• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

What does "influencing" an election look like?

vesper said:
Who the hell would trust the likes of Comey, McCabe, Brennan, Clapper after Director Admiral Rogers at the NSA paid Trump a visit at Trump tower where his transition team was set up shortly after the election. There he told him he and members of his team were being surveilled by the FBI. It was Rogers' team that came across irregularities so Rogers ordered an audit. It revealed excessive unmaskings and FISA abuse. After that Rogers hand walked his finding to the FISA court to reveal the abuse. Then without telling anyone in the Obama administration he went to see Trump and told him his team was being surveilled. The very next day the transition team moved to Trump's golf course in Jersey.


Later Trump said he was being wiretapped and the response from the media and others is that he was a clown wearing a tinfoil hat. But it turned out to be true.


Brennan Obama's CIA director, Clapper director of NIA, Comey, FBI, are the persons Trump received his intelligence reports from up till he was sworn in, in late January 2017. Brennan, Clapper and Carter Ashe of DOD all resigned Obama's last day in office and one of the Obama underlings in those Intel departments took over temporarily till Trump's nominees were confirmed. But that turned out to be a fiasco because the Democrats in the Senate slow walked Trump's appointees keeping Obama's holdovers in place. Another example is the DOJ where they slow walked Sessions' confirmation and was one of the most brutal I have ever witnessed in all my years. That allowed Sally Yates to play acting AG for months. Yes Sally Yates whose office is just one door down from Bruce Ohr's who we now know 18 months later was in bed with FUSION GPS and his wife worked for FUSION GPS who were hired by the Clinton campaign. They produced the infamous dossier. And the same thing happened at the State Department. All major branches of government involving intelligence, Trump's appointees were stonewalled by the Democrats in the Senate allowing months of their "friends" in control. For at least the first 6-8 months of Trump's presidency he wasn't even entitled to seat his picks for very key positions by design. He fires Comey and what did he get for months before Christopher Wray was confirmed? McCabe another partisan hack.


18 months later we have the former CIA director Brennan on MSNBC employed as a anti-Trump partisan hack. We have the former NIA director James Clapper employed at CNN as an anti-Trump political hack. We have James Comey writing an anti-Trump book, giving interviews non-stop and now calling for everyone to vote Democrat in the midterms. Another political hack. All three perjured themselves before Congress.

Would I trust any of these Yahoos? Hell no! And all this Russian hacking happened under their friggen watch! Where is their personal responsibility in all of this? Where is the DNC's responsibility for not protecting their servers, etc. from hacking?


While the investigations are ongoing, my hope is before long we're hearing Brennan, Clapper, and Comey are spending a fortune in lawyering up for what is to come.
Click to expand...

This transition was far and away the most contentious I have ever seen. Intelligence agencies and Justice appear to have been more politicized over the prevailing decades than any sane person would tolerate.

I'm reading some proposed legislation right now called the Secure Elections Act. It's one of those "bipartisan" bills sponsored and supported by the likes of Kamala Harris and Jeff Flake...that kind of "bipartisan". The idea behind the bill is that it would improve information sharing regarding possible cyber attacks. That sure sounds good but it's also a step toward federalizing election standards. That's VERY problematic.
 
Lutherf said:
Great. Hacking is illegal. That's been established and I agree with it. Go ahead and prosecute the offenders if you can.

What we're talking about, however, is how or if that hacking influenced the election....
Click to expand...
Looks to me more like you're moving the goalposts. If the point of this thread is to question the validity of Mueller's investigation, then asking "what actions would constitute illegally influencing an election?" is a strange way to ask it.

Anyway.... Yes, we do need a special prosecutor. It's not based on your opinion about the efficacy of the Russian interference. It's because we need to investigate the President and his staff, therefore Mueller's investigation needs to be insulated from the President trying to apply pressure on the investigation in order to save his own skin.

Mueller is also making remarkable progress in his investigation, as he already netted multiple guilty pleas, and exposed a hacking team backed by the Russian government.

Plus, Mueller is not just investigating Russian interference. He's also looking into obstruction by the President -- as usual, a crisis of his own design.

Last but not least, it's too late for all this whining. Mueller's investigation is well under way. Even if he is fired, the investigations will not go away. SDNY is working on Cohen, who looks more and more like he's going to flip. New York State is looking into violations by Trump's fake charity. And these investigations are just warming up.

 
Visbek said:
Looks to me more like you're moving the goalposts. If the point of this thread is to question the validity of Mueller's investigation, then asking "what actions would constitute illegally influencing an election?" is a strange way to ask it.

Anyway.... Yes, we do need a special prosecutor. It's not based on your opinion about the efficacy of the Russian interference. It's because we need to investigate the President and his staff, therefore Mueller's investigation needs to be insulated from the President trying to apply pressure on the investigation in order to save his own skin.

Mueller is also making remarkable progress in his investigation, as he already netted multiple guilty pleas, and exposed a hacking team backed by the Russian government.

Plus, Mueller is not just investigating Russian interference. He's also looking into obstruction by the President -- as usual, a crisis of his own design.

Last but not least, it's too late for all this whining. Mueller's investigation is well under way. Even if he is fired, the investigations will not go away. SDNY is working on Cohen, who looks more and more like he's going to flip. New York State is looking into violations by Trump's fake charity. And these investigations are just warming up.
Click to expand...

The point of the thread is right there in the title. The question in the OP goes beyond "what activities are illegal" and expressly asks which actions influence an election.

Your attestation that we "need to investigate the president and his staff" is distinctly lacking in stating a reason for that need. The "obstruction" stuff, likewise, is immaterial if there is no good reason to investigate the president to begin with.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
For the 21093472390487239872394587345th time, I DON'T GIVE A RAT'S ASS what "we did in the past".
I LIVE HERE.
Click to expand...



Past?

US Foreign Policy 101:
Step 1: Influence election
Step 2: If step 1 fails, instigate a civil war and arm rebels
Step 3: If step 2 fails, bomb them into submission and insert regime of choice.

When has that not been modus operandi for the US?


EDIT: I forgot Step 1b- Install crippling sanctions/embargo
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom