Trump, the 'Russian' President?

Hawk said:
Short of a smoking gun of some sort, I just don't see this narrative advancing deep enough to where it's going to have a real impact on the Presidency. It was partially litigated (by public opinion) in November, and, sure, while it's true that more information has come to the surface now, months later, I still can't imagine it taking hold in any significant way. On Meet the Press this past Sunday they were comparing the 'Russian' problem with the nuisance that Whitewater created for the Clinton administration. Like a net on a shrimp trawler, the Whitewater story just kept collecting a little bit here and a little bit there until it became big enough to represent a kind of omnipresent negative impact on the administration both in terms of upcoming midterms and in terms of moving legislation through Congress. It had to be addressed. A clip was played where Senator Moynihan basically begged for an investigation -- "Presidents can't be seen to have any hesitation about any matter that concerns their propriety," Mr. Moynihan said. "And this is an honorable man. We have a fine President. He has nothing to hide."

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/10/us/moynihan-urges-prosecutor-to-study-clinton-land-deal.html

Obviously, the Whitewater controversy and the Russian connection bear little similarity, at least materially, but you can't help but wonder if they end up in the same place (ultimate findings coming 7 years after the investigation began).
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I disagree that it was partially litigated in November, because at that time the Trump position was no contacts/nothing to do with Russia, and our understanding of those facts have changed materially in the intervening months.

That said, you may very well be right. If there's no "smoking gun"," all of the minor embarrassments will eventually come to light and the whole thing will shift to a relatively more or less protracted but minor dog-and-pony show with no significant consequences.

I'm pretty agnostic about what may or may not have actually happened. I think it's not unlikely that nothing comes of it at all, beyond what's already known. I think it's not unlikely that some peripheral figure will get hung for some-kind of attempt at side-dealing--Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort (peripheral only in that he was ****canned in August), Carter Page are all possibilities here; they have varying degrees of connection to Trump, from personal to professional--that may not penetrate to the President or his immediate orbit.

That said, a couple of things still give me pause. This has already caused the resignation of the NSA and serious embarrassment to the AG. There's been, by any objective measure, a lot of ham-handed denialism, from the campaign to the present day, about contact with Russia. There's a lot of known and undeniable smoke (Manafort and Cohen's business connections in Ukraine, Flynn's lies, Carter Page's general hinkiness, Roger Stone's potential back-channeling to Wikileaks) that's got to be investigated. Nothing at all may come of it, but if you read between the lines, it seems that a few of the Ds on the intelligence committees have pushed around the edges of saying that they believe that there is evidence of contact between Trump associates and Russian intelligence during the campaign. Maybe it's nothing, but it's still to early to say.

To repeat, I don't think there's a huge chance of some showstopping info to coming to light. I do think that, at the very least, the behavior of the campaign/WH has warranted closer scrutiny. I recently saw an interview with a former Russian foreign minister who expressed surprise that the accounts of Trump folks' contact with Russians didn't begin ("before even handshake," in his construction) with a strongly-worded admonition to stop ****ing around with American elections. He suggested that the lack of such an admonition would be passed back up the chain as significant. The resolution might well end up being anticlimactic, but I think it's safe to assume that it's going to run on for a while.
 
Read or listen to David Remnick on the topic of Russian involvement.
His impression is the Russians never expected Trump to win. Their game was to weaken the effectiveness and compromise a President Clinton.
And too maintaining a legislature that would be anti-Clinton.

Remnick has a history with Russia/USSR and interesting thoughts on Putin
 
Julio3000 said:
I disagree that it was partially litigated in November, because at that time the Trump position was no contacts/nothing to do with Russia, and our understanding of those facts have changed materially in the intervening months.

That said, you may very well be right. If there's no "smoking gun"," all of the minor embarrassments will eventually come to light and the whole thing will shift to a relatively more or less protracted but minor dog-and-pony show with no significant consequences.

I'm pretty agnostic about what may or may not have actually happened.

To repeat, I don't think there's a huge chance of some showstopping info to coming to light. I do think that, at the very least, the behavior of the campaign/WH has warranted closer scrutiny.
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I have absolutely no faith that Congress will uncover anything on their own but clearly a lot of evidence has been preserved and someone has chosen to dole these revelations out a sensationalistic portion at a time, ironically, exactly like Comey and the Wiki/Russians did against Clinton. It's pretty hilarious to think that this has all been Obama's plan, that he moved to secure the evidence after Trump won but before he took the oath and got in a position to destroy the evidence.

One has to wonder how much more they have and if they have something truly damaging. You know that team Trump has to be wondering the same thing.
 
So while at least 6 (so far) members of Trump's campaign were having chats with the Russian Ambassador, Trump has his people defang Ukraine in the Republican platform during the convention - July 18-21. Then on July 22 Wikileaks releases over 20,000 hacked emails of the DNC. WOW! You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to see something highly suspicious in that timeline.

JD Gordon now says Trump himself wanted the language in the platform changed. For a guy who doesn't seem to know anything about anything, he sure had a lot of specific opinions about Russia and the Ukraine. Wonder why?

I think they are all in deep doodie.

Our lying, draft dodging, pussy-grabbing, fraud committing, rabble rousing scam artist and dictator wannabe of a president seems to be trying hard to add to his impressive resume.

Putin: I want zee Americans to promise not to help the Ukraine.
Trump: I want to be President.
Putin: Maybe I can help with that.
Trump: Deal. I make great deals!
 
Hawk said:
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"to the extent they exist"

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Wonder how long we're going to go with "to the extent that they exist."
 
Julio3000 said:
I disagree that it was partially litigated in November, because at that time the Trump position was no contacts/nothing to do with Russia, and our understanding of those facts have changed materially in the intervening months.
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Nevertheless, Clinton felt comfortable enough calling Trump "Putin's puppet" during a nationally televised debate . . . so even if our understanding of the facts has evolved, that implication has not.
 
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One account of the book (not so much a review):

I could tell by looking at the reviews (the typical rightward pointing U-shape of the review bars, either mostly 5 stars or 1 star) that this was a very polarizing book. Unfortunately, it is difficult to use many of the reviews in such a case to determine the merit of a book, since many probably did not read much of the book if at all. I can see why this is the case, since the book paints a negative view of Donald Trump. I try to keep my reviews unfettered by a predetermined bias.

That said, Nance discusses the DNC hack that began around March or April of 2016. Metadata left behind, led to WikiLeaks and a Russian intelligence organization which is a conglomeration of cyber spying groups codenamed Cyber Bears. It appears this organization consists of the FSB (former KGB), the GRU ( Russian Military intelligence), and criminal cyberwarfare subcontractors. The author then proceeds to give us a history of Russia and its intelligence organizations. He notes that “This deep history of espionage, intrigue, and murder shaped Vladimir Putin’s worldview toward the West.” To Putin, the ideal situation would be an economically crippled America, withdrawn from military adventure abroad and NATO, and a leadership installed that is friendly to Russia. In chapter five, the author discusses Russia’s new model of coordinating all aspects of intelligence, propaganda, and cyber operations, which he calls “hybrid warfare.” We learn about advanced persistent threats or APTs, which are “a description of malware toolkits used by hackers.” These hacker groups have been active in other countries as well, such as Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Kyrgyzstan, and others. Nance formulates a connection from these cyber groups to WikiLeaks, calling WikiLeaks Russia’s intelligence laundromat. In the current election, neither Assange nor Putin curry any favor of Clinton making them perfect partners united against this candidate.

The timing of these events is obviously designed to bolster Trump in the polls. For example, we have the leaks prior to the Democratic National Convention which ended up pitting Bernie supporters against Hillary supporters; after Trump’s speech on immigration after the Mexico visit, DCCC documents from Pelosi’s computer on immigration and other items were released; within days of the NY Times stating that anything Trump said needed fact-checking, the Cyber Bears hacked the news organization; a similar thing occurred with Newsweek, and we could go on.

Nance concludes by saying that, “Russian use of cyber weapons to perform criminal acts and damage our electoral process was intended to remove faith in America itself.” He sees politics itself under attack due to hacking and demagoguery. We have to wonder if an attack with a “weapon of Mass Disruption” has yet to occur. It’s all quite sobering to think about.
 
What We Already Know About Trump’s Ties to Russia Amounts to Treachery to the Republic
By Jonathan Chait

A well-written, well-research piece that is pretty straightforward, at least what I have read of it.

One interesting paragraph:
...
Asked in 2013 if he had a relationship with Putin, Trump said, “I do have a relationship, and I can tell you he’s very interested in what we’re doing here today.” In 2014, he recounted, “Putin even sent me a present, beautiful present with a beautiful note, I spoke to all of his people,” and that he “spoke indirectly and directly” with Putin. In 2015, he boasted, “I got to know [Putin] very well.” Last year, he insisted, “I have no relationship with Putin” and that “I don’t know Putin … I never met Putin.”
 
She nailed this show.

[video=youtube;PUJGbC_dy3c]https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=19&v=PUJGbC_dy3c[/video]
 
I guess everyone in here forgot about the time obama whispered into Putins ear 'after the election I'll have more flexibility'
 
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