greater good when I saw one and as long as the GOP candidate was at least educated and competent, i'd vote a mixed ballot that year.
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Perfect description of liberals - ideology before country.
 
jimithyashford said:
Ugh, ok I will try again.

Mike Flynn was operating as a foreign agent while serving on the National Security council, right? That is the "smoke" that does exist, that did happen, the VP fired him over it. So that smoke does, in fact, exist....correct? The "Fire" is how the hell this guy got the nomination and through the vetting process in the first place.

The White House did redact the visitor log following Devon Nunez' visit, correct, that did happen. That is the "smoke" that did actual occur in real life. The "fire" is what is on it that the White House wont even tell the senate investigatory committee about?

The White House did refused to comply with the Senate Oversight Committee's request for documentation of Mike Flynn's appointment and vetting. That did actually occur. That is the smoke. The fire is what is it that the White House doesn't want the committee tasked with overseeing them to know, so much so that they are willing to openly defy those constitutionally assigned to oversee them?


So, you may argue that there is no fire, but the "smoke" that I am referring to are real events that really did happen. Flynn was a foreign agent, the White house did refuse to supply the oversight committee with documentation on Flynn's appointment and vetting process, the White House visitor log was struck from the record the night of Nunez' visit. These things did occur, you may not choose to see them as at all suspicious or warranting of scrutiny, but you can't deny they did occur. That is the smoke, and many other things like those. The smoke exists.
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You have to keep on trying because you keep on failing.
 
holbritter said:
What they need to do is come out with whatever proof they have. As long as they don't give anyone concrete proof, nothing is ever settled. It's taking way too long for such a serious accusation. Either they have proof or not.
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With the possible exception of Flynn, there is not only no speck of evidence supporting this Russia thing but there isn't even a specific accusation of wrongdoing. Flynn is under investigation and subpoenaed by a grand jury. That may come to something, I don't know and I don't care. But there isn't anything else anywhere. Partisanship at work.
 
fmw said:
With the possible exception of Flynn, there is not only no speck of evidence supporting this Russia thing but there isn't even a specific accusation of wrongdoing. Flynn is under investigation and subpoenaed by a grand jury. That may come to something, I don't know and I don't care. But there isn't anything else anywhere. Partisanship at work.
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So let me ask you this, what would it take for you to concede that there is something to this? The fact that the White House refused an official document request from the Senate oversight committee, and redacted the white house guest log following Nunes' visit, and Trump has categorically refused to release detailed tax and income information as every other modern president has. Those things might just slightly trip the "something is being hidden here" radar of most normal people. If there is nothing wrong with the way Flynn was vetted, why refuse to release the documents of his vetting to the oversight committee? If there is nothing shady about the business that went on the night of Nunes' visit to the white house, why redact the visitor log? If there is nothing suspect in Trump's tax returns, why not release them like his 5 predecessors all did? Obviously this does not amount to suspect behavoir for you, but you must understand how for most sane normal people, completely seperate of anything partisan, that all seems pretty shady.

And so if those types of things are not enough to arouse your suspicion, what would it take? Spin me a hypothetical, what would Trump have to do/hide/refuse to cooperate with in order for your to say "you know, they may be right, this is smelling very fishy, something is going on here" or are you the kind of person that would never get to that point because of an innate trust of authority?
 
Perhaps because there are so many Trump hating leftists running around throwing dirt up in the air shrieking "Look! Smoke! I sweartagawd! Smoke!"

This isnt an investigation in its early stages. The FBI and NSA have been unmasking and reviewing this data for well over a year now.
 
jimithyashford said:
Right, and I asked you if it is possible that the reason they do not yet have such proof is precisely BECAUSE of stonewalling and stymieing investigatory efforts? So you seem to be admitting that is possible, so what, you just don't think its likely? What makes you think it's so unlikely? You do know that the Senate Investigatory committee made a request of all documents pertaining to Mike Flynn's appointment (something completely within their authority to ask for) and the white house flat out said no. That's unprecedented, the white house doesn't tell the oversight committee no, but they did. The White House visitor log, something that is supposed to be a matter of public record, was, for the first time in modern history, refused to be made public by the White House and was redacted following a visit by Devon Nunez, the chair of the House investigation Committee, who afterwards promptly cancelled all future hearings and rendered the committee inactive.

You are speaking like it's incredibly unlikely that such a stonewalling could be occurring.....as we watch it occur. All of the above are like....textbook examples of covering up and stonewalling investigation. How can you be playing off something as silly and unlikely as you watch it occur?

I don't get it. How in the hell can these things not trigger alarm bells in your head? How can this possibly not seems suspicious to you?
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All of that is after 6 months of investigation that was NOT stonewalled. That's all I'm referring to. Get it now? I then said anything is possible. I do believe they should have some kind of proof by now and you can't blame it all on stonewalling. What were they doing for the all that time BEFORE Trump got into the White House? That's the point I am making.
 
jimithyashford said:
So let me ask you this, what would it take for you to concede that there is something to this? The fact that the White House refused an official document request from the Senate oversight committee, and redacted the white house guest log following Nunes' visit, and Trump has categorically refused to release detailed tax and income information as every other modern president has. Those things might just slightly trip the "something is being hidden here" radar of most normal people. If there is nothing wrong with the way Flynn was vetted, why refuse to release the documents of his vetting to the oversight committee? If there is nothing shady about the business that went on the night of Nunes' visit to the white house, why redact the visitor log? If there is nothing suspect in Trump's tax returns, why not release them like his 5 predecessors all did? Obviously this does not amount to suspect behavoir for you, but you must understand how for most sane normal people, completely seperate of anything partisan, that all seems pretty shady.

And so if those types of things are not enough to arouse your suspicion, what would it take? Spin me a hypothetical, what would Trump have to do/hide/refuse to cooperate with in order for your to say "you know, they may be right, this is smelling very fishy, something is going on here" or are you the kind of person that would never get to that point because of an innate trust of authority?
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You are applying standard and predictable behaviors of life long politicians to someone who is opposite of what you expect. Trump does not follow the predictable or acceptable path on many things. So while things seem suspicious to you, and many others, I really don't think you can apply the same conclusions that you would to a normal politician.

I'm not saying there is or isn't something there.....I need proof first.
 
Preet Bharara may have had the most damning evidence on the trump admin of all .
 
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