8 ms·

This is...utterly delusional, and totally disconnected from the evidence on record. The President's campaign manager, deputy campaign manager, personal lawyer

This is...utterly delusional, and totally disconnected from the evidence on record. The President's campaign manager, deputy campaign manager, personal lawyer and National Security Advisor have either pled guilty or been convicted of felonies. Despite denying any contacts with Russia, we now know he'd been offered a deal to build the biggest tower in Europe, a payout worth $300 million, during the campaign. During the transition, his son-in-law met with the Russian ambassador and asked to use the Russian government's communication system to evade scrutiny by the American intelligence community. During sentencing, a federal judge told the President's former NSA that "arguably, you sold out your country". On what earth does Taibbi live? I grant that perhaps the media built up the Mueller report to a point that no actual product could satisfy. But what we know is so outrageous that it's quite strange to conclude that the people doing the irresponsible misleading are the news media. This is such a strange, bizarre, consequential, unprecedented story cloaked in classified details that it's pretty odd to expect a media to do a great job of contemporaneously reporting on it. I used to have a lot of respect for Taibbi, and I suppose I still do, but this is deranged on his part.

lamarpye 8y ago
None of the people were convicted on charges related to Russian collusion. Many people convicted/plead guilty to process crimes, for example, lying to the FBI. I won't accuse of you of trying to mislead people, but the judge apologized for making the treason claim against Flynn: https://lawandcrime.com/awkward/judge-quickly-backtracks-apologizes-after-floating-crazy-idea-michael-flynn-committed-treason/ https://lawandcrime.com/awkward/judge-quickly-backtracks-apo...
- abrahamepton 8y ago
  Yeah, he walked back the "treason" comment that I didn't mention, and said nothing to retract the "sold your country out" comment, because the two are in fact distinct claims. "Collusion" isn't an actual crime, so of course nobody was convicted for it. But convicting people for illegal activity proximate to the collusion is exactly what happened. Al Capone was convicted for tax fraud, not being a gangster, because that was what they could prove in court.
- int_19h 8y ago
  That's because treason is an incredibly high bar to meet. Nevertheless, we now know that Flynn was acting as a propaganda agent of Turkey - by his own testimony, used to convict his co-conspirators - without registering as such. Do you consider this a "process crime"?
  - overwhelm 8y ago
    Of course not, but it's not what he was charged with and it has nothing to do with the Russiagate narrative. Presumably that's why he wasn't charged with that.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Many people convicted/plead guilty to process crimes, for example, lying to the FBI. Yes, but that was lying in denying collusion in both the case of Pappadopolous (as a Trump campaign official and with support of higher ups, with Russia) and Stone (as a go-between for the Trump campaign, with WikiLeaks—described by the Trump campaign as a “hostile non-state intelligence service”—where WikiLeaks was, based on information in other indictments, either cooperating with or duped by a Russian intelligence operation.)
s_y_n_t_a_x 8y ago
To your first point, it's easy to fall into a perjury trap. Noone in the campaign was indicted for conspiracy, they were indicted for lying. Planning to build a hotel in a country is not a crime, even if it's Russia. It's smoke in the scheme of things, but if he's not guilty, then it's perfectly okay. Meeting with a Russian ambassador is not a crime, setting up a backchannel is not a crime. Many campaigns have done so in the past, again smoke, no fire. All the things you list would be normal to do had there been no investigation or Russia meddling in the first place. If Trump would have known the Russia thing would have blown up how it did, I'm sure he would have strayed as far as way from Russia as possible.
- auntienomen 8y ago
  Meeting with the Russian ambassador can indeed be a crime under the Logan Act. Private citizens don't get to make foreign policy, and none of Trump's team was in office at that point.
  - s_y_n_t_a_x 8y ago
    I suggest you read up on the Logan Act and the accusations that have been made under it previously. It's from 1799 and far too general. There's been many instances that technically fall under it. It's not just private citizens, it's unauthorized persons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Act#Accusations_of_violations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Act#Accusations_of_viola...
  - zaroth 8y ago
    Tell that to John Kerry! Transitions teams do this every single time, as an absolute necessity. It would be asinine to hand over the reigns of power as a cold start. The Logan Act nonsense is a perfect example of the media’s abject failure. Then when Kerry went to Iran to actively controvene and usurp Trump’s policies — where was the media citing the Logan act then?
sonnyblarney 8y ago
Disclosure: I loathe Trump. "Despite denying any contacts with Russia, we now know he'd been offered a deal to build the biggest tower in Europe, a payout worth $300 million, during the campaign. " This is a misrepresentation of the facts - it's exactly an example of the very problem mentioned in the article. 1) Donald Trump builds buildings, that's his business. Much like selling coffee Schultz's job. Trump has been trying for decades to build in Moscow, much like Starbucks, Tesla, IKEA, Volkswagen, Zara, Google etc. try to do business there. Donald Trump has no business in Russia - but Howard Schultz has over 100 Starbucks locations in Russia. [1] Howard Schultz has been materially 'doing business' with Russians for decades. Given the mafia-like nature of some business activities in Russia (IKEA has to pay a kind of extortion to be in Moscow), how is it possible we are not screaming in outrage over Schultz's 'deep Russian business connections'? Because making coffee is a normal part of his business, just like Trump builds buildings. He's allowed to do that, it's normal, even if 'we hate him'. 2) There were no material plans to do anything in Russia, literally just some conversations. No contracts, no agreements. Just talk. 3) "a payout worth $300 million" - this is a fabrication. Not only was there not even the start of a deal - the '$300M' figure is a totally invented number. 4) 'During the campaign'? It's widely reported that Donald Trump did not want to be president, and that he was surprised he got the nomination, and everyone was surprised that he won. It's reasonable for a candidate to continue their business during the initial part of a campaign, especially if in all likelihood he would lose. As it became clear that Trump would win the GOP nomination, talks were abandoned. Summary: Doing business in foreign country is normal. In some foreign countries, at a large scale, you will deal with the government. This is normal. Trump did not have any material activity in Russia, and it ended as it became clear Trump would be taking on a political nomination anyhow. I could take your other comments and contextualize them in the same way: most of this has been utterly misrepresented. Just because we loathe Trump, and I wouldn't put it past him for one second to 'kiss up to Putin' in hopes of a sweet future deal in Russia ... does not make him guilty of anything, certainly not to the degree the press has admonished him. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/541629/number-of-starbucks-stores-in-europe/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/541629/number-of-starbuc...
- NotAnEconomist 8y ago
  > Trump did not have any material activity in Russia, and it ended as it became clear Trump would be taking on a political nomination anyhow. Michael Cohen testified that their claims of doing this was a lie, and they continued their business dealings after having claimed to have ceased as a candidate. If they didn't feel they were doing anything improper, why did they lie to the American people and during subsequent testimony?
mattnewport 8y ago
Are there any factual claims in the article you take issue with or do you just disagree with the overall thesis that the media reported this issue irresponsibly?
75dvtwin 8y ago
I think you are purposefully ignoring facts, so that high level sentences match your narrative. Flynn (security advisor for a couple of day) -- was setup. There was no collusion with Russia to change 2016 election outcomes, that Flynn was accused of. "... made materially false statements and omissions during an interview with the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI") on January 24, 2017, in Washington, D.C. " [1]https://www.justice.gov/file/1015126/download https://www.justice.gov/file/1015126/download that's not collusion. Roger Stone did not have his day in court, and the allegation were are not about directing Foreign powers to do anything. Certainly hiring a foreign agent to write a document to be used trigger for FBI to initiate opposition party surveillances (like Clinton orchestrated) -- would have been a worthy avenue for Mueller to pursue, if he was about justice The other indictments had nothing to do with 2016 election and happened for offenses outside 2016 election activities. --- --- In general, my definition of deep state is: a shadow government (consisting of elected officials and hired bureaucrats), that performs illegal activities, but blames opposition exact same things they are guilty of. Whether it is collusion with foreign powers to orchestrate a coup, or abuse of women, or anti-Semitism, or racism, launder money through charities, or get bribes for political favors. The fact that left-wing media had zero interest in investigative reporting of the deep state, and the true collusions with foreign powers to orchestrate coup in this country --- in an indication of their actual profession (paid propagandists).
- lamarpye 8y ago
  Well said.
- alchemism 8y ago
  Money laundering through charities you say? Blaming the opposition for the same things they are guilty of, you say? Well now, to me that is interesting. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/nyregion/ny-ag-underwood-trump-foundation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/nyregion/ny-ag-underwood-...
- abrahamepton 8y ago
  > Flynn (security advisor for a couple of day) -- was setup Uh...ok. Citations, please. That's quite an outlandish and unsupported claim. > There was no collusion with Russia to change 2016 election outcomes, that Flynn was accused of. Flynn was talking to the Russian ambassador during the transition, promising to lift sanctions that the then-President was imposing. He was convicted for lying to FBI agents about that. Perhaps there's an innocent explanation for the incoming National Security Advisor lying to the FBI about secret conversations with the Russian ambassador to undermine the acting President during the transition. I'm curious what that might be. > Roger Stone did not have his day in court, and the allegation were are not about directing Foreign powers to do anything. Note how at no point did I mention Roger Stone. > Roger Stone did not have his day in court, and the allegation were are not about directing Foreign powers to do anything. Also not a thing I mentioned. > The other indictments had nothing to do with 2016 election and happened for offenses outside 2016 election activities. Al Capone was convicted on taxes. Let's read the report.
roenxi 8y ago
> his son-in-law met with the Russian ambassador and asked to use the Russian government's communication system to evade scrutiny by the American intelligence community I'm just going to attack the weakest part of your post because it is egregious. I disagree with the rest to, but I think other comments do a good enough job of covering my points. There is overwhelming evidence that Trump sees part of his job as being diplomat-in-chief, going to other countries and making/renegotiating deals. There is no way this attributed motivation of 'evad[ing] scrutiny by the American intelligence community' passes the Occam's Razor test of he wants a quiet place to talk before major public negotiations. He wouldn't be the first or last president to have a quiet back-channel to a foreign country for negotiating purposes. It could be standard practice for all we know, it isn't a bad idea by any stretch.
- abrahamepton 8y ago
  > There is overwhelming evidence that Trump sees part of his job as being diplomat-in-chief, going to other countries and making/renegotiating deals. Ok pal. > There is no way this attributed motivation of 'evad[ing] scrutiny by the American intelligence community' passes the Occam's Razor test of he wants a quiet place to talk before major public negotiations. Actual national security practitioners find this beyond laughable. > He wouldn't be the first or last president to have a quiet back-channel to a foreign country for negotiating purposes. It could be standard practice for all we know, it isn't a bad idea by any stretch. The practice of backchannels is not unusual. Everything else about this is extremely odd, to say the least.
kodz4 8y ago
There is no 'perhaps' about the media's outrage factory. It distracts, causes unnecessary polarization and most importantly takes focus away from much bigger underlying issues - why voters turned to Trump, how to connect with them, the broken advertising/click/view maximizing model, campaign finance reform etc. Taibbi is asking the important question of how is focus going to get back to the real stuff, when outrage and emotion and blame are the only tools being used?

lamarpye 8y ago

None of the people were convicted on charges related to Russian collusion. Many people convicted/plead guilty to process crimes, for example, lying to the FBI. I won't accuse of you of trying to mislead people, but the judge apologized for making the treason claim against Flynn: https://lawandcrime.com/awkward/judge-quickly-backtracks-apologizes-after-floating-crazy-idea-michael-flynn-committed-treason/ https://lawandcrime.com/awkward/judge-quickly-backtracks-apo...

abrahamepton 8y ago
Yeah, he walked back the "treason" comment that I didn't mention, and said nothing to retract the "sold your country out" comment, because the two are in fact distinct claims. "Collusion" isn't an actual crime, so of course nobody was convicted for it. But convicting people for illegal activity proximate to the collusion is exactly what happened. Al Capone was convicted for tax fraud, not being a gangster, because that was what they could prove in court.
int_19h 8y ago
That's because treason is an incredibly high bar to meet. Nevertheless, we now know that Flynn was acting as a propaganda agent of Turkey - by his own testimony, used to convict his co-conspirators - without registering as such. Do you consider this a "process crime"?
- overwhelm 8y ago
  Of course not, but it's not what he was charged with and it has nothing to do with the Russiagate narrative. Presumably that's why he wasn't charged with that.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> Many people convicted/plead guilty to process crimes, for example, lying to the FBI. Yes, but that was lying in denying collusion in both the case of Pappadopolous (as a Trump campaign official and with support of higher ups, with Russia) and Stone (as a go-between for the Trump campaign, with WikiLeaks—described by the Trump campaign as a “hostile non-state intelligence service”—where WikiLeaks was, based on information in other indictments, either cooperating with or duped by a Russian intelligence operation.)

s_y_n_t_a_x 8y ago

To your first point, it's easy to fall into a perjury trap. Noone in the campaign was indicted for conspiracy, they were indicted for lying. Planning to build a hotel in a country is not a crime, even if it's Russia. It's smoke in the scheme of things, but if he's not guilty, then it's perfectly okay. Meeting with a Russian ambassador is not a crime, setting up a backchannel is not a crime. Many campaigns have done so in the past, again smoke, no fire. All the things you list would be normal to do had there been no investigation or Russia meddling in the first place. If Trump would have known the Russia thing would have blown up how it did, I'm sure he would have strayed as far as way from Russia as possible.

auntienomen 8y ago
Meeting with the Russian ambassador can indeed be a crime under the Logan Act. Private citizens don't get to make foreign policy, and none of Trump's team was in office at that point.
- s_y_n_t_a_x 8y ago
  I suggest you read up on the Logan Act and the accusations that have been made under it previously. It's from 1799 and far too general. There's been many instances that technically fall under it. It's not just private citizens, it's unauthorized persons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Act#Accusations_of_violations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Act#Accusations_of_viola...
- zaroth 8y ago
  Tell that to John Kerry! Transitions teams do this every single time, as an absolute necessity. It would be asinine to hand over the reigns of power as a cold start. The Logan Act nonsense is a perfect example of the media’s abject failure. Then when Kerry went to Iran to actively controvene and usurp Trump’s policies — where was the media citing the Logan act then?

sonnyblarney 8y ago

Disclosure: I loathe Trump. "Despite denying any contacts with Russia, we now know he'd been offered a deal to build the biggest tower in Europe, a payout worth $300 million, during the campaign. " This is a misrepresentation of the facts - it's exactly an example of the very problem mentioned in the article. 1) Donald Trump builds buildings, that's his business. Much like selling coffee Schultz's job. Trump has been trying for decades to build in Moscow, much like Starbucks, Tesla, IKEA, Volkswagen, Zara, Google etc. try to do business there. Donald Trump has no business in Russia - but Howard Schultz has over 100 Starbucks locations in Russia. [1] Howard Schultz has been materially 'doing business' with Russians for decades. Given the mafia-like nature of some business activities in Russia (IKEA has to pay a kind of extortion to be in Moscow), how is it possible we are not screaming in outrage over Schultz's 'deep Russian business connections'? Because making coffee is a normal part of his business, just like Trump builds buildings. He's allowed to do that, it's normal, even if 'we hate him'. 2) There were no material plans to do anything in Russia, literally just some conversations. No contracts, no agreements. Just talk. 3) "a payout worth $300 million" - this is a fabrication. Not only was there not even the start of a deal - the '$300M' figure is a totally invented number. 4) 'During the campaign'? It's widely reported that Donald Trump did not want to be president, and that he was surprised he got the nomination, and everyone was surprised that he won. It's reasonable for a candidate to continue their business during the initial part of a campaign, especially if in all likelihood he would lose. As it became clear that Trump would win the GOP nomination, talks were abandoned. Summary: Doing business in foreign country is normal. In some foreign countries, at a large scale, you will deal with the government. This is normal. Trump did not have any material activity in Russia, and it ended as it became clear Trump would be taking on a political nomination anyhow. I could take your other comments and contextualize them in the same way: most of this has been utterly misrepresented. Just because we loathe Trump, and I wouldn't put it past him for one second to 'kiss up to Putin' in hopes of a sweet future deal in Russia ... does not make him guilty of anything, certainly not to the degree the press has admonished him. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/541629/number-of-starbucks-stores-in-europe/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/541629/number-of-starbuc...

NotAnEconomist 8y ago
> Trump did not have any material activity in Russia, and it ended as it became clear Trump would be taking on a political nomination anyhow. Michael Cohen testified that their claims of doing this was a lie, and they continued their business dealings after having claimed to have ceased as a candidate. If they didn't feel they were doing anything improper, why did they lie to the American people and during subsequent testimony?

mattnewport 8y ago

Are there any factual claims in the article you take issue with or do you just disagree with the overall thesis that the media reported this issue irresponsibly?

75dvtwin 8y ago

I think you are purposefully ignoring facts, so that high level sentences match your narrative. Flynn (security advisor for a couple of day) -- was setup. There was no collusion with Russia to change 2016 election outcomes, that Flynn was accused of. "... made materially false statements and omissions during an interview with the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI") on January 24, 2017, in Washington, D.C. " [1]https://www.justice.gov/file/1015126/download https://www.justice.gov/file/1015126/download that's not collusion. Roger Stone did not have his day in court, and the allegation were are not about directing Foreign powers to do anything. Certainly hiring a foreign agent to write a document to be used trigger for FBI to initiate opposition party surveillances (like Clinton orchestrated) -- would have been a worthy avenue for Mueller to pursue, if he was about justice The other indictments had nothing to do with 2016 election and happened for offenses outside 2016 election activities. --- --- In general, my definition of deep state is: a shadow government (consisting of elected officials and hired bureaucrats), that performs illegal activities, but blames opposition exact same things they are guilty of. Whether it is collusion with foreign powers to orchestrate a coup, or abuse of women, or anti-Semitism, or racism, launder money through charities, or get bribes for political favors. The fact that left-wing media had zero interest in investigative reporting of the deep state, and the true collusions with foreign powers to orchestrate coup in this country --- in an indication of their actual profession (paid propagandists).

lamarpye 8y ago
Well said.
alchemism 8y ago
Money laundering through charities you say? Blaming the opposition for the same things they are guilty of, you say? Well now, to me that is interesting. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/nyregion/ny-ag-underwood-trump-foundation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/nyregion/ny-ag-underwood-...
abrahamepton 8y ago
> Flynn (security advisor for a couple of day) -- was setup Uh...ok. Citations, please. That's quite an outlandish and unsupported claim. > There was no collusion with Russia to change 2016 election outcomes, that Flynn was accused of. Flynn was talking to the Russian ambassador during the transition, promising to lift sanctions that the then-President was imposing. He was convicted for lying to FBI agents about that. Perhaps there's an innocent explanation for the incoming National Security Advisor lying to the FBI about secret conversations with the Russian ambassador to undermine the acting President during the transition. I'm curious what that might be. > Roger Stone did not have his day in court, and the allegation were are not about directing Foreign powers to do anything. Note how at no point did I mention Roger Stone. > Roger Stone did not have his day in court, and the allegation were are not about directing Foreign powers to do anything. Also not a thing I mentioned. > The other indictments had nothing to do with 2016 election and happened for offenses outside 2016 election activities. Al Capone was convicted on taxes. Let's read the report.

roenxi 8y ago

> his son-in-law met with the Russian ambassador and asked to use the Russian government's communication system to evade scrutiny by the American intelligence community I'm just going to attack the weakest part of your post because it is egregious. I disagree with the rest to, but I think other comments do a good enough job of covering my points. There is overwhelming evidence that Trump sees part of his job as being diplomat-in-chief, going to other countries and making/renegotiating deals. There is no way this attributed motivation of 'evad[ing] scrutiny by the American intelligence community' passes the Occam's Razor test of he wants a quiet place to talk before major public negotiations. He wouldn't be the first or last president to have a quiet back-channel to a foreign country for negotiating purposes. It could be standard practice for all we know, it isn't a bad idea by any stretch.

abrahamepton 8y ago
> There is overwhelming evidence that Trump sees part of his job as being diplomat-in-chief, going to other countries and making/renegotiating deals. Ok pal. > There is no way this attributed motivation of 'evad[ing] scrutiny by the American intelligence community' passes the Occam's Razor test of he wants a quiet place to talk before major public negotiations. Actual national security practitioners find this beyond laughable. > He wouldn't be the first or last president to have a quiet back-channel to a foreign country for negotiating purposes. It could be standard practice for all we know, it isn't a bad idea by any stretch. The practice of backchannels is not unusual. Everything else about this is extremely odd, to say the least.

kodz4 8y ago

There is no 'perhaps' about the media's outrage factory. It distracts, causes unnecessary polarization and most importantly takes focus away from much bigger underlying issues - why voters turned to Trump, how to connect with them, the broken advertising/click/view maximizing model, campaign finance reform etc. Taibbi is asking the important question of how is focus going to get back to the real stuff, when outrage and emotion and blame are the only tools being used?