BBO Discussion Forums: Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped? - BBO Discussion Forums

If Papadopoulos really wore a wire, the fireworks will be massive. As to the Clinton stuff, if there is any "there" there, we can be sure the Mueller's investigation will uncover it. The Trump meltdown sure makes it look like he's frightened for himself.

Zelandakh, on 2017-October-30, 07:50, said:

Thanks for your link. Interesting document.
Seems like 2 lobbyists done some job for Ukrainian Government (pro-Russian Ukraine Government 2010 - 2014) without disclosing it in USA and without paying taxes. Crime for sure.
The only problem ... there is Russian collusion?

PassedOut, on 2017-October-30, 14:54, said:

Personally, I think Trump is more concerned about the money laundering charges than anything else.

olegru, on 2017-October-30, 15:06, said:

No flames yet but the smoke is growing blacker and the temperature is getting awfully high for this time of year.

Vanity Fair reports:

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kenberg, on 2017-October-30, 14:52, said:

Sheriff Joe Arpaio did some pretty horrendous stuff and he was pardoned on a whim...

Not sure why you think Trump would hesitate to pardon Manafort if he thought that it with forestall testimony.
(Indeed many people argue that pardoning Arpaio was a signal that Trump would take care of his cronies)

olegru, on 2017-October-30, 15:06, said:

These things always start with indicting the small fry and then rolling things up.

With this said and done, I suspect that the meat of the investigation will involve systemic money laundering of Russian funds by the Trump organization.

The Russian collusion angle is pretty much an amuse bouche.

olegru, on 2017-October-30, 15:06, said:

Oleg, be careful what you’re saying on this board, they will check your IP address in a heartbeat.
Afterall, the name sounds suspicious

hrothgar, on 2017-October-28, 13:20, said:

LOL, this is priceless.

Question for the mods: what did Jon do to get himself banned from these forums? Did he actually killed somebody?

Winstonm, on 2017-October-30, 13:44, said:

You're conflating two separate items.

Ultimately, the Clinton campaign/DNC provided the funding that was paid for the Trump dossier. If Fusion GPS had no previous Russian contact, that would be sleazy politics, at best. But isn't it still disingenuous that people claiming foul about an opponent's purported contacts/collusion with the Russians would be seeking to obtain information about what that same government has on that opponent?

However, Fusion GPS had previously conducted a misinformation campaign against the passage of the Magnitzsky Act that was funded from Russian sources. At the very least, this funding could have come from some of the oligarchs to protect their status in Russia. At the worst, it could be a Russian intelligence disinformation operation. In that sense, it is possible that Fusion was potentially "accepting funds from Russian intelligence". In any case, it's enough to investigate potential Russian interference through Fusion GPS.

I'm not claiming that there is definitely a connection, just that there's enough smoke that it should be investigated to assure we know the full extent of Russian interference in our democracy.

You've previously denied that the Democrats would ever have anything to do with the Russians. But you need to understand that the Russians will definitely use any opportunity to interfere with our democracy, no matter who becomes their dupe.

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This is a laughable claim considering all the derogatory comments, slurs, and innuendo you've posted here about the President.

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We can agree on this, but it needs real evidence, not all the anonymous second or third party claims widely reported since the election.

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The usual overstatement of "facts", but there was enough smoke to justify the Special counsel to investigate. I'm waiting to see what they come up with before making any judgement.

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There's at least as much as substance as the initial claims of collusion by the Dems.

rmnka447, on 2017-October-30, 17:32, said:

Sorry...you seem a nice enough person but you are nuts with that last comment.

Gaslight
Obstruct
Project <-- rmnka, you are here.

olegru, on 2017-October-30, 15:06, said:

Well, I have heard from a variety of commentators that there is not actually a crime called "collusion". If that is correct, then I suppose there will be no indictments for collusion. We seem to be well on our way toward substantial indictments, but none will be specifically for collusion. So I suppose while serving ten to life a guy can say "But I was never found guilty of collusion".

rmnka447, on 2017-October-30, 12:57, said:

I know that lots of folks agree with you, but you might have been misled about that. You might want to read some material that the fake news totally ignores: NEWS FROM THE REAL AMERICA, WHERE THE MAJORITY RULES

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With the power of the web, its getting harder and harder to keep the truth from the real America.

PassedOut, on 2017-October-31, 06:05, said:

I am not sure that posting links from satire sites is particularly helpful on BBF. There is enough genuine news around. Leave the made up news stories to the audiences of sheep that lap them up.

kenberg, on 2017-October-30, 20:11, said:

Absence of word "collusion" is not a problem Problem is absence of any evidence of links (at least in that document) between:
1. activity of MANAFORT and GATES and Russia
2. activity of MANAFORT and GATES and Trump

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Yanukovych was pro-Russian (like probably every criminal-in-power in the world) but seems like he worked with lobbyists to solve his own problem, not Putin's problem.

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Also activities were running from 2008 to 2014. If USA government was influenced by uncovered illegal schema, Trump has nothing to do with it.

olegru, on 2017-October-31, 07:35, said:

This round of indictments against Manafort does not directly impact Trump, rather, this is a tool that Mueller will use to encourage Manafort to testify against Trump.

Right now, the effort around Trump himself are advancing along two paths.

1. Money laundering by the Trump organization in support of Putin and Russian oligarchs

2. The email leaks

On the email front, I suspect that the chain will get rolled up as follows

1. George Papadopoulos testified that senior Trump campaign officials - including Trump himself - were aware that the Russian government wanted to provide emails to the Trump Campaign

2. This will be used to demonstrate that Don Jr and Jared Kusher lied to congress and the FBI about their own meetings to the Russians

3. We'll eventually be able to shed some new light on Trump Srs public requests that the Russians hack Clinton's emails

I would not be surprised if the Russians insists that Trump make that sort of public pronouncement to get him to compromise himself.

olegru, on 2017-October-31, 07:35, said:

Based on your pseudo, I'll give you props for the Russian part of the analysis but don't you know that it was Trump who was the master-mind behind all of those Machiavellian machinations???? Obama was only the ante-christ, Trump is the anti-christ.... oops sorry, we must not bring levity into this grave and stentorian subject now, must we?

hrothgar, on 2017-October-31, 07:46, said:

You mean that indictments will be used in order to blackmail Manafort and squeeze him to give a testimony what investigators would like to have? Very effective method, I agree.

...

I recently took free online course about wrongful convictions in USA. I was shocked to find out how effective is USA criminal system in convicting and punishing people for a crime ... unrelated if alleged crime was actually committed by the accused person or not.

One of the leading cause of that miscarriage of justice is:

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...

I, honestly, would prefer no so effective, but less error prone methods.

olegru, on 2017-October-31, 07:35, said:

True enough, for now. You mentioned "collusion", hence my response. I have, until Monday, avoided guessing at just where this will end. But Monday morning, Monday morning, couldn't guarantee...

Caution in prediction always has merit, but I now think we are in for a slow and agonizing destruction of the Trump presidency. If Mueller were to say "I have investigated, this is what I have found, this is all that I have found, I am closing up shop" then the Trump presidency would survive. But surely Mueller will not be saying any such thing because surely this is not the case.

I have also avoided comparisons with Watergate, but one comes to mind. After Haldeman and Ehrlichman were sinking (I forget all the details) a Nixon supporter was quoted as saying "Just because Herdleman and Erdleman [his phrasing] were up to no good that's no reason to go after our number one guy". That was true in some abstract way, but really it was well into the endgame by then.

Technical details of exactly how this will end are unknown, but I think Trump must be asking himself how the bankruptcy laws apply to his presidency.

We will see.

olegru, on 2017-October-31, 08:59, said:

No.

Its obvious that Manafort has turned over a new leave.

He has seen the error of his ways and will now cooperate with the prosecution out of the goodness of his heart.

<<Of course the prosecutors are going to squeeze him like a grape, well they should>>