Getting mighty mighty close to "collusion"

OscarLevant said:

(bracketed parentheses mine).




Somehow that statement by Maddow doesn't square with your characterization, which is, itself, a feeble spin on a powerful statement by Maddow.

Everything she said is a fact. Before the clip, not included in the clip, she posed the question, "What is collusion, anyway?", then in furtherance of that question, she made the statement. She didn't actually accuse Trump of collusion, she just posed the question and described the facts, leaving
it up to the audience to draw their own conclusion.

Nice try, no Trumpy Bear.

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Everything she said was spin, speculation, innuendo or hyperbole.

Only useful idiots will be convinced of anything from what she said. Others will look for facts.

Unitedwestand13 said:

Paul mafafort, George Papadopoulos, Robert Gates, and carter page were all members of trump who not only had contact with Russian agents during the 2016 campagin but actively sought out the aid of said Russian agents who claimed to have dirt on Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

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Well that's new, when did Manafort, Papadopoulos, Gates and Page seek out aid from Ruskie agents that had dirt on Hillary ??

Risky Thicket said:

Perhaps a better term would be getting closer.

It's not like people being investigated are all cooperating. It isn't that all people who have knowledge are coming forward. And while it appears that there is some cooperation by the US Senate the GOP House has worked hard to obfuscate, foot drag and monkey wrench the works while tacitly supporting Trump, his campaign and his administration.

The Special Counsel is making progress. We know much more than we did a year ago about Russia's involvement in the US presidential election. We know much more about what has become a growing number of Americans and American businesses who were involved with Russian entities as the Russians worked to influence that 2016 election. We know more about non-Russian foreign involvement as well.

Do we know yet all who were involved and to what degree and at what levels? Not yet or Muller's investigation would have concluded its work.

Do we know yet all that the Russians and Russian entities that were involved, and how and to whom they were connected in the US? It does not seem that we do as almost weekly more revelations are discovered and reported. Obviously the Russians don't want to cooperate and implicate themselves. But neither do a growing number of Americans and American businesses that were involved. It is like trying to untangle a box of coat hangers. It is on going.

You are correct. It would better if news organizations would refrain from saying "getting close". Close is a relative term. Not knowing where the end will be getting closer would be a more appropriate term.

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I would agree that "getting closer" is a better description. We don't know any of the other details that you asked about. I assume we will after all of the investigations on all of the entities involved are done. The revelations that we have been told about are conflicting, leaked by an anon source that might have an agenda to only leak the parts of the information out of context, erroneous or incomplete. The special counsel didn't rebut Judge Ellis when he said that they don't have any crimes that involve the Trump campaign and that the SC was using the older crimes as a hammer to attempt to force Manafort to turn. We also don't know if the Russians were able to have any effect on the elections with a budget of 2.5 million in an election where the candidates spent almost 2 billion combined. That figure doesn't include PACs. The jury is still out on about everything. We will get some clarity this coming week, but not a complete picture. I don't think we will have a complete picture when Mueller gets done. It's going to take awhile.

NonoBadDog said:

I would agree that "getting closer" is a better description. We don't know any of the other details that you asked about. I assume we will after all of the investigations on all of the entities involved are done. The revelations that we have been told about are conflicting, leaked by an anon source that might have an agenda to only leak the parts of the information out of context, erroneous or incomplete. The special counsel didn't rebut Judge Ellis when he said that they don't have any crimes that involve the Trump campaign and that the SC was using the older crimes as a hammer to attempt to force Manafort to turn. We also don't know if the Russians were able to have any effect on the elections with a budget of 2.5 million in an election where the candidates spent almost 2 billion combined. That figure doesn't include PACs. The jury is still out on about everything. We will get some clarity this coming week, but not a complete picture. I don't think we will have a complete picture when Mueller gets done. It's going to take awhile.

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I agree with all of the above.

Let me add that if and until Mueller discovers and verifies connections between Trump/Trump Campaign and Russians Mueller's answer should logically be that nothing has been found. However, that answer can change in a day. It could have changed since the last time he was asked. It might change next month. Or it may never change. Or, as I read recently, it is possible that Trump could be under a sealed indictment in which case he would not know, none of us would know.

However, I don't know how we can be close or even closer to something that we don't not know even exists. I suppose the proper perspective is that we are further away from not knowing than we were when we started.

Well known that a number of FBI confidential informants were paid to bait Hillary emails from Russia, but no takers.

So then switch from human intel to signals intel on the Trump campaign.

Russian Intel? => Ed Baumgartner (Fusion GPS) => Steele => Perkins Coie => DNC => Hillary
Russian Intel? => Ed Baumgartner (Fusion GPS) => Steele => FBI => FISA Warrant => Signals surveillance of Trump campaign

• It looks like the ‘James Bond’ behind the dossier let a Putin pawn do all the work
• Meet the Russia specialist who worked on 2 of Fusion GPS' most controversial projects

I think there's more collusion of Obama's admin with the Russians, as illustrated above, than there was with members of the Trump campaign.

The FISA warrant was initially for Carter Page, but that didn't net anything significant (and Page had already helped the FBI bust a Russian agent). Wasn't it then that the FISA warrant was extended and expanded to include others?

using Page as an asset by the FBI is not all that strange. When the FBI interviewed Page, or when they ran a background check on him, they would undoubtedly have found out he was a former intelligence officer. I can’t find a technical definition of “undercover FBI employee”
https://www.redstate.com/streiff/20...ust-russian-spy-ring-undercover-fbi-employee/

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Backed up by Evgeny Buryakov Pleads Guilty In Manhattan Federal Court In Connection With Conspiracy To Work For Russian Intelligence

An asset to the FBI against the Russians doesn't paint the picture of someone given to colluding with Russians.

But the onset of the FBI surveillance of Trump campaign is a fuzzy story that keeps changing as new facts are revealed. The FBI's paragraph one, which documents the start of a case, has yet to be made public. My guess is that it never will.

Given all this, I'm seeing more Russian collusion with Fusion GPS, Hillary, DNC, and Obama's FBI / DOJ / CIA / NSA, and if not collusion, then certainly being duped by teh Russians (perhaps willingly so, as getting any dirt on Trump excuses any other lapses in common sense or sound judgment, apparently).

Yeah, Trump is really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really extra special close to being done now!

He won't even make it through the primaries.

Risky Thicket said:

I agree with all of the above.

Let me add that if and until Mueller discovers and verifies connections between Trump/Trump Campaign and Russians Mueller's answer should logically be that nothing has been found. However, that answer can change in a day. It could have changed since the last time he was asked. It might change next month. Or it may never change. Or, as I read recently, it is possible that Trump could be under a sealed indictment in which case he would not know, none of us would know.

However, I don't know how we can be close or even closer to something that we don't not know even exists. I suppose the proper perspective is that we are further away from not knowing than we were when we started.

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Very Schrodingerian

What's the penalty for collusion? How much prison time would one get for being convicted of collusion?

Mycroft said:

Everything she said was spin, speculation, innuendo or hyperbole.

Only useful idiots will be convinced of anything from what she said. Others will look for facts.

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Only morons ignore facts when presented. You wouldn't know innuendo if it bit you on the ass.

The Innuendo Monger is Trump. No president in history has dispensed innuendo, hearsay, conspiracy theories, like this president.

The remarkable truth is republicans failure to see it. It's as if one walked ito a living room, and there was a huge pile of dung in
the middle of the room, and you can't smell it.