8 ms·

Ex-Trump adviser Flynn seeks immunity for testimony in Russia probe: WSJ

152 points by doctorshady 10y ago

jMyles 10y ago
Listen, I know it's a big deal when the POTUS lies. But aren't we used to it by now? If Trump somehow manages not to be a criminal and a crook (which seems downright impossible), it will be highly unusual for the recent history of his office. Now: other than bluster, what is there actually about this "Russia" probe? What exactly are we investigating? Whether Russia was involved in "fake news" stories? Whether Russia was involved in releasing emails from the DNC? Emails which revealed terrible, immature, anti-democratic conduct? The "Russia hacked the election" narrative doesn't include, AFAIK, accusations that they stuffed ballot boxes or anything, right? edit: If the house investigation is about the Steele dossier (ie, the alleged oil deal between Trump and Russia), then that's a different ballgame entirely and that's great. This article doesn't mention that; my understanding was that that had only been brought up on the Senate side. It seems that the House side is still just about the "election hacking" - I hope I'm wrong.
- swrobel 10y ago
  Great use of scare quotes!
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- gnaritas 10y ago
  > What exactly are we investigating? Collusion between Trump/team and Russia. It's one thing for Russia to mess with an election, it's a vastly different thing if the campaign coordinated with them to do it.
  - jMyles 10y ago
    If "messed with" the election just means misleading propaganda, then is it really an issue if they coordinated with them? How is it any different than hiring a PR firm based in another country?
    - mirimir 10y ago
      For a US politician to hire a foreign intelligence agency is arguably an issue. Some might call it treason.
    - nyolfen 10y ago
      forgive me if i'm being uncharitable, but it comes across as if you're being willfully obtuse. "messed with" means hacking and possible criminal coordination between a campaign and russian officials. if it came out that the clinton campaign had coordinated with [insert historic rival] intelligence, people would be calling for executions.
      - jMyles 10y ago
        > if it came out that the clinton campaign had coordinated with [insert historic rival] intelligence, people would be calling for executions. ...not sure which Clinton you mean here, but if you meant Bill, it's quite likely that he did indeed coordinate with Saudi Intelligence in a reasonably similar fashion. ...and so did the man he defeated, George H.W. Bush. http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/23/world/clinton-and-his-ties-to-the-influential-saudis.html http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/23/world/clinton-and-his-ties...
        nyolfen 10y ago
        "having close ties" is not "illegally coordinating an election campaign", and saudi is not a rival of the united states -- it's been among its strongest allies since fdr. but that's neither here nor there and i'm not interested in defending either of the clintons. you're trying to dodge the issue when it's spelled out. you're arguing in bad faith.
    - gnaritas 10y ago
      > then is it really an issue if they coordinated with them Yes, it is. > How is it any different than hiring a PR firm based in another country? One is treason, one is not.
  - hourislate 10y ago
    It strikes me as odd that Americans don't seem to mind that a President to some extent might be serving the interests of a foreign power above the interests of the his own citizens. Who would have thought so many Americans would have a love affair with a KGB Agent that is responsible for murder and oppression and for his entire life worked to undermine America and has accomplished that to some extent with this Administration.
    - jMyles 10y ago
      I think that the part you are missing is that the vast majority (like 65%) don't support or respect this President at all. Of all the terrible things the government has done in the past 1 / 10 / 100 years, I don't think that a candidate coordinating with Russia about which fake news to publish is even worth mentioning. If Congress has the guts to investigate the Steele dossier (which alleged Trump traded eased regulations for oil interests) then that's great. And if he is impeached on that basis, that's great too, although it leaves us with a probably worse Mike Pence. Better yet is if the entire government falls. I'm not defending Trump or his conduct; I'm just saying this is a distraction.
      - mirimir 10y ago
        Russia's goal is fragmenting the US. Just as the US did to the Soviet Union. Turnabout is fair play, no?
        pessimizer 10y ago
        The confidence with which you express the goals that you're projecting on Russia here is scary. Not only do we have yet to find evidence that Russia did anything involving the election (although we certainly could during these investigations), you seem to have sussed out their goal in doing that which has not been proven, and a motive of revenge. It's weird. Hearing people talk like this is weird, and reminds me of the run-up to Iraq, except that at least then there were claims to evidence.
        10y ago
  - dr_ick 10y ago
    Did Obama coordinate with "Remainers" when he tried to influence Brexit voters with his "back of the queue" speech?
    - gnaritas 10y ago
      Such a deflection of the topic is unworthy of hacker news. Trump is the president, discussion about Trump's negatives are not an excuse to deflect with "what about Obama", he is not the topic. Giving a speech is in no way comparable to the topic at hand anyway.
      - dr_ick 10y ago
        It sets a precedent that the left does want to acknowledge. There was likely collusion between Obama and "Remainers". Obama made a speech with a threat that was intended to directly influence a vote in a foreign country. Where was the outrage from the Democrats and media when this was done? Former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell has stated that he has seen no evidence of collusions between Trump and the Kremlin. "On the question of the Trump campaign conspiring with the Russians here, there is smoke, but there is no fire, at all," Morell said.[156] James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence under President Obama, said there was no evidence of any collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives as of January 2017 when the intelligence community issued its report on the subject.[157]
        gnaritas 10y ago
        You're again trying to fly off on a diversion of the topic, I'm not playing. This is not a discussion about Obama, period. Nor are public speeches that influence foreign countries remotely comparable to collusion to affect "our" elections. Your continual citing of only the evidence that supports your politics is nothing more than partisan deflection, you are not engaging in honest debate. It's like you don't even read the links you post https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections#Links_between_the_Trump_campaign_and_Russian_officials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20... There's plenty right there in your own source that warrants investigation into Trump simply from the already proved contacts that have occurred between the Russians and Trump's associates. That they have not found direct evidence of Trump's involvement yet is not a reason to stop an investigation who's purpose is simply to find out what did actually happen.
- jmathai 10y ago
  I thought the point of the investigation was to find out if Trump was complicit in Russia's involvement. IANAL but that seems very different from the mere thought of Russia going at it alone.
- cozzyd 10y ago
  The investigation is about whether or not there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
  - mirimir 10y ago
    There were certainly contacts with Russian agents. What isn't clear is who knew that the people they were dealing with were Russian agents, rather than Russian businesspeople. Edit: And graft vs treason, which can be a hard call.
- wyldfire 10y ago
  I think the level of infighting in the US and Europe now is different from anything I've seen over the last couple of decades. The democratization of media is a net benefit but it helped bring about a world's worth of people seeking out news that matches their world view. It's made it very easy to spawn animus and make everything into an "us vs them" issue. I think Russia is overtly and covertly involved in an effort to weaken western unions. And it seems like it's been a remarkably successful campaign.
  - generic_user 10y ago
    So the alternative is to keep a population held together with a narrative manufactured by the central state along side a brutal military police apparatus to manage compliance. I think the real culprit is that the masters of the universe who crashed the economy have not been able to put humpty dumpty back together again. And only managed to make the upper 1% fabulously wealthy why the rest of the population has a sinking standard of living and lower long term wealth prospects. Even tho its ugly what we have now its the best thing that could happen. If the states and regions reassert there rights and set there own policy independent of federal government the result is more power to the state citizens. And a smaller circle of corruption with more accountability. And if the Russians are involved then they have complete control of both federal parties because the main source of friction comes directly out of the ideology of both parties that use division to try to segregate the electorate and practice scorched earth on the other side.
    - themihai 10y ago
      What are you talking about? The fake news are basically like the spam and phishing sites except they are state sponsored. Freedom of speech doesn't mean you have to bombarded by propaganda spread by russian bots. This is cyberwar. Sooner or later things will get quite nasty.
      - generic_user 10y ago
        Are you sure its bots? The Russians could have very easily hacked your computer and planted a virus that tracks you and injects personalized propaganda based on there secret profile of you.
- caryhartline 10y ago
  You're being down-voted, in part, because you're asking a lot of questions that can easily be solved by web searches.
  - jMyles 10y ago
    I've read a lot about this story; I'm not sure what I'm missing. If I'm a web search away, care to give me a LMGTFY?
    - mozumder 10y ago
      Basically we're looking at Trump being connected to Russian mafia for all his financing as well as Putin bribing him with 19% stake in the Russian state oil company for removing sanctions, as well as assisting with his campaign by hacking into the Podesta emails, sorta like how there were Watergate DNC office burglars. Did you want all this in writing from Trump and notarized that he did this? Because that's not how it works. His job is to say he didn't do this.
      - dr_ick 10y ago
        I thought we're looking at Hillary being connected to Saudi Arabia for her financing as well as giving Russia 20% of U.S. uranium in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation, as well as Podesta ties to a Russian entity called Rusnano, and how Obama used a slush fund to move money to leftist hate groups. Did you want all this in writing from Hillary and notarized that she did this? Because that's not how it works. Her job is to say she didn't do this.
        jtedward 10y ago
        This is not an adult response.
        dr_ick 10y ago
        Why? Because it doesn't fit your world view and what the media is feeding to you? The left is throwing a temper tantrum, at the same time hand waving away any possible wrongdoing by their members.
- InclinedPlane 10y ago
  Uh, no. Aside from the fact that collusion between a foreign government and a presidential campaign would be extremely problematic that's not the major issue. The major allegation on the table right now is that the Russian government offered Trump a sizeable share of Rosneft, the Russian national petrochemical corporation, in exchange for dropping the sanctions against Russia due to the conflict in Ukraine, and both parties followed through with the deal. The sanctions were relaxed by the Trump administration within the first month of coming into office while a stake in Rosneft has been sold to an anonymous buyer behind a cayman islands holding company.
  - jMyles 10y ago
    If what you are saying is true, I'm wrong and that's great. I thought that the Steele dossier was only being discussed (let alone investigated) on the Senate side of the Hill; I hadn't heard about the House Intel committee taking it up. I understood that the House side was still just about the "election hacking." Do you have a source?
    - aanm1988 10y ago
      The house side is a disaster right now. Nunes is the chair of the committee and his behaviour so far is very concerning. Specifically he went ot the white house to obtain information from staffers, then briefed Trump on it and went to the press before he went to his own committee. this from a man who was a part of Trumps team. Edit: If you're downvoting because I'm wrong please correct me. If it's just because you don't like what I said then carry on I guess.
  - mirimir 10y ago
    Wow. I hadn't seen that. That is so classic.
  - makomk 10y ago
    That was one of the many dubious allegations doing the rounds, certainly. There were two major problems with it. Firstly, the supposed "dropping of sanctions" a month after Trump took power didn't actually happen. The thing people claimed was dropping the sanctions was actually a small technical change that merely allowed US exporters to pay fees required to export goods that the sanctions weren't intended to block: http://www.snopes.com/trump-sanctions-russias-intelligence-agency-present-putin/ http://www.snopes.com/trump-sanctions-russias-intelligence-a... Secondly, the claim that the Russian government offered Trump a share of Rosneft came from a really dodgy dossier. Supporters of the dossier touted the fact that it correctly predicted the percentage of Rosneft share sold as proof the source had inside knowledge, but it was in fact public knowledge that the Russian government wanted to sell that percent of Rosneft and had been reported in Bloomberg a few weeks before the supposed source mentioned it. So it's all too plausible that the source was merely combining public information with what the person paying them wanted to hear.
- camperman 10y ago
  > If Trump somehow manages not to be a criminal and a crook (which seems downright impossible) The vast surveillance apparatus of the deep state have crawled everything they have on Donald Trump and all they could come up with was some locker room banter from 11 years ago. The man is straight as an arrow and has been for decades. > Now: other than bluster, what is there actually about this "Russia" probe? What exactly are we investigating? Whether Russia was involved in "fake news" stories? Whether Russia was involved in releasing emails from the DNC? Emails which revealed terrible, immature, anti-democratic conduct? The "Russia hacked the election" narrative doesn't include, AFAIK, accusations that they stuffed ballot boxes or anything, right? Stop asking questions. RUSSIA HACKED THE ELECTION! That's all you need to know. Quite how they subverted the voting apparatus of nearly 3000 counties is not a question you need to ask right now.
  - i2amsam 10y ago
    I expect you're receiving downvotes (not from me) because you're introducing a strawman argument. The issue under investigation is if there was collusion between members of Trump's campaign and foreign operatives to, e.g. time releases or coordinate messaging, not attack the voting apparatus. The fact that the national security advisor lied to the VP about discussions with Russia (for which he was fired) and now will only testify under oath with immunity suggest that there indeed may be something worth investigating there.
    - camperman 10y ago
      > I expect you're receiving downvotes (not from me) because you're introducing a strawman argument. I didn't introduce it - the parent did. I'm being downvoted because this is a left-leaning board. Shrug. > The fact that the national security advisor lied to the VP about discussions with Russia (for which he was fired) and now will only testify under oath with immunity suggest that there indeed may be something worth investigating there. He resigned but yes, he should be investigated.
- mirimir 10y ago
  There's the possibility that the entire basis of the Republican resurgence -- with its roots in the alt-right, conspiracy theories, the Tea Party, gold bugs, etc -- has been a Russian operation with the goal of destabilizing the US. Consider the role of RT, for example. And it's not like it hasn't happened before. Russia played a major role in shaping the anti-war movement in the 60s.
  - charles-salvia 10y ago
    No power on Earth is that competent. And the Tea Party was very clearly a reaction to Obama getting elected, and egged on by the Republican establishment.
    - mirimir 10y ago
      Well, the US certainly has been. In Viet Nam. In Chile. In Iran. In the Soviet Union. Just about everywhere, really. The Tea Party goes back before Obama. It grew out of the RJR-funded fight against smoking restrictions.
- badsock 10y ago
  My take is that the "hacked the election" is mostly a right-wing framing. What's much more interesting is evidence of collusion: money changing hands in undisclosed ways, policies changing dramatically after secret meetings, means of blackmail, etc. The first two wouldn't surprise me at all at this point. The point being: if a foreign - hostile - state has substantial, non-disclosed power over US executive branch, that's a very big deal, and there's a number of laws meant to prevent exactly that sort of thing. The speculation is that at least one of these laws has been broken - that's much more damning than evidence of troll armies trying to sway votes.
- aanm1988 10y ago
  Yes, was russia involved in fake news. Yes, did Russia hackthe DNC. More importantly. Who knew what, and when. Members of Trumps team had contact with Russia. Flynn already resigned over this. Sessions has had to recuse himself because of this. Nunes has engaged in questionable behaviour over this. Manafort had some sort of business relationship with a powerful Russian close to Putin. There is a dossier from a "credible" source that indicates the Russians have dirt on Trump. realistically, the question seems to be if Trump (or his team) encouraged Russian influence in the election in exchange for reducing sanctions or other favours. That is a big deal.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
doctorshady 10y ago
As of now, it looks like nobody has taken his offer of immunity for testimony. What are the implications of this? The commentators on other sites seem to imply this means investigators already know something big.
- rhizome 10y ago
  I'd guess he'll plead the Fifth.
  - pessimizer 10y ago
    Can you do that if you're offered immunity?
    - russell_h 10y ago
      Sure, but you'd be declining the offer.
    - AdamN 10y ago
      Not really - maybe related to some other crime but that would have all been figured out in the immunity offer beforehand.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - rhizome 10y ago
      I believe that, generally, immunity deals are constructed to require complete candor and truthfulness. It may have come up in the Lewis Libby trial. IANAL.
- jmaygarden 10y ago
  5 people were granted immunity in Hillary Clinton's email scandal and nothing came of it.
  - CalChris 10y ago
blakejennings 10y ago
https://www.wsj.com/articles/mike-flynn-offers-to-testify-in-exchange-for-immunity-1490912959 https://www.wsj.com/articles/mike-flynn-offers-to-testify-in...
- doctorshady 10y ago
  For those who don't like paywalls, the text: https://pastebin.com/PtqWwd3w https://pastebin.com/PtqWwd3w
okket 10y ago
Trump on Feb. 15 — after Flynn was fired — saying Flynn's a "wonderful man [who'] been treated very, very unfairly by the media" https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/847587940557623296 https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/847587940557623296
- wyldfire 10y ago
  He has no problem reversing himself at all. No surprise if he lays into Flynn now. It's unlikely that he'll admit that this is a change in position.
- sanjeetsuhag 10y ago
  Flynn himself said in an interview with Chuck Todd last year: "When you are given immunity, that means that you've probably committed a crime". Source: https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/847600901653012482 https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/847600901653012482
CalChris 10y ago
“When you are given immunity, that means you have probably committed a crime.” — Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, in an interview with NBC News on September 25, 2016. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/09/25/gen_flynn_hillary_clinton_shouldnt_be_too_big_to_jail.html http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/09/25/gen_flynn_...
- hackuser 10y ago
  It's a nice gotcha, but Flynn isn't an attorney and is known for saying many crazy things even in his field of expertise.
  - bbatha 10y ago
    He hasn't been offered immunity yet, he's the one asking guilt. By the logic of his own quote he only want it if he was guilty.
    - aggie 10y ago
      His lawyers could have convinced him to ask for immunity if there was even a slight chance of legal trouble. He may also only have some minor dirt to spill, so he's happy throwing some staffer under the bus.
      - CalChris 10y ago
        Yes, we know that. His hypocrisy still reeks. And great. Give him immunity and get him in front of the Senate and House committees. If, as you assert, he has only minor dirt on some small player that will come out. And the immunity itself will save everyone time and money.
    - ericcumbee 10y ago
      I'm not so sure... Thinking about the Valerie Plame leak case, Scooter Libby the VP's CoS was convicted for giving false testimony and obstruction. Those convictions stem from conflicting statements about how he knew Valerie Plame worked for the CIA. If you were Flynn and thought you had a card that would keep you out of jail to play in a game where if you mis-remember how you know a seemingly trivial piece of information you go to jail... would'nt you try to play that card?
skylan_q 10y ago
This is a story based on speculation early last week that turned out to be false. https://twitter.com/JeffPohjola/status/847597736803225600 https://twitter.com/JeffPohjola/status/847597736803225600
Mendenhall 10y ago
I will wait to find out more information. Seems him seeking "immunity" isnt what happened in a legal sense from what I have read.
- generic_user 10y ago
  Your being down voted because voices of moderation and reason can often cause a disruption in the field surrounding the tinfoil hat and there for let in Russian mind control signals.
hackuser 10y ago
Has the United States ever convicted someone on the level of National Security Advisor (i.e., effectively a member of the cabinet, such as Secretary of Defense), or even put them on trial? Petraeus got a slap on the wrist, but for actions while he was a General. In other countries, even the heads of state get put on trial. Off the top of my head, it's happened relatively recently in France and Israel. In the U.S., I can't think of even a member of the cabinet being tried; on the order of 1 federal judge has ever been impeached. Nixon was pardoned, for example. Someone mentioned 5 people were granted immunity for the Clinton investigation; were any of the 5 at such a high level? Has someone on that level ever been given immunity or needed it?
- yeukhon 10y ago
  Some countries I know have laws written that immunity is given to the head of the state from juridical conviction until the term is over, but the Congress would have the power to impeach.
- opo 10y ago
  >...In the U.S., I can't think of even a member of the cabinet being tried; It will be hard to beat the Nixon administration for convictions: 2 attorney generals, chief of staff, 2 white house counsels, undersecretary of transportation, secretary to the president, special counsel to the president, secretary of commerce and the vice president! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_federal_politicians_convicted_of_crimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_federal_polit...
  - hackuser 10y ago
    Hey, that's a great page that I never imagined existed. I stand corrected; plenty of Cabinet secretaries were convicted, as well as 8 federal judges in 30 years (and therefore I assume many more in history). Still, only one VP (Agnew, which I should have remembered) and of course no Presidents. Thanks.
  - shshhdhs 10y ago
    The undersecretary that you mentioned is now The "Senior Fellow on Ethics and Leadership at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress and Counselor to the Director at the School for Ethics and Global Leadership." [1] Receiving a senior fellowship in Ethics is quite the turnaround from six months in prison. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egil_Krogh https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egil_Krogh
skyrw 10y ago
Hacker News is r/politics now. I'm out.
losvedir 10y ago
I'm not a Trump supporter (voted for Johnson but would have voted for Clinton if it mattered in my state), but this whole "Russia" investigation feels like partisan signaling nonsense like the Benghazi hearings. Flynn didn't do anything illegal (I've yet to see a compelling argument that the Logan Act would apply here), just a breach of protocol. It was lying to Pence that did him in. Manafort consulted for lots of presidential campaigns including Ford, Reagan, and Bush, so it doesn't surprise me that Trump used him, too. Of course, he's a criminal and a sleazeball, and he left the Trump campaign a long time ago. Tillerson is just an ex-CEO of Exxon, so he might be pro-Russia but not in any untoward way. It's likely that the DNC was hacked by APT28/29, and it's likely that they're FSB/GRU, and it's likely that they released the documents to Wikileaks. There's no public information that Trump was involved. The Steele dossier is juicy and is being investigated by the intelligence agencies, so nothing to learn there until they tell us. Then we have the Yates and Nunes ordeal, but I'm willing to believe that's just partisan junk. Annnnyyywwaaaay, in an effort to be more rational this year, I'd like to try to solidify my positions and confidence levels via wagers. My general position is that Trump is not involved with Russia in any treasonous or even "quite inappropriate" way. If you concretely believe that Trump is a Russian spy, or personally negotiated with Putin to get him to win the election in exchange for reversing sanctions or something, hit me up (my email is in my HN user info thing) with your proposed hypothesis and we can make a bet. I won't promise to take on all bets, but certainly a lot of the extreme positions I've seen on here I would. E.g., I'd bet at pretty high odds that he didn't take a position in Rosneft, as someone was claiming).
- mcphage 10y ago
  > Flynn didn't do anything illegal (I've yet to see a compelling argument that the Logan Act would apply here), just a breach of protocol. It was lying to Pence that did him in. Maybe you're right, but he's asking for immunity for something—see elsewhere in this thread where Flynn has made his views on immunity deals clear.
self-diversity 10y ago
This seems closer to "Ex-Trump adviser Flynn's lawyer tries a pretty common (for his client's industry) maneuver to ensure his client won't get jail time no matter what happens" https://twitter.com/robkelner/status/847590575352270850 https://twitter.com/robkelner/status/847590575352270850 I'd be quite surprised if any of the Russian connections turned out to be meaningful. Every story that I've seen about anything along the Trump/Russia axis is soaked in enough weasel words to make a defense attorney cringe, and the details are generally senseless on close examination.
a3n 10y ago
Manafort and Stone have offered to testify to Congress. Flynn wants immunity to testify. I've wondered if these are positions taken from under the bus.

152 points by doctorshady 10y ago

Listen, I know it's a big deal when the POTUS lies. But aren't we used to it by now? If Trump somehow manages not to be a criminal and a crook (which seems downright impossible), it will be highly unusual for the recent history of his office. Now: other than bluster, what is there actually about this "Russia" probe? What exactly are we investigating? Whether Russia was involved in "fake news" stories? Whether Russia was involved in releasing emails from the DNC? Emails which revealed terrible, immature, anti-democratic conduct? The "Russia hacked the election" narrative doesn't include, AFAIK, accusations that they stuffed ballot boxes or anything, right? edit: If the house investigation is about the Steele dossier (ie, the alleged oil deal between Trump and Russia), then that's a different ballgame entirely and that's great. This article doesn't mention that; my understanding was that that had only been brought up on the Senate side. It seems that the House side is still just about the "election hacking" - I hope I'm wrong.

swrobel 10y ago
Great use of scare quotes!
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
gnaritas 10y ago
> What exactly are we investigating? Collusion between Trump/team and Russia. It's one thing for Russia to mess with an election, it's a vastly different thing if the campaign coordinated with them to do it.
- jMyles 10y ago
  If "messed with" the election just means misleading propaganda, then is it really an issue if they coordinated with them? How is it any different than hiring a PR firm based in another country?
  - mirimir 10y ago
    For a US politician to hire a foreign intelligence agency is arguably an issue. Some might call it treason.
  - nyolfen 10y ago
    forgive me if i'm being uncharitable, but it comes across as if you're being willfully obtuse. "messed with" means hacking and possible criminal coordination between a campaign and russian officials. if it came out that the clinton campaign had coordinated with [insert historic rival] intelligence, people would be calling for executions.
    - jMyles 10y ago
      > if it came out that the clinton campaign had coordinated with [insert historic rival] intelligence, people would be calling for executions. ...not sure which Clinton you mean here, but if you meant Bill, it's quite likely that he did indeed coordinate with Saudi Intelligence in a reasonably similar fashion. ...and so did the man he defeated, George H.W. Bush. http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/23/world/clinton-and-his-ties-to-the-influential-saudis.html http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/23/world/clinton-and-his-ties...
      - nyolfen 10y ago
        "having close ties" is not "illegally coordinating an election campaign", and saudi is not a rival of the united states -- it's been among its strongest allies since fdr. but that's neither here nor there and i'm not interested in defending either of the clintons. you're trying to dodge the issue when it's spelled out. you're arguing in bad faith.
  - gnaritas 10y ago
    > then is it really an issue if they coordinated with them Yes, it is. > How is it any different than hiring a PR firm based in another country? One is treason, one is not.
- hourislate 10y ago
  It strikes me as odd that Americans don't seem to mind that a President to some extent might be serving the interests of a foreign power above the interests of the his own citizens. Who would have thought so many Americans would have a love affair with a KGB Agent that is responsible for murder and oppression and for his entire life worked to undermine America and has accomplished that to some extent with this Administration.
  - jMyles 10y ago
    I think that the part you are missing is that the vast majority (like 65%) don't support or respect this President at all. Of all the terrible things the government has done in the past 1 / 10 / 100 years, I don't think that a candidate coordinating with Russia about which fake news to publish is even worth mentioning. If Congress has the guts to investigate the Steele dossier (which alleged Trump traded eased regulations for oil interests) then that's great. And if he is impeached on that basis, that's great too, although it leaves us with a probably worse Mike Pence. Better yet is if the entire government falls. I'm not defending Trump or his conduct; I'm just saying this is a distraction.
    - mirimir 10y ago
      Russia's goal is fragmenting the US. Just as the US did to the Soviet Union. Turnabout is fair play, no?
      - pessimizer 10y ago
        The confidence with which you express the goals that you're projecting on Russia here is scary. Not only do we have yet to find evidence that Russia did anything involving the election (although we certainly could during these investigations), you seem to have sussed out their goal in doing that which has not been proven, and a motive of revenge. It's weird. Hearing people talk like this is weird, and reminds me of the run-up to Iraq, except that at least then there were claims to evidence.
        10y ago
- dr_ick 10y ago
  Did Obama coordinate with "Remainers" when he tried to influence Brexit voters with his "back of the queue" speech?
  - gnaritas 10y ago
    Such a deflection of the topic is unworthy of hacker news. Trump is the president, discussion about Trump's negatives are not an excuse to deflect with "what about Obama", he is not the topic. Giving a speech is in no way comparable to the topic at hand anyway.
    - dr_ick 10y ago
      It sets a precedent that the left does want to acknowledge. There was likely collusion between Obama and "Remainers". Obama made a speech with a threat that was intended to directly influence a vote in a foreign country. Where was the outrage from the Democrats and media when this was done? Former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell has stated that he has seen no evidence of collusions between Trump and the Kremlin. "On the question of the Trump campaign conspiring with the Russians here, there is smoke, but there is no fire, at all," Morell said.[156] James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence under President Obama, said there was no evidence of any collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives as of January 2017 when the intelligence community issued its report on the subject.[157]
      - gnaritas 10y ago
        You're again trying to fly off on a diversion of the topic, I'm not playing. This is not a discussion about Obama, period. Nor are public speeches that influence foreign countries remotely comparable to collusion to affect "our" elections. Your continual citing of only the evidence that supports your politics is nothing more than partisan deflection, you are not engaging in honest debate. It's like you don't even read the links you post https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections#Links_between_the_Trump_campaign_and_Russian_officials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20... There's plenty right there in your own source that warrants investigation into Trump simply from the already proved contacts that have occurred between the Russians and Trump's associates. That they have not found direct evidence of Trump's involvement yet is not a reason to stop an investigation who's purpose is simply to find out what did actually happen.
jmathai 10y ago
I thought the point of the investigation was to find out if Trump was complicit in Russia's involvement. IANAL but that seems very different from the mere thought of Russia going at it alone.
cozzyd 10y ago
The investigation is about whether or not there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
- mirimir 10y ago
  There were certainly contacts with Russian agents. What isn't clear is who knew that the people they were dealing with were Russian agents, rather than Russian businesspeople. Edit: And graft vs treason, which can be a hard call.
wyldfire 10y ago
I think the level of infighting in the US and Europe now is different from anything I've seen over the last couple of decades. The democratization of media is a net benefit but it helped bring about a world's worth of people seeking out news that matches their world view. It's made it very easy to spawn animus and make everything into an "us vs them" issue. I think Russia is overtly and covertly involved in an effort to weaken western unions. And it seems like it's been a remarkably successful campaign.
- generic_user 10y ago
  So the alternative is to keep a population held together with a narrative manufactured by the central state along side a brutal military police apparatus to manage compliance. I think the real culprit is that the masters of the universe who crashed the economy have not been able to put humpty dumpty back together again. And only managed to make the upper 1% fabulously wealthy why the rest of the population has a sinking standard of living and lower long term wealth prospects. Even tho its ugly what we have now its the best thing that could happen. If the states and regions reassert there rights and set there own policy independent of federal government the result is more power to the state citizens. And a smaller circle of corruption with more accountability. And if the Russians are involved then they have complete control of both federal parties because the main source of friction comes directly out of the ideology of both parties that use division to try to segregate the electorate and practice scorched earth on the other side.
  - themihai 10y ago
    What are you talking about? The fake news are basically like the spam and phishing sites except they are state sponsored. Freedom of speech doesn't mean you have to bombarded by propaganda spread by russian bots. This is cyberwar. Sooner or later things will get quite nasty.
    - generic_user 10y ago
      Are you sure its bots? The Russians could have very easily hacked your computer and planted a virus that tracks you and injects personalized propaganda based on there secret profile of you.
caryhartline 10y ago
You're being down-voted, in part, because you're asking a lot of questions that can easily be solved by web searches.
- jMyles 10y ago
  I've read a lot about this story; I'm not sure what I'm missing. If I'm a web search away, care to give me a LMGTFY?
  - mozumder 10y ago
    Basically we're looking at Trump being connected to Russian mafia for all his financing as well as Putin bribing him with 19% stake in the Russian state oil company for removing sanctions, as well as assisting with his campaign by hacking into the Podesta emails, sorta like how there were Watergate DNC office burglars. Did you want all this in writing from Trump and notarized that he did this? Because that's not how it works. His job is to say he didn't do this.
    - dr_ick 10y ago
      I thought we're looking at Hillary being connected to Saudi Arabia for her financing as well as giving Russia 20% of U.S. uranium in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation, as well as Podesta ties to a Russian entity called Rusnano, and how Obama used a slush fund to move money to leftist hate groups. Did you want all this in writing from Hillary and notarized that she did this? Because that's not how it works. Her job is to say she didn't do this.
      - jtedward 10y ago
        This is not an adult response.
        dr_ick 10y ago
        Why? Because it doesn't fit your world view and what the media is feeding to you? The left is throwing a temper tantrum, at the same time hand waving away any possible wrongdoing by their members.
InclinedPlane 10y ago
Uh, no. Aside from the fact that collusion between a foreign government and a presidential campaign would be extremely problematic that's not the major issue. The major allegation on the table right now is that the Russian government offered Trump a sizeable share of Rosneft, the Russian national petrochemical corporation, in exchange for dropping the sanctions against Russia due to the conflict in Ukraine, and both parties followed through with the deal. The sanctions were relaxed by the Trump administration within the first month of coming into office while a stake in Rosneft has been sold to an anonymous buyer behind a cayman islands holding company.
- jMyles 10y ago
  If what you are saying is true, I'm wrong and that's great. I thought that the Steele dossier was only being discussed (let alone investigated) on the Senate side of the Hill; I hadn't heard about the House Intel committee taking it up. I understood that the House side was still just about the "election hacking." Do you have a source?
  - aanm1988 10y ago
    The house side is a disaster right now. Nunes is the chair of the committee and his behaviour so far is very concerning. Specifically he went ot the white house to obtain information from staffers, then briefed Trump on it and went to the press before he went to his own committee. this from a man who was a part of Trumps team. Edit: If you're downvoting because I'm wrong please correct me. If it's just because you don't like what I said then carry on I guess.
- mirimir 10y ago
  Wow. I hadn't seen that. That is so classic.
- makomk 10y ago
  That was one of the many dubious allegations doing the rounds, certainly. There were two major problems with it. Firstly, the supposed "dropping of sanctions" a month after Trump took power didn't actually happen. The thing people claimed was dropping the sanctions was actually a small technical change that merely allowed US exporters to pay fees required to export goods that the sanctions weren't intended to block: http://www.snopes.com/trump-sanctions-russias-intelligence-agency-present-putin/ http://www.snopes.com/trump-sanctions-russias-intelligence-a... Secondly, the claim that the Russian government offered Trump a share of Rosneft came from a really dodgy dossier. Supporters of the dossier touted the fact that it correctly predicted the percentage of Rosneft share sold as proof the source had inside knowledge, but it was in fact public knowledge that the Russian government wanted to sell that percent of Rosneft and had been reported in Bloomberg a few weeks before the supposed source mentioned it. So it's all too plausible that the source was merely combining public information with what the person paying them wanted to hear.
camperman 10y ago
> If Trump somehow manages not to be a criminal and a crook (which seems downright impossible) The vast surveillance apparatus of the deep state have crawled everything they have on Donald Trump and all they could come up with was some locker room banter from 11 years ago. The man is straight as an arrow and has been for decades. > Now: other than bluster, what is there actually about this "Russia" probe? What exactly are we investigating? Whether Russia was involved in "fake news" stories? Whether Russia was involved in releasing emails from the DNC? Emails which revealed terrible, immature, anti-democratic conduct? The "Russia hacked the election" narrative doesn't include, AFAIK, accusations that they stuffed ballot boxes or anything, right? Stop asking questions. RUSSIA HACKED THE ELECTION! That's all you need to know. Quite how they subverted the voting apparatus of nearly 3000 counties is not a question you need to ask right now.
- i2amsam 10y ago
  I expect you're receiving downvotes (not from me) because you're introducing a strawman argument. The issue under investigation is if there was collusion between members of Trump's campaign and foreign operatives to, e.g. time releases or coordinate messaging, not attack the voting apparatus. The fact that the national security advisor lied to the VP about discussions with Russia (for which he was fired) and now will only testify under oath with immunity suggest that there indeed may be something worth investigating there.
  - camperman 10y ago
    > I expect you're receiving downvotes (not from me) because you're introducing a strawman argument. I didn't introduce it - the parent did. I'm being downvoted because this is a left-leaning board. Shrug. > The fact that the national security advisor lied to the VP about discussions with Russia (for which he was fired) and now will only testify under oath with immunity suggest that there indeed may be something worth investigating there. He resigned but yes, he should be investigated.
mirimir 10y ago
There's the possibility that the entire basis of the Republican resurgence -- with its roots in the alt-right, conspiracy theories, the Tea Party, gold bugs, etc -- has been a Russian operation with the goal of destabilizing the US. Consider the role of RT, for example. And it's not like it hasn't happened before. Russia played a major role in shaping the anti-war movement in the 60s.
- charles-salvia 10y ago
  No power on Earth is that competent. And the Tea Party was very clearly a reaction to Obama getting elected, and egged on by the Republican establishment.
  - mirimir 10y ago
    Well, the US certainly has been. In Viet Nam. In Chile. In Iran. In the Soviet Union. Just about everywhere, really. The Tea Party goes back before Obama. It grew out of the RJR-funded fight against smoking restrictions.
badsock 10y ago
My take is that the "hacked the election" is mostly a right-wing framing. What's much more interesting is evidence of collusion: money changing hands in undisclosed ways, policies changing dramatically after secret meetings, means of blackmail, etc. The first two wouldn't surprise me at all at this point. The point being: if a foreign - hostile - state has substantial, non-disclosed power over US executive branch, that's a very big deal, and there's a number of laws meant to prevent exactly that sort of thing. The speculation is that at least one of these laws has been broken - that's much more damning than evidence of troll armies trying to sway votes.
aanm1988 10y ago
Yes, was russia involved in fake news. Yes, did Russia hackthe DNC. More importantly. Who knew what, and when. Members of Trumps team had contact with Russia. Flynn already resigned over this. Sessions has had to recuse himself because of this. Nunes has engaged in questionable behaviour over this. Manafort had some sort of business relationship with a powerful Russian close to Putin. There is a dossier from a "credible" source that indicates the Russians have dirt on Trump. realistically, the question seems to be if Trump (or his team) encouraged Russian influence in the election in exchange for reducing sanctions or other favours. That is a big deal.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

doctorshady 10y ago

As of now, it looks like nobody has taken his offer of immunity for testimony. What are the implications of this? The commentators on other sites seem to imply this means investigators already know something big.

rhizome 10y ago
I'd guess he'll plead the Fifth.
- pessimizer 10y ago
  Can you do that if you're offered immunity?
  - russell_h 10y ago
    Sure, but you'd be declining the offer.
  - AdamN 10y ago
    Not really - maybe related to some other crime but that would have all been figured out in the immunity offer beforehand.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - rhizome 10y ago
    I believe that, generally, immunity deals are constructed to require complete candor and truthfulness. It may have come up in the Lewis Libby trial. IANAL.
jmaygarden 10y ago
5 people were granted immunity in Hillary Clinton's email scandal and nothing came of it.
- CalChris 10y ago

blakejennings 10y ago

https://www.wsj.com/articles/mike-flynn-offers-to-testify-in-exchange-for-immunity-1490912959 https://www.wsj.com/articles/mike-flynn-offers-to-testify-in...

doctorshady 10y ago
For those who don't like paywalls, the text: https://pastebin.com/PtqWwd3w https://pastebin.com/PtqWwd3w

okket 10y ago

Trump on Feb. 15 — after Flynn was fired — saying Flynn's a "wonderful man [who'] been treated very, very unfairly by the media" https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/847587940557623296 https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/847587940557623296

wyldfire 10y ago
He has no problem reversing himself at all. No surprise if he lays into Flynn now. It's unlikely that he'll admit that this is a change in position.
sanjeetsuhag 10y ago
Flynn himself said in an interview with Chuck Todd last year: "When you are given immunity, that means that you've probably committed a crime". Source: https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/847600901653012482 https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/847600901653012482

CalChris 10y ago

“When you are given immunity, that means you have probably committed a crime.” — Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, in an interview with NBC News on September 25, 2016. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/09/25/gen_flynn_hillary_clinton_shouldnt_be_too_big_to_jail.html http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/09/25/gen_flynn_...

hackuser 10y ago
It's a nice gotcha, but Flynn isn't an attorney and is known for saying many crazy things even in his field of expertise.
- bbatha 10y ago
  He hasn't been offered immunity yet, he's the one asking guilt. By the logic of his own quote he only want it if he was guilty.
  - aggie 10y ago
    His lawyers could have convinced him to ask for immunity if there was even a slight chance of legal trouble. He may also only have some minor dirt to spill, so he's happy throwing some staffer under the bus.
    - CalChris 10y ago
      Yes, we know that. His hypocrisy still reeks. And great. Give him immunity and get him in front of the Senate and House committees. If, as you assert, he has only minor dirt on some small player that will come out. And the immunity itself will save everyone time and money.
  - ericcumbee 10y ago
    I'm not so sure... Thinking about the Valerie Plame leak case, Scooter Libby the VP's CoS was convicted for giving false testimony and obstruction. Those convictions stem from conflicting statements about how he knew Valerie Plame worked for the CIA. If you were Flynn and thought you had a card that would keep you out of jail to play in a game where if you mis-remember how you know a seemingly trivial piece of information you go to jail... would'nt you try to play that card?

skylan_q 10y ago

This is a story based on speculation early last week that turned out to be false. https://twitter.com/JeffPohjola/status/847597736803225600 https://twitter.com/JeffPohjola/status/847597736803225600

Mendenhall 10y ago

I will wait to find out more information. Seems him seeking "immunity" isnt what happened in a legal sense from what I have read.

generic_user 10y ago
Your being down voted because voices of moderation and reason can often cause a disruption in the field surrounding the tinfoil hat and there for let in Russian mind control signals.

hackuser 10y ago

Has the United States ever convicted someone on the level of National Security Advisor (i.e., effectively a member of the cabinet, such as Secretary of Defense), or even put them on trial? Petraeus got a slap on the wrist, but for actions while he was a General. In other countries, even the heads of state get put on trial. Off the top of my head, it's happened relatively recently in France and Israel. In the U.S., I can't think of even a member of the cabinet being tried; on the order of 1 federal judge has ever been impeached. Nixon was pardoned, for example. Someone mentioned 5 people were granted immunity for the Clinton investigation; were any of the 5 at such a high level? Has someone on that level ever been given immunity or needed it?

yeukhon 10y ago
Some countries I know have laws written that immunity is given to the head of the state from juridical conviction until the term is over, but the Congress would have the power to impeach.
opo 10y ago
>...In the U.S., I can't think of even a member of the cabinet being tried; It will be hard to beat the Nixon administration for convictions: 2 attorney generals, chief of staff, 2 white house counsels, undersecretary of transportation, secretary to the president, special counsel to the president, secretary of commerce and the vice president! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_federal_politicians_convicted_of_crimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_federal_polit...
- hackuser 10y ago
  Hey, that's a great page that I never imagined existed. I stand corrected; plenty of Cabinet secretaries were convicted, as well as 8 federal judges in 30 years (and therefore I assume many more in history). Still, only one VP (Agnew, which I should have remembered) and of course no Presidents. Thanks.
- shshhdhs 10y ago
  The undersecretary that you mentioned is now The "Senior Fellow on Ethics and Leadership at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress and Counselor to the Director at the School for Ethics and Global Leadership." [1] Receiving a senior fellowship in Ethics is quite the turnaround from six months in prison. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egil_Krogh https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egil_Krogh

skyrw 10y ago

Hacker News is r/politics now. I'm out.

losvedir 10y ago

I'm not a Trump supporter (voted for Johnson but would have voted for Clinton if it mattered in my state), but this whole "Russia" investigation feels like partisan signaling nonsense like the Benghazi hearings. Flynn didn't do anything illegal (I've yet to see a compelling argument that the Logan Act would apply here), just a breach of protocol. It was lying to Pence that did him in. Manafort consulted for lots of presidential campaigns including Ford, Reagan, and Bush, so it doesn't surprise me that Trump used him, too. Of course, he's a criminal and a sleazeball, and he left the Trump campaign a long time ago. Tillerson is just an ex-CEO of Exxon, so he might be pro-Russia but not in any untoward way. It's likely that the DNC was hacked by APT28/29, and it's likely that they're FSB/GRU, and it's likely that they released the documents to Wikileaks. There's no public information that Trump was involved. The Steele dossier is juicy and is being investigated by the intelligence agencies, so nothing to learn there until they tell us. Then we have the Yates and Nunes ordeal, but I'm willing to believe that's just partisan junk. Annnnyyywwaaaay, in an effort to be more rational this year, I'd like to try to solidify my positions and confidence levels via wagers. My general position is that Trump is not involved with Russia in any treasonous or even "quite inappropriate" way. If you concretely believe that Trump is a Russian spy, or personally negotiated with Putin to get him to win the election in exchange for reversing sanctions or something, hit me up (my email is in my HN user info thing) with your proposed hypothesis and we can make a bet. I won't promise to take on all bets, but certainly a lot of the extreme positions I've seen on here I would. E.g., I'd bet at pretty high odds that he didn't take a position in Rosneft, as someone was claiming).

mcphage 10y ago
> Flynn didn't do anything illegal (I've yet to see a compelling argument that the Logan Act would apply here), just a breach of protocol. It was lying to Pence that did him in. Maybe you're right, but he's asking for immunity for something—see elsewhere in this thread where Flynn has made his views on immunity deals clear.

self-diversity 10y ago

This seems closer to "Ex-Trump adviser Flynn's lawyer tries a pretty common (for his client's industry) maneuver to ensure his client won't get jail time no matter what happens" https://twitter.com/robkelner/status/847590575352270850 https://twitter.com/robkelner/status/847590575352270850 I'd be quite surprised if any of the Russian connections turned out to be meaningful. Every story that I've seen about anything along the Trump/Russia axis is soaked in enough weasel words to make a defense attorney cringe, and the details are generally senseless on close examination.

a3n 10y ago

Manafort and Stone have offered to testify to Congress. Flynn wants immunity to testify. I've wondered if these are positions taken from under the bus.