7 ms·

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 do

• 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]