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How about Adam Schiff, whose lie that he had seen "more than circumstantial evidence" of Trump-Russia collusion was the cornerstone of the case for a Special Co

How about Adam Schiff, whose lie that he had seen "more than circumstantial evidence" of Trump-Russia collusion was the cornerstone of the case for a Special Council?[0] We got a two year investigation into the question of collusion... which found no such evidence: "The special counsel found that Russia did interfere with the election, but “did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in these efforts, despite multiple efforts from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign.""[1] And yet, even after Barr released his summary of the report, 84% of Democrats and 41% of Independents believed that Trump had colluded with the Russians.[2] Many of you in this thread likely still believe the lie that Trump colluded with the Russians. If the past is any guide, many of you will attempt to defend the lie by replying with distracting "whataboutisms" regarding Paul Manafort, or obstruction, or what have you, willfully ignoring the fact that that *the overwhelming majority of Democrats* were, less than two years ago, convinced of a lie that is eerily similar to right's lie-de-jour regarding the results of the 2016 election. [0]https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/schiff-there-is-more-than-circumstantial-evidence-now/520509/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/schiff-... [1]https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2019/03/mueller-concludes-investigation/ https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2... [2]https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-poll/despite-report-findings-almost-half-of-americans-think-trump-colluded-with-russia-reuters-ipsos-poll-idUSKCN1R72S0 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-poll/des...

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sumedh 6y ago
> We got a two year investigation into the question of collusion... which found no such evidence: No that is wrong. "The investigation found there were over 100 contacts between Trump campaign advisors and individuals affiliated with the Russian government, before and after the election, but the evidence was insufficient to show an illegal conspiracy" > Many of you in this thread likely still believe the lie that Trump colluded with the Russians. Many of you also believed that Hillary was responsible for Benghazi and Republicans wasted millions of dollars and time on that investigation and yet she was not guilty. > replying with distracting "whataboutisms" regarding Paul Manafort So he and many other broke the law and went to jail for that, why is that a bad thing. Why did Trump pardon them though? How many people in the US went to jail because of the Benghazi investigations? Mueller did not say that Trump was innocent, why didnt he say that?
- raxxorrax 6y ago
  bullshit
- marcusverus 6y ago
  > No that is wrong. "The investigation found there were over 100 contacts between Trump campaign advisors and individuals affiliated with the Russian government, before and after the election, but the evidence was insufficient to show an illegal conspiracy" The fact that presidential advisers, among the US Senators, former diplomats, and foreign advisors, had contact with foreigners is not surprising in the least. I'd be happy to discuss any specific contacts that you find to be troublesome, though. > Many of you also believed that Hillary was responsible for Benghazi and Republicans wasted millions of dollars and time on that investigation and yet she was not guilty. The Benghazi investigation was undeniably an attempt, in part, to damage Hillary Clinton politically. The question of who was "responsible" for Benghazi is a matter of opinion. The question of whether there is evidence for Trump-Russia collusion is one of fact. That's an important difference. Another important difference is the fact that the the lie-de-jour of the right--that the 2016 election was stolen--is currently being panned as anti-democratic, fascist, a danger to the very fabric of our nation, etc, etc., and we're told that his is because it is undermining our sacred institutions. Well if that's the case, it's odd that nobody seemed to give a shit that the Democrats did the exact same thing four years ago. After all, the lie that Trump colluded with the Russians is effectively the same lie--it's simply a different side of the same coin. This is very different from the Benghazi issue, which is, at worst, a run-of-the-mill political hatchet job. > So [Manafort] and many other broke the law and went to jail for that, why is that a bad thing. Why did Trump pardon them though? I never said that it was. Criminals should, of course, be punished. But this has no bearing on my point about Trump-Russia collusion, which is why I specifically mentioned it as a distraction. As for the pardons, who can say why Trump does what he does? > How many people in the US went to jail because of the Benghazi investigations? No idea...? > Mueller did not say that Trump was innocent, why didn't he say that? Who cares whether Mueller himself said Trump was innocent? In a system where the accused are innocent until proven guilty, his report said it for him. "[The report] did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in these efforts, despite multiple efforts from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign." I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the fact that almost 90% of Democrats were still convinced of the lie that Trump colluded with the Russians, and how that differs from the current right-wing mania about the 2016 election, which affects a much smaller proportion of the country.
rendall 6y ago
People are able to evaluate bias in others and propaganda they disagree with far better than their own biases and propaganda they agree with. No person or group should have the power to decide on their own what is "true"
- tanseydavid 6y ago
  >> 'No person or group should have the power to decide on their own what is "true"' And yet, the vast majority of adult human beings do this everyday, multiple times per day, without any regard for whether others think they should or not.
  - rendall 6y ago
    Yes, I should have appended "... for others"
LarvaFX 6y ago
In his release Barr misrepresented the contents of the report and you are spreading their lies further and further. I encourage you to actually read the report.
- marcusverus 6y ago
  Found another!
raxxorrax 6y ago
You are downvoted, but I think you are correct on the Russian story. It was made up or at least severely exaggerated to save face in an embarrassing election defeat. I cannot understand how people can still believe this. I asked what kind of messages the Russians used to influence people on large scale for the election - silence ensued. This is ridiculous, like in a cult. This is plainly US propaganda at its finest.
- LarvaFX 6y ago
  No it's not. Read the report.
  - marcusverus 6y ago
    Found one!
  - raxxorrax 6y ago
    Sigh... The question remains open. Large scale manipulation needs a large target audience and a message, propaganda should not be hard to identify. I find some Russian espionage operations in the report. It was actually US Americans that told me to expect such things when their mass surveillance went public. I did not find anything too relevant.
ModernMech 6y ago
I swear people here haven't even read the Mueller Report and the Senate Intel Report on this matter. For example, the quote you used came from the Mueller Report. Why did you cite a press article about it? Because what you actually cited was a summary from AG Barr which I think (and I'm not the only one, see below) intentionally and misleadingly left out the first part of that sentence. Here is the full sentence, emphasis added on the part you left out. "Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."[1] Note, "collusion" and "conspiracy" are different things. Conspiracy is used in the legal sense here and requires a meeting of the minds between Trump and the Russian Government (i.e. Putin). That didn't happen, and even some of the most ardent pushers of the collusion idea didn't believe that happened. But collusion is a more nebulous term (not a legal term) that, for many, was used to indicate a tacit agreement between the two groups to arrive at a mutual goal - electing Trump. That is absolutely what happened. When we say there was "collusion" and you point out there was no "conspiracy", therefore we are wrong, that's a straw man. Also note that while this says the investigation did not establish the Trump Campaign coordinated with the Russians, this is not entirely accurate. Trump did put out public statements to the Russians (famously "Russia, if you're listening"), and the Mueller report found that, in fact, there was direct response from Russian hackers to that call in the form of attempted hacks on Hillary Clinton. The Special Counsel didn't consider that "coordination" because it was in public, but.... I mean the evidence is there. A final note, there is stark difference between "the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign..." and "the investigation established that members of the Trump Campaign did not...". The former is not a conclusive statement. You seem to be basing your opinions as if the report contains the latter statement. Remember, Bill Barr put out the second half of that sentence and held back the full Mueller Report from the press so that part would cycle around to news orgs and people would repeat it ad infinitum. A federal judge characterized Bill Barr's summary and public statements as a "misleading" and "lacking candor" (so when you repeat what the AG did by leaving out the first half of that sentence, which really changes the tone and impression left on readers, perhaps take note of how this reflects on you). "The speed by which Attorney General Barr released to the public the summary of Special Counsel Mueller’s principal conclusions, coupled with the fact that Attorney General Barr failed to provide a thorough representation of the findings set forth in the Mueller Report, causes the Court to question whether Attorney General Barr’s intent was to create a one-sided narrative about the Mueller Report — a narrative that is clearly in some respects substantively at odds with the redacted version of the Mueller Report" "The inconsistencies between Attorney General Barr’s statements, made at a time when the public did not have access to the redacted version of the Mueller Report to assess the veracity of his statements, and portions of the redacted version of the Mueller Report that conflict with those statements cause the Court to seriously question whether Attorney General Barr made a calculated attempt to influence public discourse about the Mueller Report in favor of President Trump despite certain findings in the redacted version of the Mueller Report to the contrary." [2] Remember, this is a person who has seen more of the report than you or I have, and he seems to think what Bill Barr wrote is "substantively" inconsistent with what's written behind those black boxes. Oh, and the other thing you left out is the entire second half of the Mueller report. The first half concludes that the investigation was incomplete due to obstruction from the Trump campaign in the form of lying, destruction of evidence, witness tampering, dangling pardons, and trying to fire the investigators themselves. You can't cite the Mueller Report as a conclusive authority without also acknowledging the Trump campaign and Trump specifically obstructed the investigation repeatedly. > Many of you in this thread likely still believe the lie that Trump colluded with the Russians. Can you blame us? The Republican lead Senate released a report which shows that Trump Campaign manager was funneling internal campaign data to a Russian Intelligence Officer [3], while the GRU were busy hacking Trump's opponents. The Mueller report showed that Trump's family was meeting with a Russian spy at Trump's home and Trump lied about it. We also learned from Michael Cohen that Trump was attempting to build a Trump Tower Moscow with a penthouse dedicated to Vladimir Putin, and Trump lied about that as well after telling us he had 0 business in Russia and his campaign had 0 contacts with Russians (there were over 100 contacts). What conclusion are people supposed to draw? As soon as this bit of info from the Republican lead Senate Intelligence Committee gets cleared up, I'd love to hear how the Trump campaign was completely innocent in 2016: > The Senate Intelligence Committee assessed that Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's "high-level access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services" was a "grave counterintelligence threat". The foremost individual was Manafort's employee Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian. The committee identified Kilimnik as a "Russian intelligence officer"; describing that Manafort and Kilimnik had a "close and lasting relationship" even through the 2016 election. Manafort repeatedly tried to "secretly share internal Campaign information with Kilimnik", including "sensitive internal polling data or Campaign strategy". > The Senate Intelligence Committee introduced a new allegation regarding Kilimnik, that he "may have been connected" to the Russian military intelligence's hack and leak of Democratic Party material. However, the report's discussions on this topic are redacted. Manafort's connection with the Russian hack and leak operation is "largely unknown", but possible, given "two pieces of information" the committee found; the details of such information were also redacted. [4] [1] https://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2019/images/04/18/mueller-report-searchable.pdf https://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2019/images/04/18/mueller-report-sea... (The actual Mueller Report) [2] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6796353-barr-ruling.html#document/p1 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6796353-barr-ruling.... [3] Senate Intelligence Committee report on Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential election, Volume V. [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_Intelligence_Committee_report_on_Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_presidential_election#Findings_on_Paul_Manafort_and_Konstantin_Kilimnik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_Intelligence_Committee_...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

sumedh 6y ago

> We got a two year investigation into the question of collusion... which found no such evidence: No that is wrong. "The investigation found there were over 100 contacts between Trump campaign advisors and individuals affiliated with the Russian government, before and after the election, but the evidence was insufficient to show an illegal conspiracy" > Many of you in this thread likely still believe the lie that Trump colluded with the Russians. Many of you also believed that Hillary was responsible for Benghazi and Republicans wasted millions of dollars and time on that investigation and yet she was not guilty. > replying with distracting "whataboutisms" regarding Paul Manafort So he and many other broke the law and went to jail for that, why is that a bad thing. Why did Trump pardon them though? How many people in the US went to jail because of the Benghazi investigations? Mueller did not say that Trump was innocent, why didnt he say that?

raxxorrax 6y ago
bullshit
marcusverus 6y ago
> No that is wrong. "The investigation found there were over 100 contacts between Trump campaign advisors and individuals affiliated with the Russian government, before and after the election, but the evidence was insufficient to show an illegal conspiracy" The fact that presidential advisers, among the US Senators, former diplomats, and foreign advisors, had contact with foreigners is not surprising in the least. I'd be happy to discuss any specific contacts that you find to be troublesome, though. > Many of you also believed that Hillary was responsible for Benghazi and Republicans wasted millions of dollars and time on that investigation and yet she was not guilty. The Benghazi investigation was undeniably an attempt, in part, to damage Hillary Clinton politically. The question of who was "responsible" for Benghazi is a matter of opinion. The question of whether there is evidence for Trump-Russia collusion is one of fact. That's an important difference. Another important difference is the fact that the the lie-de-jour of the right--that the 2016 election was stolen--is currently being panned as anti-democratic, fascist, a danger to the very fabric of our nation, etc, etc., and we're told that his is because it is undermining our sacred institutions. Well if that's the case, it's odd that nobody seemed to give a shit that the Democrats did the exact same thing four years ago. After all, the lie that Trump colluded with the Russians is effectively the same lie--it's simply a different side of the same coin. This is very different from the Benghazi issue, which is, at worst, a run-of-the-mill political hatchet job. > So [Manafort] and many other broke the law and went to jail for that, why is that a bad thing. Why did Trump pardon them though? I never said that it was. Criminals should, of course, be punished. But this has no bearing on my point about Trump-Russia collusion, which is why I specifically mentioned it as a distraction. As for the pardons, who can say why Trump does what he does? > How many people in the US went to jail because of the Benghazi investigations? No idea...? > Mueller did not say that Trump was innocent, why didn't he say that? Who cares whether Mueller himself said Trump was innocent? In a system where the accused are innocent until proven guilty, his report said it for him. "[The report] did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in these efforts, despite multiple efforts from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign." I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the fact that almost 90% of Democrats were still convinced of the lie that Trump colluded with the Russians, and how that differs from the current right-wing mania about the 2016 election, which affects a much smaller proportion of the country.

rendall 6y ago

People are able to evaluate bias in others and propaganda they disagree with far better than their own biases and propaganda they agree with. No person or group should have the power to decide on their own what is "true"

tanseydavid 6y ago
>> 'No person or group should have the power to decide on their own what is "true"' And yet, the vast majority of adult human beings do this everyday, multiple times per day, without any regard for whether others think they should or not.
- rendall 6y ago
  Yes, I should have appended "... for others"

LarvaFX 6y ago

In his release Barr misrepresented the contents of the report and you are spreading their lies further and further. I encourage you to actually read the report.

marcusverus 6y ago
Found another!

raxxorrax 6y ago

You are downvoted, but I think you are correct on the Russian story. It was made up or at least severely exaggerated to save face in an embarrassing election defeat. I cannot understand how people can still believe this. I asked what kind of messages the Russians used to influence people on large scale for the election - silence ensued. This is ridiculous, like in a cult. This is plainly US propaganda at its finest.

LarvaFX 6y ago
No it's not. Read the report.
- marcusverus 6y ago
  Found one!
- raxxorrax 6y ago
  Sigh... The question remains open. Large scale manipulation needs a large target audience and a message, propaganda should not be hard to identify. I find some Russian espionage operations in the report. It was actually US Americans that told me to expect such things when their mass surveillance went public. I did not find anything too relevant.

ModernMech 6y ago

I swear people here haven't even read the Mueller Report and the Senate Intel Report on this matter. For example, the quote you used came from the Mueller Report. Why did you cite a press article about it? Because what you actually cited was a summary from AG Barr which I think (and I'm not the only one, see below) intentionally and misleadingly left out the first part of that sentence. Here is the full sentence, emphasis added on the part you left out. "Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."[1] Note, "collusion" and "conspiracy" are different things. Conspiracy is used in the legal sense here and requires a meeting of the minds between Trump and the Russian Government (i.e. Putin). That didn't happen, and even some of the most ardent pushers of the collusion idea didn't believe that happened. But collusion is a more nebulous term (not a legal term) that, for many, was used to indicate a tacit agreement between the two groups to arrive at a mutual goal - electing Trump. That is absolutely what happened. When we say there was "collusion" and you point out there was no "conspiracy", therefore we are wrong, that's a straw man. Also note that while this says the investigation did not establish the Trump Campaign coordinated with the Russians, this is not entirely accurate. Trump did put out public statements to the Russians (famously "Russia, if you're listening"), and the Mueller report found that, in fact, there was direct response from Russian hackers to that call in the form of attempted hacks on Hillary Clinton. The Special Counsel didn't consider that "coordination" because it was in public, but.... I mean the evidence is there. A final note, there is stark difference between "the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign..." and "the investigation established that members of the Trump Campaign did not...". The former is not a conclusive statement. You seem to be basing your opinions as if the report contains the latter statement. Remember, Bill Barr put out the second half of that sentence and held back the full Mueller Report from the press so that part would cycle around to news orgs and people would repeat it ad infinitum. A federal judge characterized Bill Barr's summary and public statements as a "misleading" and "lacking candor" (so when you repeat what the AG did by leaving out the first half of that sentence, which really changes the tone and impression left on readers, perhaps take note of how this reflects on you). "The speed by which Attorney General Barr released to the public the summary of Special Counsel Mueller’s principal conclusions, coupled with the fact that Attorney General Barr failed to provide a thorough representation of the findings set forth in the Mueller Report, causes the Court to question whether Attorney General Barr’s intent was to create a one-sided narrative about the Mueller Report — a narrative that is clearly in some respects substantively at odds with the redacted version of the Mueller Report" "The inconsistencies between Attorney General Barr’s statements, made at a time when the public did not have access to the redacted version of the Mueller Report to assess the veracity of his statements, and portions of the redacted version of the Mueller Report that conflict with those statements cause the Court to seriously question whether Attorney General Barr made a calculated attempt to influence public discourse about the Mueller Report in favor of President Trump despite certain findings in the redacted version of the Mueller Report to the contrary." [2] Remember, this is a person who has seen more of the report than you or I have, and he seems to think what Bill Barr wrote is "substantively" inconsistent with what's written behind those black boxes. Oh, and the other thing you left out is the entire second half of the Mueller report. The first half concludes that the investigation was incomplete due to obstruction from the Trump campaign in the form of lying, destruction of evidence, witness tampering, dangling pardons, and trying to fire the investigators themselves. You can't cite the Mueller Report as a conclusive authority without also acknowledging the Trump campaign and Trump specifically obstructed the investigation repeatedly. > Many of you in this thread likely still believe the lie that Trump colluded with the Russians. Can you blame us? The Republican lead Senate released a report which shows that Trump Campaign manager was funneling internal campaign data to a Russian Intelligence Officer [3], while the GRU were busy hacking Trump's opponents. The Mueller report showed that Trump's family was meeting with a Russian spy at Trump's home and Trump lied about it. We also learned from Michael Cohen that Trump was attempting to build a Trump Tower Moscow with a penthouse dedicated to Vladimir Putin, and Trump lied about that as well after telling us he had 0 business in Russia and his campaign had 0 contacts with Russians (there were over 100 contacts). What conclusion are people supposed to draw? As soon as this bit of info from the Republican lead Senate Intelligence Committee gets cleared up, I'd love to hear how the Trump campaign was completely innocent in 2016: > The Senate Intelligence Committee assessed that Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's "high-level access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services" was a "grave counterintelligence threat". The foremost individual was Manafort's employee Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian. The committee identified Kilimnik as a "Russian intelligence officer"; describing that Manafort and Kilimnik had a "close and lasting relationship" even through the 2016 election. Manafort repeatedly tried to "secretly share internal Campaign information with Kilimnik", including "sensitive internal polling data or Campaign strategy". > The Senate Intelligence Committee introduced a new allegation regarding Kilimnik, that he "may have been connected" to the Russian military intelligence's hack and leak of Democratic Party material. However, the report's discussions on this topic are redacted. Manafort's connection with the Russian hack and leak operation is "largely unknown", but possible, given "two pieces of information" the committee found; the details of such information were also redacted. [4] [1] https://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2019/images/04/18/mueller-report-searchable.pdf https://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2019/images/04/18/mueller-report-sea... (The actual Mueller Report) [2] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6796353-barr-ruling.html#document/p1 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6796353-barr-ruling.... [3] Senate Intelligence Committee report on Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential election, Volume V. [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_Intelligence_Committee_report_on_Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_presidential_election#Findings_on_Paul_Manafort_and_Konstantin_Kilimnik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_Intelligence_Committee_...