Trump

[SB Shock]

Your conspiracy does seem plausible.

My gut tells me that the Russians were playing both sides to make sure whether it was Hillary or Trump - they would both have domestic troubles from the very start.

[ShockingButTrue]

This accurate scenario fooled no one.

In terms of -ahem- "Russian collusion," if any part of it were true in getting the current President elected, this would be it.

[Kung Wu]

So Hillary's team paid $6 million to make it all up?

[boltforge]

It looks like Fusion GPS is basically a mercenary media relations group. Guns (well ... keyboards) for hire. Though guns are involved as well considering what they did with respect to Venezuela. You hire them you get positive coverage for yourself and negative coverage for your enemies. We really need to somehow reach into the non-elected political class that have burrowed into the administrative state and get them out ...

If anything, the scheme calls several Trump associates into question. The same bank used to launder money for the kickbacks (The Bank of Cyprus), was used by Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who admitted to taking wire transfers to Cyprus banks and is under suspicion of laundering Russian money. For instance, Vadim Mikerin started his racketeering scheme in October 2009; that same month a Manafort shell company received a $1M payment from the Bank of Cyprus and that same day sent two transfers of $500k to anonymous accounts.

Well, Manafort is a Podesta Group flunky (of the Hillary Campaign Chair John Podesta and his brother) as well. And the Podesta Group is a Russian influence peddler. People like Podesta, Manafort, Comey, etc. can't be touched by an election. And they have been continuously in power for longer than any person we have ever voted for. We really really need to start trashing the power of the administrative departments. And forcing the legislative branch to start typing up their own damn laws instead of hiring it out. No aides or law firms ... *actually* written by the people we elected. No more regulations by administration. The laws and regulations that we follow need to be written and passed by people we can vote in or vote out. Oh ... and fire 50% of the administrative, legislative, and judicial branch administrators.

[Kung Wu]

So let me get this straight ... she was colluding with the Russians to create a dossier purporting that Trump was colluding with the Russians?

[boltforge]

So let me get this straight ... she was colluding with the Russians to create a dossier purporting that Trump was colluding with the Russians?

No. As far as the Russians go they were working to influence her through the Clinton Foundation ( with over $140 million given ), personnel (Podesta, etc), her husband, direct cash, and actually attempting to move spies close to her. And given what she did for Uranium One I would say they did influence her.

Fusion GPS seems to have been first contracted by an unnamed Republican candidate to create a attack dossier for Trump businesses. That was never used. Fusion GPS was then contracted by the DNC to create one directly attacking Trump. Fusion most likely decided that Trump=Puppet was the best angle of media attack. I would say they were correct in that because it sure has gotten a lot of media play. The spin has enough true facts in it (Manafort, etc) to mix with the false that it held the nations interest. Enough that is was brought to the FBI and passed off as real. One massive government problem is if the feds used it to get the FISA warrants.

This is what men like Fusion GPS do. And they make good money doing it. Journalists are not good upstanding moral people by default. They are simply people.

[ShockingButTrue]

[boltforge]

Looks like I was wrong on the payment to Fusion GPS for the Democrats. There is an Federal Election Commission complaint about Hillary actually paying for it. Her campaign used a lawyer to pay for it and used that to try hide it from the public. Which is against federal law.

[Kung Wu]

The dossier was partly compiled by the Russians. Fusion GPS was working them at the time they approached Hillary's camp.
Trump should fire Mueller tomorrow.

[shockfan89_]

The dossier was partly compiled by the Russians. Fusion GPS was working them at the time they approached Hillary's camp.
Trump should fire Mueller tomorrow.

Mueller should have the decency to resign his special counsel based on this and other recent information. This web of deceit looks pretty vast. Just for starters, Paul Manafort worked for the Podesta Group ran by the brother of Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta before becoming Trump's campaign manager. WTF? Trump campaign ties to Russia are mostly, if not all, attributable to Manafort.

The Russian lawyer at the infamous Trump Tower meeting with Don Jr, Natalia Veselnitskaya, also did work for the Podesta Group and has been tied to the faked Russian Dossier about Trump. The Podesta Group also has ties to top Russian government officials through the Russian bank Sberbank.

And don't forget, former AG Loretta Lynch had to approve Natalia Veselnitskaya's entry into the US to meet with Don Jr since it was first denied by the State Dept.

Robert Mueller was also head of the FBI during the Uranium One investigations into Russians bribing US businesses and contributing over 150 million to the Clinton campaign but made sure none of his agents reported this information.

It is looking more and more like this was all a setup to justify FISA warrants to listen in on the Trump campaign. Funny how all this started as Trump campaign collusion but now that it looks like it was all driven by the democrats and Clinton operatives the MSM goes silent on Russian collusion reporting. I thought this was the biggest story ever, in the history of the world and we heard about it non-stop for the past 10 months. Russian collusion is the biggest threat facing us. But now, all of a sudden, it's no longer important. Hahaha We need to go back to covering Russian collusion and foreign interference non-stop 20 hours per day. Where is Rachel Maddow when you need her? Okay, nobody should ever utter that last sentence. Time to watch the wheels come off. Thanks liberal media for pushing this story so hard. I can't wait to see all of them apologize to Trump and count up all of the lies they told the past year...

[boltforge]

Just some questions bouncing around my head ...

Given that Hillary and her crew heavily used her private server during this whole Fusion/Uranium/Russian mess, I wonder if the 10s of thousands of destroyed emails are actually important?

Why is it the Justice Department has time to force Berkeley into deleting 20,000 free video lectures but not follow through on Uranium One?

What can citizens do about power brokers like Podesta and Manafort who sell government access to the highest bidder?

Anyone else want President Trump to hand over his Twitter App to me?

[CBB_Fan]

So let me get this straight. We have a massive conspiracy by the Democrats to sabotage Trump and justify FISA warrants, that did absolutely nothing to prevent him from getting elected. This conspiracy includes our entire national intelligence community and goes back far enough to include Republican FBI members picked by Bush.

And of course, the following is all "Fake News:"

• Rex Tillerson did business with Rosneft and Gazprom, received highest Russian honor
• Jeff Sessions met twice in undisclosed meetings with Russian ambassador Kislyak
• Michael Flynn was paid by RT, resigned over offering inaccurate accounts of meetings with Kislyak
• Michael Flynn also visited GRU while head of DIA
• Carter Page owns stocks in Gazprom, met with top managers from Rosneft, met with Kislyak
• Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign head, was ex-adviser to Russian puppet Viktor Yanukovych
• Trump hosted Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow
• Trump's charity had private server link to Alfa Bank
• Felix Sater, Moscow-born businessman who pleaded guilty to stock fraud scheme with Russian mafia boasted of a business deal to get a Trump Tower in Russia in a leaked 2015 email reading "“Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it ... I will get all of Putins team to buy in on this, I will manage this process.”

I can go further of course into the Trump Jr. meeting, his cabinet's ties with Russia, his children's ties with Russian and false disclosures, the numerous Russian oligarchs Trump and co. have ties to, etc. but I'm just going to head back to Manafort.

The guy literally lives in Trump Tower. His notoriety started when he helped to elect a pro-Russian Ukraine President, while taking millions in laundered money from Russian interests. Now we have a Pro-Russian American President, advised by good friend and Trump Tower inhabitant Manafort. A President that has millions in Russian loans, and extremely odd real estate deals with Russian oligarchs. A President that still hasn't implemented Russian sanctions, whose sole addition to the Russian policy plank was a pro-Russia stance on Ukraine.

And somehow that all goes away the instant Manafort rubs hands with a group that also rubs hands with the Democrats. That isn't how blame works! Somehow tangential connections to Democrats are more damning than real but falsified connections to Russia. It seems to me that we have a conclusion searching for spin rather than an investigation searching for facts.

Nothing we've seen so far points to criminal wrongdoing on the behalf of Clinton or Mueller. There's no evidence of a quid pro quo relationship, no evidence either even knew of Russia's racketeering scheme, no evidence of a cover-up. Firing Mueller because we managed to play six degrees of separation would make a mockery of our entire legal system. We would ignore the actual accusations of illegal activity (in-kind benefits, undocumented foreign actors, election interference, money laundering, tax fraud) because Clinton legally paid for a second-hand dossier she didn't use and Mueller didn't lock her up for it.

[Kung Wu]

So let me get this straight. We have a massive conspiracy by the Democrats to sabotage Trump and justify FISA warrants, that did absolutely nothing to prevent him from getting elected.

Your premise is way off on the deep end, so I am not going to bother with the rest of your post.

Apparently Hillary and Marc Elias conspired with Fusion GPS to attempt to sabotage Trump and justify FISA warrants, in a plot to try to prevent him from getting elected. And it appears to be a matter of record.

[CBB_Fan]

Your premise is way off on the deep end, so I am not going to bother with the rest of your post.

Apparently Hillary and Marc Elias conspired with Fusion GPS to attempt to sabotage Trump and justify FISA warrants, in a plot to try to prevent him from getting elected. And it appears to be a matter of record.

No, she campaigned against him. Political opposition research is legal. FISA warrants are legal! Conspiracy requires a plan to commit a crime; campaigning against a Republican is not yet such a crime. Especially when Clinton did not release the dossier and Obama's intelligence agencies did not impact the election by publishing statements on incomplete investigations.

Your entire conspiracy is that Clinton/Obama tried to prevent Trump from being elected, when neither used the dossier to attack Trump during the campaign. In fact, they made the exact opposite decision, to refuse to break protocol or abuse powers. You are attacking them based on a hypothetical scenario that did not happen. Everything we have evidence of is well within normal political boundaries and was completely legal.

What isn't legal is receiving such benefits under the table from foreign actors. This represents an undisclosed donation (fraud), as well as directly violating U.S. Code § 30121 (Contributions and donations by foreign nationals), as well as bribery laws

What exactly was the Donald Junior meeting about again? If I recall correctly, it was an undisclosed meeting with Russian state officials regarding Russian aid to the Trump campaign in the form of opposition research of Hillary Clinton. Unlike the dossier, this was illegal on numerous fronts.

[jdshock]

Trump Jr.'s lawyer: Please, please stop talking. We'll get through the investigation. Just keep your stuff private, and we'll manage all public interactions.

Trump Jr.: Hold my beer...