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> Any "fact checkers" get that one right and call it out for what it was? Well, yeah, there were fact checkers there too. https://apnews.com/173eed4c59dd48a78

> Any "fact checkers" get that one right and call it out for what it was? Well, yeah, there were fact checkers there too. https://apnews.com/173eed4c59dd48a78cfc4376255461d1 https://apnews.com/173eed4c59dd48a78cfc4376255461d1 https://www.factcheck.org/2018/02/trump-no-collusion/ https://www.factcheck.org/2018/02/trump-no-collusion/ > Did you find some good content that advocated for positions you disagreed with on that topic? I read a lot of stories and commentary around that time from across the political spectrum, but this wasn't something I had very firm positions on beyond "Russia very likely did attempt to interfere with the election". I believed (and still do) that there was enough evidence to justify the investigation into Russian interference in the election and what role Trump and his campaign had in that, but yeah, there were a lot of accusations flying around, presented as fact, well before the reports were out and I do disagree with that. Since the investigations didn't find that there was no collusion, only that there was not enough evidence for criminal charges the situation hasn't improved much either. There are still folks who claim Trump was proved innocent of any collusion which is inaccurate and those who say the evidence uncovered only supports the accusation that collusion occurred which might be true, but doesn't change the fact that even in total it doesn't amount to anything strong enough for charges. "Innocent until proven guilty" means that Trump isn't guilty of criminal conspiracy.

throwawaylinux 4y ago
The fact checks are very biased and can't bring themselves to state the known facts without bringing up other unrelated things ("Trump claims he didn't collude with Putin but people who are not Trump were indicted for things that were not colluding with Putin to hack the election"), etc. Mueller's report does, in fact, say explicitly that they did not find evidence that Trump or anyone in his campaign "colluded" (conspired) to interfere with the election. The report is public you can see that stated plainly. The "fact" checkers also skirted around the problem that conspiracy theorists from the Clinton campaign and DNC operatives like Schiff knowingly lied and peddled dangerous misinformation to subvert democracy ("ample evidence"). Funny they omitted this relevant detail entirely and yet they thought it was appropriate to go off on tangential topics that were not related to the charges of conspiring to interfere in the election. All goes to show you can't trust fact checkers just because they call themselves fact checkers. > I believed (and still do) that there was enough evidence to justify the investigation into Russian interference in the election and what role Trump and his campaign had in that What evidence? There never was any that wasn't fabricated. When I've asked people this they've been reduced to pointing to Trump's "Russia if you're listening" which was an obvious joke.
- autoexec 4y ago
  > Mueller's report does, in fact, say explicitly that they did not find evidence that Trump or anyone in his campaign "colluded" (conspired) to interfere with the election. The report is public you can see that stated plainly. It does not say that explicitly. You claim it does, so prove it. Show where it says that. I'll even go first: "In particular, the Office did not find evidence likely to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Campaign officials such as Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, and Carter Page acted as agents of the Russian government—or at its direction, control, or request—during the relevant time period." Not having evidence sufficient to prove something beyond a reasonable doubt is not the same as not finding evidence. The report is filled with evidence. It just didn't amount to enough to support charges. The report concludes with: "The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment. At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him." The report is very clear that it does not exonerate Trump. It says they'd outright say he was innocent of obstruction if they thought that was true, but they can't say that. It makes clear that they have evidence. It states very plainly that don't feel the evidence they have is enough to prove that crimes were committed beyond a reasonable doubt. > All goes to show you can't trust fact checkers just because they call themselves fact checkers. That's the great thing about fact checkers. They have to use facts and those facts have to verifiable. You don't have to blindly trust them. You can follow their sources and evaluate it on your own. > What evidence? There never was any that wasn't fabricated. It was clear pretty much immediately that Russia was engaged in a campaign to influence the election. That alone is a big deal. A genuine threat to our democracy. Folks were very concerned about foreign interference in our elections. Evidence that Trump and his campaign my have been involved started with Australia notifying the US that Papadopoulos (an adviser to Trump's campaign) might have known about the hacked emails before they were released. Papadopoulos had told Alexander Downer (an Australian diplomat) that Russia had acquired and could leak material that would be damaging to Clinton. The FBI started to dig in and found there were a lot of links between the Trump campaign and Russia (For examples see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_between_Trump_associates_and_Russian_officials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_between_Trump_associates...). So here we had Trump, with all these connections to Russia, taking advantage of and benefiting directly from the criminal acts committed by Russia to influence the election. And now there was also evidence that Trump's campaign had been provided with information about Russia's illegal actions. That isn't direct evidence that Trump or his campaign did anything criminal, but it's plenty of reason for an investigation. I'm glad they did their job and investigated. For what it's worth, I'm also actually glad Russia hacked the DNC and exposed the fact that they were/are corrupt. They ignored the will of democratic voters by selecting their preferred candidate before the primary and worked directly with Hillary's campaign to undermine her opposition to get her elected. Many people had already been suspecting that was true, but if not for the email hack we wouldn't have had the evidence to prove it.

throwawaylinux 4y ago

The fact checks are very biased and can't bring themselves to state the known facts without bringing up other unrelated things ("Trump claims he didn't collude with Putin but people who are not Trump were indicted for things that were not colluding with Putin to hack the election"), etc. Mueller's report does, in fact, say explicitly that they did not find evidence that Trump or anyone in his campaign "colluded" (conspired) to interfere with the election. The report is public you can see that stated plainly. The "fact" checkers also skirted around the problem that conspiracy theorists from the Clinton campaign and DNC operatives like Schiff knowingly lied and peddled dangerous misinformation to subvert democracy ("ample evidence"). Funny they omitted this relevant detail entirely and yet they thought it was appropriate to go off on tangential topics that were not related to the charges of conspiring to interfere in the election. All goes to show you can't trust fact checkers just because they call themselves fact checkers. > I believed (and still do) that there was enough evidence to justify the investigation into Russian interference in the election and what role Trump and his campaign had in that What evidence? There never was any that wasn't fabricated. When I've asked people this they've been reduced to pointing to Trump's "Russia if you're listening" which was an obvious joke.

autoexec 4y ago
> Mueller's report does, in fact, say explicitly that they did not find evidence that Trump or anyone in his campaign "colluded" (conspired) to interfere with the election. The report is public you can see that stated plainly. It does not say that explicitly. You claim it does, so prove it. Show where it says that. I'll even go first: "In particular, the Office did not find evidence likely to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Campaign officials such as Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, and Carter Page acted as agents of the Russian government—or at its direction, control, or request—during the relevant time period." Not having evidence sufficient to prove something beyond a reasonable doubt is not the same as not finding evidence. The report is filled with evidence. It just didn't amount to enough to support charges. The report concludes with: "The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment. At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him." The report is very clear that it does not exonerate Trump. It says they'd outright say he was innocent of obstruction if they thought that was true, but they can't say that. It makes clear that they have evidence. It states very plainly that don't feel the evidence they have is enough to prove that crimes were committed beyond a reasonable doubt. > All goes to show you can't trust fact checkers just because they call themselves fact checkers. That's the great thing about fact checkers. They have to use facts and those facts have to verifiable. You don't have to blindly trust them. You can follow their sources and evaluate it on your own. > What evidence? There never was any that wasn't fabricated. It was clear pretty much immediately that Russia was engaged in a campaign to influence the election. That alone is a big deal. A genuine threat to our democracy. Folks were very concerned about foreign interference in our elections. Evidence that Trump and his campaign my have been involved started with Australia notifying the US that Papadopoulos (an adviser to Trump's campaign) might have known about the hacked emails before they were released. Papadopoulos had told Alexander Downer (an Australian diplomat) that Russia had acquired and could leak material that would be damaging to Clinton. The FBI started to dig in and found there were a lot of links between the Trump campaign and Russia (For examples see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_between_Trump_associates_and_Russian_officials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_between_Trump_associates...). So here we had Trump, with all these connections to Russia, taking advantage of and benefiting directly from the criminal acts committed by Russia to influence the election. And now there was also evidence that Trump's campaign had been provided with information about Russia's illegal actions. That isn't direct evidence that Trump or his campaign did anything criminal, but it's plenty of reason for an investigation. I'm glad they did their job and investigated. For what it's worth, I'm also actually glad Russia hacked the DNC and exposed the fact that they were/are corrupt. They ignored the will of democratic voters by selecting their preferred candidate before the primary and worked directly with Hillary's campaign to undermine her opposition to get her elected. Many people had already been suspecting that was true, but if not for the email hack we wouldn't have had the evidence to prove it.