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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 wort

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?
- adventured 8y ago
  > If they didn't feel they were doing anything improper, why did they lie to the American people and during subsequent testimony? One good reason would be that appearances are extremely important in nearly all circumstances, especially when running for office or while in office. People often lie for very dumb, shallow reasons, because of their fear of how something might look. Trump is all about image after all and always has been. His brand has always been his primary business.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  They lied for political reasons. Cohen's lie was simply to 'move back the date' of the end of the discussions from August, to mid Spring. It was a campaign kind of lie, a lie of perceptions. Cohen et. al. wanted to simply make it clear that the 'end of Russia discussions' was well before the nomination, and not near to it, purely for optics. That's why it's an utterly stupid thing to do. It was a stupid, needless like, just to avoid some possible bad news, that Cohen is going to go to jail for. To me - this summarizes most of the Trump shenanigans: Trump and his crew of clowns do not have the sophistication to orchestrate anything with Russia! Trump is 'just a guy'. He has a few family members, who are not professionals, help him out with stuff. This is not a 'operationalized, rigorous entity'. It's not like a bank, with policies, procedures, professional managers. It's just a loud-mouth real-estate guy 'making deals' over the phone. That's it. I do not trust Trump one big, and it's good there is added scrutiny, and absolutely 100% the Russians will try to take advantage of Trump - in the same way they would try to take advantage of any president if they could. But there's no attempt to undermine America, to do secret deals with Russian intelligence, no exchanging of secret information to alter the campaign. None of this. Trump I think is a bad statesmen, who as a little to close to Russia for comfort, but there's no real smoking gun here, just a little bit of 'Cheech and Chong'.

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?

adventured 8y ago
> If they didn't feel they were doing anything improper, why did they lie to the American people and during subsequent testimony? One good reason would be that appearances are extremely important in nearly all circumstances, especially when running for office or while in office. People often lie for very dumb, shallow reasons, because of their fear of how something might look. Trump is all about image after all and always has been. His brand has always been his primary business.
sonnyblarney 8y ago
They lied for political reasons. Cohen's lie was simply to 'move back the date' of the end of the discussions from August, to mid Spring. It was a campaign kind of lie, a lie of perceptions. Cohen et. al. wanted to simply make it clear that the 'end of Russia discussions' was well before the nomination, and not near to it, purely for optics. That's why it's an utterly stupid thing to do. It was a stupid, needless like, just to avoid some possible bad news, that Cohen is going to go to jail for. To me - this summarizes most of the Trump shenanigans: Trump and his crew of clowns do not have the sophistication to orchestrate anything with Russia! Trump is 'just a guy'. He has a few family members, who are not professionals, help him out with stuff. This is not a 'operationalized, rigorous entity'. It's not like a bank, with policies, procedures, professional managers. It's just a loud-mouth real-estate guy 'making deals' over the phone. That's it. I do not trust Trump one big, and it's good there is added scrutiny, and absolutely 100% the Russians will try to take advantage of Trump - in the same way they would try to take advantage of any president if they could. But there's no attempt to undermine America, to do secret deals with Russian intelligence, no exchanging of secret information to alter the campaign. None of this. Trump I think is a bad statesmen, who as a little to close to Russia for comfort, but there's no real smoking gun here, just a little bit of 'Cheech and Chong'.