But they keep finding witches...

[_DarkHelmet]

My bold prediction is the Mueller investigation will reveal that Trump is nothing more than a useful idiot to the Russians. There is a reason they wanted him elected.

[_Water Dog]

Getting silly again ...

The issuing of indictment by a grand jury is a sign that the known evidence in the direction of possible guilt has been carefully evaluated, and that it has been concluded, based on that evaluation of evidence, that a prosecution is justified.

That does not of course mean that it can be assumed that any subsequent trial will result in conviction. But it does suggest that there is a non-zero chance, and possibly a considerable chance, of that outcome.

Trivial point of usage: the issuance of an indictment is a consequence of the fact that evidence is thought to exist. So arguing about whether an indictment is evidence is almost as stupid as arguing whether a divorce petition is adultery.

Where are the WMDs in Iraq? There is nothing silly about asking to see the evidence, anything else would be imprudent. Based on timing alone these indictments should be treated with suspicion. It's a transparently political maneuver that shows in-fighting between Trump and others in the govt. Nobody of sense can interpret it any other way.

[_DrW]

My bold prediction is the Mueller investigation will reveal that Trump is nothing more than a useful idiot to the Russians. There is a reason they wanted him elected.

My bold prediction is that the Pussy Grabber in Chief and his clan will be up to their necks in State and Federal indictments ranging from international money laundering to inducement to commit criminal acts, collusion with hostile foreign agents, conspiracy to commit espionage against the United States of America, illegal campaign contributions, misappropriations of funds, self dealing, felony sexual assault, violation of the emoluments clause of the constitution, and just being heretofore unimaginably ignorant assholes.

[_canpakes]

WD, straight up, do you believe Putin when he asserts that Russia did not engage in any shenanigans, or do you believe US intel agencies that assert that Russia did?

[_Chap]

Getting silly again ...

The issuing of indictment by a grand jury is a sign that the known evidence in the direction of possible guilt has been carefully evaluated, and that it has been concluded, based on that evaluation of evidence, that a prosecution is justified.

That does not of course mean that it can be assumed that any subsequent trial will result in conviction. But it does suggest that there is a non-zero chance, and possibly a considerable chance, of that outcome.

Trivial point of usage: the issuance of an indictment is a consequence of the fact that evidence is thought to exist. So arguing about whether an indictment is evidence is almost as stupid as arguing whether a divorce petition is adultery.

Where are the WMDs in Iraq? There is nothing silly about asking to see the evidence, anything else would be imprudent. Based on timing alone these indictments should be treated with suspicion. It's a transparently political maneuver that shows in-fighting between Trump and others in the govt. Nobody of sense can interpret it any other way.

Was my point that unclear? Or maybe Water Dog did not actually read my post.

[_DrW]

Getting silly again ...

The issuing of indictment by a grand jury is a sign that the known evidence in the direction of possible guilt has been carefully evaluated, and that it has been concluded, based on that evaluation of evidence, that a prosecution is justified.

That does not of course mean that it can be assumed that any subsequent trial will result in conviction. But it does suggest that there is a non-zero chance, and possibly a considerable chance, of that outcome.

Trivial point of usage: the issuance of an indictment is a consequence of the fact that evidence is thought to exist. So arguing about whether an indictment is evidence is almost as stupid as arguing whether a divorce petition is adultery.

Where are the WMDs in Iraq? There is nothing silly about asking to see the evidence, anything else would be imprudent. Based on timing alone these indictments should be treated with suspicion. It's a transparently political maneuver that shows in-fighting between Trump and others in the govt. Nobody of sense can interpret it any other way.

Poor analogy, WD. WMDs in Iraq were just another Republican administration's wet dream. Associated bad judgement and worse decision making by the administration ended up costing the US more than a trillion dollars and hundreds of thousands of innocent lives. The FBI and the DOJ were not involved in that fiasco.

In this case the FBI has evidence that has been shown to an independent Grand Jury, which Grand Jury handed down the indictments.

Mueller and his team were able to provide evidence documenting methods, means, motivations and timing of the offenses. The amount of detailed documentation they have regarding the actions of the Russian agents, collected from assets both inside and outside the US, is frightening. The amount of detail they have about the American counterparties in all this, including the Pussygrabber in Chief and his cohorts, is likely to be even more so.

[_Water Dog]

WD, straight up, do you believe Putin when he asserts that Russia did not engage in any shenanigans, or do you believe US intel agencies that assert that Russia did?

I don't think you're framing the question in an accurate way.

When you say "Russia did not engage in shenanigans" what does this mean, specifically?

When you say, "US intel agencies that assert that Russia did," what does this mean?

I certainly acknowledge that Russia has denied things, and that certain accusations have been made on the US side, but I don't think those two things line up. If you're asking me if I trust Putin, the answer is, no. If you're asking me if I trust the US intel agencies, my answer is also, no.

[_EAllusion]

WMD's in Iraq was a stovepiped conclusion forced by a political administration upon intelligence services when their career staff were saying otherwise. This seems dramatically unlike current intelligence assessments regarding Russian interference. And while I've gone over this with Water Dog before, there's also the small matter of there being publicly available evidence on the issue of Russian hacking that Water Dog dismisses by supposing they could've been framed.

[_Maksutov]

WMD's in Iraq was a stovepiped conclusion forced by a political administration upon intelligence services when their career staff were saying otherwise. This seems dramatically unlike current intelligence assessments regarding Russian interference. And while I've gone over this with Water Dog before, there's also the small matter of there being publicly available evidence on the issue of Russian hacking that Water Dog dismisses by supposing they could've been framed.

The Project for the New American Century laid out the motives and basic strategy years before 9/11. Many of the very same players signed on. Their "Pearl Harbor" type event was at hand in 9/11 and the Cheney org within the admin pushed the fake narrative. The Downing Street Memo corroborated the effort from the UK side.

[_Water Dog]

Poor analogy, WD. WMDs in Iraq were just another Republican administration's wet dream. Associated bad judgement and worse decision making by the administration ended up costing the US more than a trillion dollars and hundreds of thousands of innocent lives. The FBI and the DOJ were not involved in that fiasco.

Ok, so if I understand you correctly. In your opinion, comparisons to Iraq/WMDs (IWMD) is invalid because,

1) IWMD was promoted by "Republican wet dreams" whereas this promoted by... presumably non-Republican wet dreams? Actually I would argue both narratives come from Republican wet dreams.

2) IWMD was created by the CIA, and not the FBI / DOJ. CIA is incompetent and not to be trusted. FBI is competent and to be trusted.

This is your argument?

In this case the FBI has evidence that has been shown to an independent Grand Jury, which Grand Jury handed down the indictments.

Mueller and his team were able to provide evidence documenting methods, means, motivations and timing of the offenses. The amount of detailed documentation they have regarding the actions of the Russian agents, collected from assets both inside and outside the US, is frightening. The amount of detail they have about the American counterparties in all this, including the Pussygrabber in Chief and his cohorts, is likely to be even more so.

That a grand jury was convinced is not proof that whatever "evidence" was presented is credible. Your argument is kind of amazing, really. I'm sure we can all agree that the potential consequences for all this are far-reaching. The illegitimization of a US president. Bad relations with a foreign superpower. Etc. Simply for sake of argument, let's say Russia wasn't involved. In your view, if Russia had nothing to do with this, what are the ramifications of blaming them? Severe or minor? Are we talking a really big mistake, or just a small mistake? How sure of such a thing should we be before making such an accusation? How credible should the proof be? Is it the sort of thing that demands hard, physical evidence that is incontrovertible? High confidence interval? Or is soft evidence sufficient? Like evidence in the form of intelligence, carrying a relatively low confidence. IWMD evidence was presented as well, to an even bigger grand jury, the United Nations, the US Congress, and the public at large. The resulting vote was then almost unanimous. For all we know the grand jury for Russia indictments had 51% support. For all we know the "evidence" presented to the grand jury was nothing more than intelligence reports derived from the same private security reports paid for by the DNC which were ultimately derived from the same infamous Fusion GPS dossier. We know nothing about the sourcing on this. And PUH-LEASE, you really think a grand jury would scrutinize any of this? You think a panel of randomly chosen nitwits is going to question the sourcing of an FBI intelligence report? 99 times out of a 100, that thing is going right above their heads, and they're just going to treat it like gospel. Just like they would for IWMDs or NSA wiretapping or anything else. You're going to argue with a straight face that if IWMD evidence had been put before a grand jury that they wouldn't have voted to indict? ROFL. Laughable. Come on, this is not honest.