Trump and his team were in contact with Russia for the last year - NYT

[Butler1000]

Actually the evidence can come from members of the Trump campaign. If one of them cracks and spills the beans it's game over.

I agree that the dots still need to be connected but we know what the dots are and what the connection should look like. We know the Russians hacked the DNC. We know they were working closely with Trump. We just need to connect those two facts to one another and a grand jury could then start inducting members of the campaign.

What did Trump know about his campaign's involvement with Russian spies, and when did he know it?

Perhaps. But as you've said before it's impossible to keep a conspiracy a secret anymore. It would have come out before Nov 8th I think.

All I see is the house of Cards and extremely vague connections. And any supposed evidence based on third party inquiries to actual Russian Spies.

I just don't see it leading anywhere but a lot of news pundits kicking around this football until the game dies.

 

[fuji]

Where there's smoke, there's fire.

 

[shack]

Perhaps. But as you've said before it's impossible to keep a conspiracy a secret anymore.

In this case the secret is being exposed drip by drip by drip.

 

[Frankfooter]

I still believe a DNC insider released the hack. It was Podesta that was hacked btw.

Hillary's email was about running a private server and destroying evidence.

Podesta was hacked, Clinton was hacked, the state department was hacked, Pence was hacked, the UK were hacked, Germany was hacked.....The list goes on.
Pence ran a private server, and since he did private and public business on that same account I expect he'll do the same thing, try to hold back his private emails.

US intel has stated they think Russia/Putin was behind the hacks.

Russia has no power these days except for their hacking.
On that end they seem to be doing quite well.

 

[fuji]

Odds of Trump being impeached in 2017 are up to 17% on betting sites. PredictIt doesn't have odds on an impeachment before the end of his term which is the more interesting one. It took two years for Watergate to unravel.

 

[JohnHenry]

We just need to connect those two facts to one another and a grand jury could then start inducting members of the campaign.

Somehow I don't think this is what you meant.

 

[fuji]

Somehow I don't think this is what you meant.

Indicting. Sorry, spell correct on my phone replaces words.

Once there's evidence of collusion a grand jury will start indicting his staff. Sooner or later one of those staffers will start singing like a canary.

The GOP Congress won't impeach Trump without solid evidence so they will leave him out of it initially and go after the little guys until that results in an undeniable case against Trump.

 

[Baller Time]

So tonight we have a claim by Rachel Maddow that she has trump's taxes. Not feeling confident about this but whatever.

Tomorrow Comey will make a statement on the trump-Russia probe. That's March 15th by the way.

 

[shack]

So tonight we have a claim by Rachel Maddow that she has trump's taxes. Not feeling confident about this but whatever.

Tomorrow Comey will make a statement on the trump-Russia probe. That's March 15th by the way.

I'des gonna bet it won't be as exciting as some would hope for.

 

[Baller Time]

Senate Intel chair Richard Burr and Vice Chair Mark Warner just issued a joint statement that there were "No indications of wiretapping" on trump. These 2 along have the highest level of clearance other than the orangutan.

Another black eye for trump

 

[shack]

Senate Intel chair Richard Burr and Vice Chair Mark Warner just issued a joint statement that there were "No indications of wiretapping" on trump.

Not positive, but I think you misquoted them.

I believe they said there was no indication of any surveillance by any government agency. By saying surveillance that trumps the prez's use of air quotes around wiretapping.

 

[Insidious Von]

Shameful!

Trump will be the greatest President in American history, his Terrific Health Act proves that. He cannot be deposed, it would be a yyugge setback for the USA.

He should move his cabinet to Mare Lago, then he will be secure to achieve his greatness.

 

[Frankfooter]

Yes, this government is on a roll!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blog...ch-a-rolling-disaster/?utm_term=.83bba5f60265

Sounds like Trump won't ever be able to even stand for reelection if he doesn't release his taxes.
The states are getting smarter.
http://www.fox19.com/story/34913799/new-jersey-oks-bill-pressuring-trump-to-disclose-tax-returns

 

[Baller Time]

Not positive, but I think you misquoted them.

I believe they said there was no indication of any surveillance by any government agency. By saying surveillance that trumps the prez's use of air quotes around wiretapping.

Sorry about my misspeaking. Although I'm pretty sure he and his campaign were definitely surveilled.

 

[mandrill]

The White House on Monday tried to downplay the role of a former Trump campaign manager with ties to pro-Russia groups in Ukraine, incorrectly stating that he’d been employed by the campaign for about half as long as he actually was.

Press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters during a press briefing that Paul Manafort started working for Trump’s campaign in June 2016 and resigned in August. But that encompassed only the amount of time he served as campaign manager; he joined the campaign on March 28, taking over as campaign manager about 11 weeks later when Corey Lewandowski was fired.

Manafort played a “very limited role for a very limited amount of time,” Spicer said, adding that he was employed by the campaign for “eight weeks.”

Manafort was forced to resign from the campaign on Aug. 19 after reports indicated that he’d been paid close to $13 million by pro-Russia groups in Ukraine; Manafort had in the past lobbied for Viktor Yanukovych, the deposed president of Ukraine now in exile in Russia. CNN recently reported that Ukrainian prosecutors want Manafort to testify in a corruption investigation involving the country’s former justice minister.

Despite his forced departure, Manafort was reportedly a member of Trump’s transition team after the election. He also owns an apartment in Trump Tower in Manhattan.

When asked by a reporter how he could call Manafort’s role “very limited,” Spicer rebuked him for interrupting. Spicer later clarified: “Just so we’re clear, I’m not dismissing Paul Manafort as a hanger-on.” He then incorrectly identified the dates of Manafort’s employment.

Spicer also distanced the administration from two other former Trump advisors who have been linked to Russia: Mike Flynn, who was fired after misrepresenting to Vice President Mike Pence his communications with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. before Trump took office, and Roger Stone, who admitted to communicating in private messages with the hacker known as Guccifer 2.0, widely believed to be an alias for Russian intelligence officers.

Spicer classified Flynn, who served as national security advisor, as a “volunteer of the campaign.” He said that Stone, Trump’s former campaign advisor, had not spoken to Trump recently.

The televised briefing from the White House aired at the same time as a confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee James Gorsuch and a House Intelligence hearing at which FBI director James Comey confirmed the agency is conducting a counterintelligence investigation into whether Trump and his administration colluded with Russia.

“To start to look at some individual that was there for a short period of time, or separately individuals who really didn’t play any role in the campaign, and suggest that those are the basis for anything is a bit ridiculous,” Spicer said. “To intimate that somebody who was there for eight weeks and definitely not there in the final three months of the campaign played some kind of lasting role that influenced…. My point is to suggest now that if you look at the final three months of the campaign, that none of the individuals in question that Democrats brought up over and over again today were affiliated with the campaign, to suggest that that somehow shows some kind of high-level collusion is a bit of a stretch to say the least.”
https://news.vice.com/story/spicer-says-paul-manafort-played-minimal-role-in-trump-campaign

 

[mandrill]

WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI Director James Comey confirmed Monday that the bureau is investigating possible links and coordination between Russia and associates of President Donald Trump as part of a broader probe of Russian interference in last year's presidential election.
The extraordinary revelation, and the first public confirmation of an investigation that began last summer, came at the outset of Comey's opening statement in a congressional hearing examining Russian meddling and possible connections between Moscow and Trump's campaign.
He acknowledged that the FBI does not ordinarily discuss ongoing investigations, but said he'd been authorized to do so given the extreme public interest in this case.
"This work is very complex, and there is no way for me to give you a timetable for when it will be done," Comey told the House intelligence committee.
The hearing, providing the most extensive public accounting of a matter that has dogged the Trump administration for its first two months, quickly broke along partisan lines. Democrats pressed for details on the status of the FBI's investigation, while Republicans repeatedly focused on news coverage and possible improper disclosures of classified information developed through surveillance.
Under questioning from the committee's top Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff, the FBI director also publicly contradicted a series of tweets from Trump that declared the Republican candidate's phones had been ordered tapped by President Barack Obama during the campaign.
"With respect to the president's tweets about alleged wiretapping directed at him by the prior administration, I have no information that supports those tweets, and we have looked carefully inside the FBI," Comey said. The same was true, he added, of the Justice Department.

information developed through surveillance.
Under questioning from the committee's top Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff, the FBI director also publicly contradicted a series of tweets from Trump that declared the Republican candidate's phones had been ordered tapped by President Barack Obama during the campaign.
"With respect to the president's tweets about alleged wiretapping directed at him by the prior administration, I have no information that supports those tweets, and we have looked carefully inside the FBI," Comey said. The same was true, he added, of the Justice Department.

Monday's hearing, one of several by congressional panels probing allegations of Russian meddling, could allow for the greatest public accounting to date of investigations that have shadowed the Trump administration in its first two months.
The top two lawmakers on the committee said Sunday that documents the Justice Department and FBI delivered late last week offered no evidence that the Obama administration had wiretapped Trump Tower, the president's New York City headquarters.
But the panel's ranking Democrat said the material offered circumstantial evidence that American citizens colluded with Russians in Moscow's efforts to interfere in the presidential election.
"There was circumstantial evidence of collusion; there is direct evidence, I think, of deception," Schiff said on NBC's "Meet the Press." ''There's certainly enough for us to conduct an investigation."
Nunes said: "For the first time the American people, and all the political parties now, are paying attention to the threat that Russia poses."
"We know that the Russians were trying to get involved in our campaign, like they have for many decades. They're also trying to get involved in campaigns around the globe and over in Europe," he said on "Fox News Sunday."

The Senate Intelligence Committee has scheduled a similar hearing for later in the month.
Though Comey would not discuss specific evidence, he went far beyond his testimony from a hearing in January, when he refused to confirm or deny the existence of any investigation exploring possible connections between Trump associates and Russia, consistent with the FBI's longstanding policy of not publicly discussing its work.
His appearances on Capitol Hill since then have occurred in classified settings, often with small groups of lawmakers, and he has made no public statements connected to the Trump campaign or Russia.
Any lack of detail from Comey on Monday would likely be contrasted with public comments he made last year when closing out an investigation into Clinton's email practices and then, shortly before Election Day, announcing that the probe would be revived following the discovery of additional emails.
Comey acknowledged that "some folks may want to make comparisons to past instances" where he and other officials were more open, but he said those were about concluded investigations.
"Our ability to share details with the Congress and the American people is limited when those investigations are still open, which I hope makes sense," he added.


http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/polit...ociates/ar-BBysOD7?li=AAadgLE&ocid=spartandhp

 

[Baller Time]

Today's hearing was a beauty. Although I am partisan I have to say that this turned out way worse for the trump side than I expected. Despite Comey and Rogers insisting that when they say they can't comment, nothing can be inferred by it. I think the Dem's did an ok job of blasting a tonne of info out in the public spectrum than what we may have known before. Sessions may have had a 3rd meeting with Kislyak and a few other things. On the other hand the Rep's I think did more damage to trump. Gowdy got some responses he wasn't expecting and it was written all over his face.

 

[Aardvark154]

WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI Director James Comey confirmed Monday that the bureau is investigating possible links and coordination between Russia and associates of President Donald Trump as part of a broader probe of Russian interference in last year's presidential election.

My learned friend, you know as well as I do that an investigation like this doesn't mean that indictments will be forthcoming.

There is I will readily admit a certain turnabout to this - how do you defend yourself against these sorts of amorphous allegations. Further there is more than a little of the "well his best friend is a embezzler, he must be an embezzler too."

However my personal favorite speech (disguised as a question) of the day was from Representative Jacqueline Speier:

"Let's move on to someone else in that web. His name is Michael Caputo (by the way from Buffalo). He's a PR professional who served (as a) radio talk show host. In 1994 he moved to Russia, and there he was working for the Agency for International Development. He was fired from that job because he refused to follow a State Department position. He then opened a PR firm in Moscow and married a Russian woman. He subsequently divorced her, and in 1999 his business failed. Roger Stone, a mentor to him, urged him to move to Florida and open his PR firm in Miami, which is exactly what Mr. Caputo did. And then in 2000, he worked with Gazprom-Media to improve Putin's image in the United States. . . He began consulting on the Ukrainian parliamentary campaign. There he met his second wife. So I guess my question is, what possible reason is there for the Trump campaign to hire this image consultant.. . . then he publicly criticizes U.S. sanctions and NATO's approach to Russia"

This makes me wonder if my friends and acquaintances who have been or still are married to Russian women or myself are all from here on out dangerous untrustworthy enemies of the state. Especially since I've publicly stated that Crimea is an entirely different situation than Eastern Ukraine or the Baltic States.

Oh by the way a certain wry humor to her shot about his consulting business in Moscow having failed, given that her entire adult life has been spent as a Congressional Aide and then a legislator.

http://buffalonews.com/2017/03/20/michael-r-caputo-briefly-takes-center-stage-comey-hearing/

 

[Phil C. McNasty]

FBI found no evidence of a Trump-Russia collusion. Dems fail again:

http://www.wnd.com/2017/03/will-russiagate-backfire-on-the-left/

In Monday’s House Intelligence Committee hearings, James Comey did confirm that his FBI has found nothing to support President Trump’s tweet that President Obama ordered him wiretapped. Not unexpected, but undeniably an embarrassment for the tweeter-in-chief.

Yet longer-term damage may have been done to the left. For Monday’s hearing showed that its rendering of the campaign of 2016 may be a product of fiction and a fevered imagination.

After eight months investigating the hacking and leaking of the emails of Clinton campaign chief John Podesta and the DNC, there is apparently no evidence yet of Trump collusion with Russia.

Former Director of National Intelligence Gen. James Clapper has said that, as of his departure day, Jan. 20, he had seen no evidence of a Russia-Trump collusion.

Former acting CIA Director Michael Morell also made that clear this month: “On the question of the Trump campaign conspiring with the Russians here, there is smoke, but there is no fire, at all. … There’s no little campfire, there’s no little candle, there’s no spark. And there’s a lot of people looking for it.” Morell was a surrogate for the Hillary Clinton campaign

 

[mandrill]

My learned friend, you know as well as I do that an investigation like this doesn't mean that indictments will be forthcoming.

There is I will readily admit a certain turnabout to this - how do you defend yourself against these sorts of amorphous allegations. Further there is more than a little of the "well his best friend is a embezzler, he must be an embezzler too."

However my personal favorite speech (disguised as a question) of the day was from Representative Jacqueline Speier:

"Let's move on to someone else in that web. His name is Michael Caputo (by the way from Buffalo). He's a PR professional who served (as a) radio talk show host. In 1994 he moved to Russia, and there he was working for the Agency for International Development. He was fired from that job because he refused to follow a State Department position. He then opened a PR firm in Moscow and married a Russian woman. He subsequently divorced her, and in 1999 his business failed. Roger Stone, a mentor to him, urged him to move to Florida and open his PR firm in Miami, which is exactly what Mr. Caputo did. And then in 2000, he worked with Gazprom-Media to improve Putin's image in the United States. . . He began consulting on the Ukrainian parliamentary campaign. There he met his second wife. So I guess my question is, what possible reason is there for the Trump campaign to hire this image consultant.. . . then he publicly criticizes U.S. sanctions and NATO's approach to Russia"

This makes me wonder if my friends and acquaintances who have been or still are married to Russian women or myself are all from here on out dangerous untrustworthy enemies of the state. Especially since I've publicly stated that Crimea is an entirely different situation than Eastern Ukraine or the Baltic States.

Oh by the way a certain wry humor to her shot about his consulting business in Moscow having failed, given that her entire adult life has been spent as a Congressional Aide and then a legislator.

http://buffalonews.com/2017/03/20/michael-r-caputo-briefly-takes-center-stage-comey-hearing/

But you weren't hired as an image consultant by Trump. You're not a protege of Roger Stone. And you haven't publicly criticized US sanctions against Russia.

You think these are important differences, counsel?