General US Politics

[Tryhard]

To be honest I find it hard to believe that factors like "collusion" enter the minds of the Trump family while thinking about these things. I think they just see them as business agreements, and thus are surprised why anyone finds them objectionable.

Edited July 11, 2017 by Tryhard

[Lushen]

16 minutes ago, Res said:

And Donald Trump Jr is now posting the evidence himself.

(And yet, still crickets). 

Edit: Poor Jared Sexton.

Is there a law against meeting with someone who says they have dirt on Hillary?  I don't understand, what law are the democrats saying he broke?  Am I not allowed to talk to Russians?  And why can reporters meet with foreign officials to discuss conspiracy theories but not Trump Jr?  This is not evidence, it's fact that backs up his claim.  He was not doing anything illegal.

I have a ton of respect for him just dumping what happened on the internet.  Wish some politicians would have this level of transparency.  

 

Do you think there's any presidential candidate in existence who wouldn't meet with someone who claims to have dirt on their opposition?

Edited July 11, 2017 by Lushen

[Tryhard]

22 minutes ago, Lushen said:

Is there a law against meeting with someone who says they have dirt on Hillary?  I don't understand, what law are the democrats saying he broke?  Am I not allowed to talk to Russians?  And why can reporters meet with foreign officials to discuss conspiracy theories but not Trump Jr?  This is not evidence, it's fact that backs up his claim.  He was not doing anything illegal.

I have a ton of respect for him just dumping what happened on the internet.  Wish some politicians would have this level of transparency.  

 

Do you think there's any presidential candidate in existence who wouldn't meet with someone who claims to have dirt on their opposition?

Pretty sure that the Russian government directly giving their support to a candidate in a foreign presidential election and helping via "incriminating highly sensitive information" counts as collusion. As from what he just tweeted out:

Donald Trump Jr. of course is convinced that he did nothing wrong.

See, everything critical of Trump in the mainstream media is fake, but then when it comes from the horse's mouth the goalposts then switch to downplaying - as what happened when Trump himself contradicted his own administrations statements on why he fired Comey and whether or not he divulged classified information to Russian officials in a White House private meeting.

Edited July 11, 2017 by Tryhard

[Lushen]

19 minutes ago, Tryhard said:

Pretty sure that the Russian government directly giving their support to a candidate in a foreign presidential election and helping via "incriminating highly sensitive information" counts as collusion. As from what he just tweeted out:

Donald Trump Jr. of course is convinced that he did nothing wrong.

The hatch act applies only to gov't officials.

If Trump Jr was not a gov't official, what did he do wrong?  Additionally, his attorney has stated that he was told there was alleged wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton ( http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-jr-posts-purported-emails-meeting-russian/story?id=48567195 end of this video, I couldn't find a written version).

If this is the case, wouldn't he have an obligation to meet with this Emin to discuss an alleged wrongdoing?  Either way, I don't think the information was actually released by the Trump campaign who claims to have had no knowledge of Trump Jr's meeting.  So, collusion?  Sounds like the Russians said they would help, gave some information, and the Trump campaign ignored it.  I'm honestly not seeing anything wrong with any of this.

Edited July 11, 2017 by Lushen

[Res]

You're not seeing anything wrong with the continuous lies, hypocrisy, layers of childish back-and-forth that would be absolutely, without-a-doubt, creating all kinds of scandal if it weren't originating from the Republican party? (For that matter, why all of Trump's children are continually getting involved is anyone's guess, is this democracy or nepotism?)

And yeah, U.S. politics are a mess. Both parties are awful. I get the political fatigue and why most people have stopped caring altogether (although I'm trying to stay aware myself - it's how all the dangerous bills keep getting passed). I have no idea why political campaigns focus so heavily on trying to dig up dirt on the other candidate (probably because to do otherwise would not only highlight how similar the parties actually are, but show just how flimsy the basis of most campaigns are).

[Lushen]

9 minutes ago, Res said:

You're not seeing anything wrong with the continuous lies, hypocrisy, layers of childish back-and-forth that would be absolutely, without-a-doubt, creating all kinds of scandal if it weren't originating from the Republican party? (For that matter, why all of Trump's children are continually getting involved is anyone's guess, is this democracy or nepotism?)

And yeah, U.S. politics are a mess. Both parties are awful. I get the political fatigue and why most people have stopped caring altogether (although I'm trying to stay aware myself - it's how all the dangerous bills keep getting passed). I have no idea why political campaigns focus so heavily on trying to dig up dirt on the other candidate (probably because to do otherwise would not only highlight how similar the parties actually are, but show just how flimsy the basis of most campaigns are).

What lies?  I suppose he said there was no dealings with Russia, but as I said he acted on his own for a 20 minute meeting without the knowledge of the campaign.  Does that constitute, 'dealings'.  I don't know.

I will agree this e-mail should have been released sooner, but I still say I wish more politicians would release these kinds of exchanges instead of deleting them.

Ah well, I can say the meeting is a concern against the Trump campaign, but it doesn't warrant tweeting images of president Trump and Jr in prison uniforms (scroll down).  People posting this crap don't seem to care whether something is illegal or not, they just want him behind bars.  It's not THAT serious.  That's my issue with the story, some are just grasping for straws.  I'm not saying this isn't a bad thing for the Trump campaign, but no one did anything wrong from a legal standpoint.  Totally agree with your second paragraph.

Edited July 11, 2017 by Lushen

[Res]

47 minutes ago, Lushen said:

What lies?  I suppose he said there was no dealings with Russia

Donald Trump Jr. had denied participating in any campaign-related meetings with Russian nationals when he was interviewed by The Times in March. We then heard it was about Russian adoption, but these emails are explicitly clear that Donald Trump Jr at least expected to be given political information (even if it was not actually delivered).

As for the legality, a former Defense Department special counsel and current legal editor certainly believes Donald Trump Jr's actions are illegal. 

And really, Trump Jr only released the emails because the NY Times was about to publish them. I hardly think he deserves a pat on the back for that.

 

[Tryhard]

5 hours ago, Lushen said:

The hatch act applies only to gov't officials.

If Trump Jr was not a gov't official, what did he do wrong?

Jared Kushner (and Paul Manafort) was in the room at the time (accompanying him) from what I understand and he does happen to be a government official. But that sounds like a pretty weak argument to begin with, considering he has direct familial ties to the current US President. He's just not put his son on a government position through nepotism like he did Ivanka.

5 hours ago, Lushen said:

People posting this crap don't seem to care whether something is illegal or not, they just want him behind bars.  It's not THAT serious.  That's my issue with the story, some are just grasping for straws.  I'm not saying this isn't a bad thing for the Trump campaign, but no one did anything wrong from a legal standpoint.

I don't really expect it to do anything, it's just another thing to add to the bulletin board of the Trump administration. He has already done what borders on illegal activity by attempting to blackmail Comey by saying there were tapes of a private conversation, which could also count as witness tampering and obstruction of justice after firing him for pursuing an investigation. He probably thinks he is above the law, but I remind you that he ran as a candidate as being the "law and order" candidate that wasn't like those other 'crooked' politicians. 

4 hours ago, Res said:

And really, Trump Jr only released the emails because the NY Times was about to publish them. I hardly think he deserves a pat on the back for that.

I'm not sure if he would get in more trouble in the end if he didn't, but you know for a fact that there would be a reasonable attempt to scream 'fake news' if that was the case.

Edited July 11, 2017 by Tryhard

[Lushen]

Interesting, I suppose they are talking about this law:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/11/110.20

But it would call the information a "Donation" to the trump campaign.  Two things:

1.  He wasn't meeting with the knowledge of the Trump campaign so there couldn't have been an official contribution towards the Trump campaign.
2.  Whether or not incriminating information about another candidate can be considered a donation.  I think that's quite a stretch personally, but this is something legal personal are likely going to have to discuss.  

It would appear that this is evidence that Russia officially supported the Trump Campaign.  However, there still is no evidence of the Trump campaign accepting Russias help as the campaign has never released incriminating information on Clinton (wikileaks did).  I believe Trump Jr called it "A whole lot of nothing" basically saying nothing this Emin said was reasonable and dropped it.

I did not know Jared Kushner was in the room.  Where are you getting this from?  Not that I don't believe you, I'd just like to read the whole thing.  Either way, on Wikipedia I'm only seeing that he has become a Gov't official after Trump's win, not before.

I'm assuming the adoption came up somewhere in the conversation, perhaps even directly related to the hogwash Clinton wrongdoings.  I highly doubt he just made it up.

 

I still say Trump Jr deserves a bit of credit for releasing those emails because, as I linked, other politicians have been caught deleting them.  Sure, a journalist may have been about to release them, but I think the fact that he decided to throw them out there preemptively when he could have denied it at least gives him some credit.  It definitely shows he's not trying to hide anything and willing to put all his cards on the table.

Edited July 11, 2017 by Lushen

[Res]

That meeting with Kremlin-affiliated lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya on June 9, 2016, also included Trump’s de facto campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and longtime close adviser to the candidate (and future senior adviser to the president) Jared Kushner.

1 hour ago, Tryhard said:

I don't really expect it to do anything, it's just another thing to add to the bulletin board of the Trump administration. He has already done what borders on illegal activity by attempting to blackmail Comey by saying they were tapes of a private conversation, which could also count as witness tampering and obstruction of justice after firing him for pursuing an investigation. He probably thinks he is above the law, but I remind you that he ran as a candidate as being the "law and order" candidate that wasn't like those other 'crooked' politicians.

Exactly. It's the hypocrisy that continues to stun, not merely the actual actions (the legality of which I'll leave to the lawyers, seeing as I am not one).

[Tryhard]

14 minutes ago, Lushen said:

I did not know Jared Kushner was in the room.  Where are you getting this from?  Not that I don't believe you, I'd just like to read the whole thing.  Either way, on Wikipedia I'm only seeing that he has become a Gov't official after Trump's win, not before.

I'll use Fox News but it's really on quite a few sources, it's just that Donald Trump Jr. is the one pushed to the forefront. Paul Manafort was also Trump's campaign manager at the time. This article is from a few days ago, before we knew the details of the meeting.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/07/08/donald-trump-jr-and-jared-kushner-respond-to-meeting-with-russian-lawyer.html

14 minutes ago, Lushen said:

It would appear that this is evidence that Russia officially supported the Trump Campaign.  However, there still is no evidence of the Trump campaign accepting Russias help as the campaign has never released incriminating information on Clinton (wikileaks did).  I believe Trump Jr called it "A whole lot of nothing" basically saying nothing this Emin said was reasonable and dropped it.

It depends, but this type of argument is the same one used by people who contact undercover agents on the assumption that they are getting an illegal benefit, but defend that "nothing actually happened" when it becomes a bust. It doesn't work out for those people. If they didn't want to accept that information they probably shouldn't have been there in the first place.

It's not as clear cut as there's some plausible deniability here but it does not look good from an optics point of view.

Edited July 11, 2017 by Tryhard

[Lushen]

Hm it's all very interesting.  I'm very curious to see how this all plays out.  IMO, it doesn't seem like there's anything overly incriminating and it would be a lot better if Trump & Team just threw everything out on the table.  I think they'd be fine and it would stop these stories from being released one at a time for the next 3 years.

[Lushen]

Sorry for the double-post but there's an update on this story:

Now, let's try to put ourselves in his shoes.  Your father is running for president.  You're still early in the campaign and a personal friend asks you to meet someone (russian) with damaging information on your opponent.  You don't reply for 3 days (see timestamp on his e-mail) and they follow up with you.  At this point in time, the russian-trump conspiracy is nothing.  It hasn't started yet, there's literally no one claiming there's russian involvement.  At this point, would you say "No, this is a direct violation of law xXxxX and I'm reporting this to the FBI".  No, you have no knowledge that this damaging information is against the law, and it's certainty a stretch to call it a donation to the campaign.  You meet with someone.  For 20 minutes you discuss adoption.  At this point, you start to get agitated and press for details on the damaging information which does not exist.  After leaving the meeting, your friend apologizes to you for setting the meeting up and you move on.  Months later, when the media is dieing to find some connection between your fathers campaign and Russia, you are asked if there was any collusion.  Well, the Russian people you met with never said anything that helped your campaign, they were just lobbying with you to try and get you to work with them on something related to adoption.  By the way, this is pretty much a fact.  If Russia did give Trump Jr anything, it would have been used during the campaign (guess what, it wasn't).  So, you say no.  Don't see anything wrong with that, it's certainty not collusion for them to bring you to a meeting under false pretense and lobby you over something you aren't interested in.  Months later, this story comes up that you met with a Russian diplomat and you've colluded to have the election rigged and should be tried for treason (punishable by death, btw).  How do YOU feel?

I don't like Trump.  I think he's an idiot.  But this whole Russia thing is a waste of everyone's time.  People have been crying wolf for a Trump impeachment since before he moved into the whitehouse.  Honestly, after seeing Turmp Jr's speech at the RNC and how he is dealing with this whole issue, I'd vote for him over most of the other candidates on both sides last year anyday.

 

One final note, people who were saying his story contradicted jumped to conclusions.  Here's his full story which doesn't contradict anything he said about the meeting.   

[Lord Raven]

Do you think you know better than the FBI, then? Or are you more qualified to make a conclusion than the FBI and journalists who get the news? Because it sounds to me like that's what you're implying.

At any rate, this is collusion, and a lot of dates of meetings coincide with events. This isn't all some conspiracy coincidence. I'll talk more on it when I get back, but your appeal to emotion doesn't work and whether or not you knowingly break the law doesn't factor into breaking the law. It's his fault for being uninformed despite having access to all the resources in the world.

[Tryhard]

18 minutes ago, Lushen said:

I don't like Trump.  I think he's an idiot.  But this whole Russia thing is a waste of everyone's time.  People have been crying wolf for a Trump impeachment since before he moved into the whitehouse. 

Republicans wanted to impeach Clinton on day one if she won too.

http://bizstandardnews.com/2016/09/10/coulter-impeach-hillary-on-day-one-of-her-presidency/

Also, if it's a waste of time, then let the investigation continue. It will come out in the wash.

(Pretty hilarious how Hannity had basically blamed this situation on Obama allowing the Russian lawyer into the country somehow)

Edited July 12, 2017 by Tryhard

[Tryhard]

.

Edited July 12, 2017 by Tryhard

[Lushen]

 

7 minutes ago, Tryhard said:

Republicans wanted to impeach Clinton on day one if she won too.

http://bizstandardnews.com/2016/09/10/coulter-impeach-hillary-on-day-one-of-her-presidency/

Also, if it's a waste of time, then let the investigation continue. It will come out in the wash.

(Pretty hilarious how Hannity had basically blamed this situation on Obama somehow)

Totally agree with everything.  My point was there is another side of the story, so please don't believe everything you hear when there is no official word from the investigation (like people saying his stories contradicted when they clearly don't now).

I also agree with you on Clinton.  I defended Obama whenever the media went nuts on him.  Obama is the reason Fox News has such bad credibility, much like Trump is the reason CNN has such bad credibility.  Not saying they were both perfect before, but they really went overboard when their respective hated president was elected.  Both presidents have had their extra food complaints:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixEahmx0Btw (how dare he eat KFC with a fork!  Great reporting, very relevant)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQYHHklRBtY (wow, I'm glad Hannity hasn't seen me ask for chick fil a sauce)

I think its funny that every election, the left and right swap their tactics.  They have more in common than they know.

Edited July 12, 2017 by Lushen

[Zapp Branniglenn]

2 hours ago, Lushen said:

You're still early in the campaign and a personal friend asks you to meet someone (russian) with damaging information on your opponent.  You don't reply for 3 days (see timestamp on his e-mail) and they follow up with you.  At this point in time, the russian-trump conspiracy is nothing.  

 

It wasn't nothing. The public just weren't yet aware of the DNC hacks until the next week. Trump gets the email on June 3rd, the DNC was hacked in April and they began investigating. The day before this meeting (June 8th), Trump boasted about having critical information on the Clinton campaign that he will present on the 13th. Spoiler alert: he turns up with nothing. Then Wikileaks speak up on the 12th with their announcement that they had the Clinton emails and will release them. And on the 14th, the rest of us first hear of the DNC hacks by (allegedly) Russians.

Edited July 12, 2017 by Gustavos

[Shoblongoo]

It was serious enough to warrant appointment of a special prosecutor when Trump fired the FBI director under false prestenses and was caught boasting to the Russians the very next day that the "pressure  is off." It stunk to high heaven with all the selective amnesia around meetings between Russian nationals and Trump teamsters, from Sessions to Manafort to Flynn to Kushner. They've now been forced to admit--because and ONLY because the facts contradicting their lies leaked to the press--that they did something they've spent the last 6 months telling us they didn't do + that there was no evidence that they did. With their story now changing from "Totally bogus. Of course we would never have these kinds of conversations with the Russians." to "Okay...we did it. But it wasn't that bad; it was our absolute right to talk to the Russians about getting their 'opposition research' on Hillary. No one seriously thinks that's illegal." They got caught. They changed their story because they got caught, and they keep changing their story because they keep getting caught. And that's not something you do when you're confident you will be exonerated when all facts come out; that's cover-up behavior, of the kind people engage in when the truth is deeply incriminating and they're trying to make sure it never sees the light of day. But by all means. This is "nothing."

Edited July 13, 2017 by Shoblongoo

[Tryhard]

3 hours ago, Lushen said:

I think its funny that every election, the left and right swap their tactics.  They have more in common than they know.

It's not so much that they swap their tactics more so that they have political tactics that are appropriate for when they are and aren't in power. Also, the Democrats aren't really 'left' if we're talking the global political scale but they are just referred to as such because it's easier for Americans.

54 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

It was serious enough to warrant appointment of a special prosecutor when Trump fired the FBI director under false prestenses and was caught boasting to the Russians the very next day that the "pressure  is off." It stunk to high heaven with all the selective amnesia around meetings between Russian nationals and Trump teamsters, from Sessions to Manafort to Flynn to Kushner. They've now been forced to admit--because and ONLY because the facts contradicting their lies leaked to the press--that they did something they've spent the last 6 months telling us they didn't do + that there was no evidence that they did. With their story now changing from "Totally bogus. Of course we would never have these kinds of conversations with the Russians." to "Okay...we did it. But it wasn't that bad; it was our absolute right to talk to the Russians about getting their 'opposition research' on Hillary. No one seriously thinks that's illegal." They got caught. They changed their story because they got caught, and they keep changing their story because they keep getting caught. And that's not something you do when you're confident you will be exonerated when all facts come out; that's cover-up behavior, of the kind people engage in when the truth is deeply incriminating and they're trying to make sure it never sees the light of day. But by all means. This is "nothing."

I particularly like when the news publications like NY Times release information with slow drips. It happened with the meeting Trump had when he disclosed classified information too. They release small parts of information at first that remain inconclusive to which Trump Jr. or such will deny the allegations staunchly (along with him saying there was no meeting with Russians representing the campaign back in March). And then as more evidence comes out they have to admit that there was a meeting, but it was about Russian adoption. As even more details come out, he changes his story to it mostly being about dirt on Hillary Clinton the next day. It's catching liars with their pants down in even bigger lies as they are forced to walk back their stories. Moving from denial to downplaying.

Even if you don't like the media, that's pretty smart.

Edited July 13, 2017 by Tryhard

[Shoblongoo]

59 minutes ago, Tryhard said:

Even if you don't like the media, that's pretty smart.

Its a common tactic used by criminal prosecutors.

That's generally how you trick persons into incriminating themselves, when you need to prove wrongful intent or purposeful state-of-mind as an element of a inchoate crime (i.e. conspiracy. solicitation. obstruction.)

I suspect that at this point investigators know WAY more then they're publicly letting on. And they're leaking it out piecemeal, to bait the persons under investigation into making these chains of demonstrably false statements;

Team Trump:  We did [A]. Everyone does [A]. But we didn't do [ B ], and there's no evidence that we did [ B ].

Investigators: *Releases  [ B ] *

Team Trump:  Okay...We did [ B ] . Its not a crime to do [ B ]. We didn't do [C] and there's no evidence that we did [C].

Investigators: *Releases [C]*

Team Trump:  Okay...We did [C]. If that's all you've got, this is a witch-hunt. Unless you can prove we did [D]. But we didn't do [D] and there's no evidence that we did [D].

Investigators: 

...You've now established said chain of demonstrably false statements. Completely destroying any credibility the subject of the investigation has to testify in his own defense.

And, more importantly, established present-sense-impression evidence that the subject knew what they were doing was wrong. Because if they didn't think they were doing anything wrong, they wouldn't have told lie after lie after lie to try and conceal it.

Edited July 13, 2017 by Shoblongoo

[Lushen]

16 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

<snip>

There's another explanation for this.  If you're asked if you ever colluded with a Russian official on television, knowing there's a huge witchunt for any kind of connection between your campaign and the Russians, would you go out of your way to say you've met with Russian diplomats?  It doesn't matter what the meeting was about, if you say you met with Russians the media will speculate that it is collusion.  If you're asked if you ever met with Russians and you had one small meeting that was 20 minutes long when you probably had hundreds of significantly longer meetings throughout that week, what would you possibly have to gain by saying that you had met with Russians?

I propose -

Team Trump: We didn't do [A] but we did do B, [C], and [D] which links us to [A].  We're not going to go out of our way to admit we did B, [C], and [D] because we didn't actually do [A] but the media will speculate.

We've seen drip drops of Russian-Trump collusion every couple weeks for the last few months.  The fact is none of them have proven anything beyond reasonable doubt.  A meeting does not equal collusion, all the speculation in the world never amounts to evidence, and it's completely unreasonable to suggest that a presidential campaign committee would not end up meeting with a few foreign diplomats. 

I'd also like to point out that America involves themselves in foreign elections frequently (fun fact, one of them was Russia).  Russia having a preference on who the US president is and releasing information on Hillary is no different than what we do.  Hypocrites much?

Edited July 13, 2017 by Lushen

[Lord Raven]

49 minutes ago, Lushen said:

There's another explanation for this.  If you're asked if you ever colluded with a Russian official on television, knowing there's a huge witchunt for any kind of connection between your campaign and the Russians, would you go out of your way to say you've met with Russian diplomats?  It doesn't matter what the meeting was about, if you say you met with Russians the media will speculate that it is collusion.  If you're asked if you ever met with Russians and you had one small meeting that was 20 minutes long when you probably had hundreds of significantly longer meetings throughout that week, what would you possibly have to gain by saying that you had met with Russians?

Honesty and credibility, especially since this kind of meeting is very difficult to forget. Would someone really forget a meeting where they tried to get dirt on your father's political opponent?

This kind of shitty memory, fyi, is not at all good for someone in his line of work.

49 minutes ago, Lushen said:

We've seen drip drops of Russian-Trump collusion every couple weeks for the last few months.  The fact is none of them have proven anything beyond reasonable doubt.  A meeting does not equal collusion, all the speculation in the world never amounts to evidence, and it's completely unreasonable to suggest that a presidential campaign committee would not end up meeting with a few foreign diplomats. 

On 7/11/2017 at 7:41 PM, Lushen said:

You've just stated that it's next to impossible for them to find direct proof, if I am reading this correctly.  Nevertheless, the FBI isn't only trained to do this (which they are), but they also have a lot more clearance, personal, and rights as far as investigations go.  Journalists are welcome to investigate to some regard, but if the FBI is investigating Russian collusion they need to learn how to back off.  It can be assumed the FBI has a lot more information than the journalists do, it's their job.

Are you saying you're more qualified than the FBI to make a judgment on whether or not the FBI and other security agencies should continue to look into these matters?

49 minutes ago, Lushen said:

I'd also like to point out that America involves themselves in foreign elections frequently (fun fact, one of them was Russia).  Russia having a preference on who the US president is and releasing information on Hillary is no different than what we do.  Hypocrites much?

Whataboutism. Whether or not America does it to other countries is irrelevant, and it also doesn't mean that we approve of them doing it.

Edited July 13, 2017 by Lord Raven

[Lushen]

16 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

Are you saying you're more qualified than the FBI to make a judgment on whether or not the FBI and other security agencies should continue to look into these matters?

Whataboutism. Whether or not America does it to other countries is irrelevant, and it also doesn't mean that we approve of them doing it.

You can keep re-iterating your point.  I know you are trying to find a contradiction in my statements but in both cases I have argued that the media's investigations are hogwash.  

Whataboutism, I'm not familiar with that word; is is another word for Hypocrisy?  Really, how can we shove our standards on others when we can't hold ourselves accountable to them? We interfered with the Russian Election.  They interfered with ours.  We're the good guys, they're the bad guys?  What?

16 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

Honesty and credibility, especially since this kind of meeting is very difficult to forget. Would someone really forget a meeting where they tried to get dirt on your father's political opponent?

This kind of shitty memory, fyi, is not at all good for someone in his line of work.

Do you remember every 20 minute meeting you've had?  Acc't the one who attended the meeting, it was a waste of time and didn't end up being about Clinton at all.  And no one has anywhere near the amount of meetings as presidential campaigners.  I don't even remember everyone I talked to last week.

Either way, I never suggested he didn't remember - but that he didn't see the relevance in stimulating the press's speculation when the meeting was nothing.

Edited July 13, 2017 by Lushen

[Shoblongoo]

2 hours ago, Lushen said:

 If you're asked if you ever colluded with a Russian official on television, knowing there's a huge witchunt for any kind of connection between your campaign and the Russians, would you go out of your way to say you've met with Russian diplomats?

YES!!!!!!!!

If my genuine position is that its a "witchhunt." That its a fake story, I did nothing wrong, and that I will be 100% exonerated when all the facts come out--if I actually believe this, and I'm not just talking out my ass to try and sell a cover up.

Then the first thing I do is run to the press and say: This is each and every person on my team who met with a Russian official. This is who they met with. This is where they met. This is when the meeting occurred. This is what they talked about. This is who knew. No illegalities occurred and no ethics rules were broken. I certify that I have completely and accurately disclosed each and every instance of Russian contact with my campaign. Now unless anyone has any evidence that I have failed to make complete and accurate disclosures--and they DON'T, because I just gave you the full record--stuff it, and let me get back to work. I have a country to run.  

...that's how you get ahead of the story
...that's how you stay in control of the narrative
...that's how you avoid getting bogged down in slow-drips and scandals
...and if you did in fact make full and complete disclosures + disclosed nothing incriminating; that's how you establish credibility to claim that any further reporting of collusion is in fact a political witch-hunt. 

You don't stonewall and repeatedly deny doing things you know you did and wait for investigators to penetrate your wall of denials and non-disclosures before finally admitting "okay...we did do that...so-what..." if you are confident that the investigation against you is a substanceless witch-hunt and will not turn up anything incriminating once everything is out in the open.

You do it if you are confident the truth-of-the-matter-asserted is more damaging to you then the lies and the cover-up you are deploying to conceal it.  

Edited July 13, 2017 by Shoblongoo