"No Collusion, No Collusion"

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_Kevin Graham
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Re: "No Collusion, No Collusion"

Post by _Kevin Graham »

"Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul Manafort was part of the Trump campaign," tweeted Trump in October 2017. "But why aren't Crooked Hillary & the Democrats the focus????"

Which, until we got a look at the accidentally unredacted material on Tuesday, was true! While you could argue -- and many people have -- that Trump should have done his due diligence on Manafort, who had spent years advising foreign governments, before hiring him to run his campaign in the spring of 2016, it was hard to dispute Trump's main point that any and all wrongdoing by Manafort happened prior to his being involved with Trump.

Except, not now.

Manafort, according to the filings, had conversations with Kilimnik, who is suspected to be a member of the Russian intelligence organization, while he was serving as the head of Trump's campaign. (Manafort's official title was "campaign chairman" but functioned as campaign manager during his time with Trump.) Those conversations apparently came even as Russian officials were hacking into the email servers at the Democratic National Committee -- which led to a series of damaging leaks via the website WikiLeaks later in 2016. -

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/09/politics ... index.html

Let me guess, subs, none of this constitutes evidence for collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. Even though it was the campaign manager who did it. Ya, blame Manafort, and all the "best people" Trump seems to surround himself with.
_Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: "No Collusion, No Collusion"

Post by _Doctor CamNC4Me »

subgenius wrote:there needs to be a circle jerk ban on this board.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTeEQuaNz2g

- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.

Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
_subgenius
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Re: "No Collusion, No Collusion"

Post by _subgenius »

Kevin Graham wrote:Let me guess, subs, none of this constitutes evidence for collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. Even though it was the campaign manager who did it. Ya, blame Manafort, and all the "best people" Trump seems to surround himself with.

oh, now its not collusion with Trump...but with the campaign....glad to see your adjusting your expectations.
Seek freedom and become captive of your desires...seek discipline and find your liberty
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_Kevin Graham
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Re: "No Collusion, No Collusion"

Post by _Kevin Graham »

subgenius wrote:
Kevin Graham wrote:Let me guess, subs, none of this constitutes evidence for collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. Even though it was the campaign manager who did it. Ya, blame Manafort, and all the "best people" Trump seems to surround himself with.

oh, now its not collusion with Trump...but with the campaign....glad to see your adjusting your expectations.


Uh, that is the whole purpose of the probe dumbass. It isn't to investigate Donald Trump personally, but rather the Russian interference into the election and their coordination with the Trump campaign. Proving collusion with Russian to receive help in the election doesn't make his win any less illegitimate.
_MeDotOrg
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Re: "No Collusion, No Collusion"

Post by _MeDotOrg »

It's interesting to imagine the outcomes here: either Trump knew about Manafort's dealings with Kilimnik, or he didn't.

If he knew, and the data Manafort gave to Kilimnik was used to help elect Trump, I would say that's the ball game. If the fat lady isn't singing, she is clearing her throat.

If he somehow did not know, I'm not sure if that is much better. It basically means that the Russians were running a spy operation within the Trump campaign without his knowledge. (No collusion!) This from the man who hires the best people. Gross incompetence or gross negligence, take your pick.
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_moksha
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Re: "No Collusion, No Collusion"

Post by _moksha »

Time for Trump to add a no-collusion rider to his insurance policy.
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_Chap
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Re: "No Collusion, No Collusion"

Post by _Chap »

MeDotOrg wrote:It's interesting to imagine the outcomes here: either Trump knew about Manafort's dealings with Kilimnik, or he didn't.

If he knew, and the data Manafort gave to Kilimnik was used to help elect Trump, I would say that's the ball game. If the fat lady isn't singing, she is clearing her throat.

If he somehow did not know, I'm not sure if that is much better. It basically means that the Russians were running a spy operation within the Trump campaign without his knowledge. (No collusion!) This from the man who hires the best people. Gross incompetence or gross negligence, take your pick.


+1000

There is no third way for Trump that I can see: its either 'collusion with the Russians', or 'dumb'.

Wonder which way Trump will decide to jump, if when push comes to shove?
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_Kevin Graham
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Re: "No Collusion, No Collusion"

Post by _Kevin Graham »

Remember the time when Hillary Clinton was supposed to go to jail because her campaign manager had written some emails some people didn't like?
_subgenius
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Re: "No Collusion, No Collusion"

Post by _subgenius »

MeDotOrg wrote:It's interesting to imagine the outcomes here: either Trump knew about Manafort's dealings with Kilimnik, or he didn't.

If he knew, and the data Manafort gave to Kilimnik was used to help elect Trump, I would say that's the ball game. If the fat lady isn't singing, she is clearing her throat.

If he somehow did not know, I'm not sure if that is much better. It basically means that the Russians were running a spy operation within the Trump campaign without his knowledge. (No collusion!) This from the man who hires the best people. Gross incompetence or gross negligence, take your pick.

None of the above. No one cared about Russians until Hillary Clinton lost (see Obama and Romney, etc.) or even the long history of Russia trying to influence elections (today Facebook yesterday op-eds in NYT, etc.), and then a deluge of butt-hurt turned into a national crisis.
Manafort and others, both Democrat and Republican worked openly and extensively on consulting with elections in the "Russia sphere" because of their work on Obama and McCain campaigns. So for any party operatives to have communication with "Russians!" is not unreasonable nor troublesome...unless you want to create a boogeyman.
Now this does absolve or condone allegations against Manafort etc - if they are true.

The OP is littered with unsubstantiated allegations, presuppositions, and pipe-dreams.
But consider the following excerpts, this is not the language of conviction....

"But anyone familiar with intelligence work will quickly note that it can’t necessarily be taken at face value. Intelligence operatives will sometimes intentionally feed false information over channels they know are monitored. In other cases, people will boast about things that simply aren’t true."

according to a person knowledgeable

Some are speculating

remains to be seen

appears to

It seems like

This suggests

It’s possible that

it was a reasonable surmise

it has to be interpreted with caution
Seek freedom and become captive of your desires...seek discipline and find your liberty
I can tell if a person is judgmental just by looking at them
what is chaos to the fly is normal to the spider - morticia addams
If you're not upsetting idiots, you might be an idiot. - Ted Nugent
_canpakes
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Re: "No Collusion, No Collusion"

Post by _canpakes »

subgenius wrote:None of the above. No one cared about Russians until Hillary Clinton lost (see Obama and Romney, etc.) or even the long history of Russia trying to influence elections (today Facebook yesterday op-eds in NYT, etc.) ...

“He didn’t lock his door, so we shouldn’t care if someone conspired to enter and break the law after the fact” ...
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