38 ms·
This is somewhat disingenuous. I doubt very many Americans think Trump is a sleeper agent in the literal sense of that term. There is, however, considerable ci
by bleepblorp 6y ago
This is somewhat disingenuous. I doubt very many Americans think Trump is a sleeper agent in the literal sense of that term.
There is, however, considerable circumstantial evidence that he may be compromised by the Russians. The fact that Trump has been less than wholly forthcoming regarding his connections with Russia has only deepened this concern.
Multiple people in the Trump orbit--including Trump himself--have had repeated communications with Putin, Russian oligarchs, or their proxies, and have gone to considerable lengths (such as by conducting meetings in private and confiscating the translator's notes) to hide the contents of these communications from official records and lawfully constituted legal investigations.
Given that Trump is believed to be deeply in debt (see the recent NYT series on Trump's tax records), has had business dealings inside Russia (e.g. Trump Tower Moscow), and has benefited from Russian state-sponsored criminal hacking[0], hidden communications between the Trump orbit and Russia are cause for grave concern over whether Trump has inappropriate ties to the Russian government.
Read the Mueller Report and pay particular attention to what could not be proven because the necessary evidence had been destroyed or was otherwise inaccessible.[1]
Unlike the current flavor of Republican conspiracy theorizing, the Trump-Russia story is not a bunch of lunatics deluding themselves into thinking that the Democratic party is keeping children captive in the basement of a pizza restaurant. It's something backed by actual evidence and has lead to multiple prosecutions.
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/05/15/what-happened-trump-counterintelligence-investigation-house-investigators-dont-know/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/05/15/what-happ...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfire_Hurricane_(FBI_investigation)#Conclusions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfire_Hurricane_(FBI_inves...
- pjc50 6y agoDon't forget the actual Russian agent meeting the NRA, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Butina https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Butina
- throwaway0a5e 6y agoRussia has one of the strongest civilian firearms cultures in the world. The Russian defense industrial complex also cranks out a lot of small arms. They want to be able to sell stuff into the US market. The NRA wants the US market to be able to buy small arms from across the world. Considering how blurry the line between politics, special interest lobbying, the arms industry and the government itself is in Russia I think it comes as no surprise that people with pay stubs on government letterhead are trying to get buddy-buddy with the NRA. It's kind of irrelevant though since there's rules for that sort of stuff (registering as a foreign agent) and Russia shouldn't expect any slack in lights of their geopolitical ventures on their western border.
- forest_dweller 6y agoA lot of the russia-gate narrative was from the Steele Dossier which was found to be a nonsense. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/rep/releases/judiciary-committee-releases-declassified-documents-that-substantially-undercut-steele-dossier-page-fisa-warrants https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/rep/releases/judiciar... IIRC parts of the dossier was compiled from Tumblr post. The "piss-gate" story has it roots in a 4chan/pol post. I can't find it now, but I've seen the original archive of 4chan users actively putting misinformation out there to troll the press.
- leoc 6y agoWho is the chairman of Rosneft? The chairman of the board of directors, not the chairman of the management board. https://www.rosneft.com/governance/board/ https://www.rosneft.com/governance/board/ Then we can have a serious discussion about this subject.