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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

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
  > It does not say that explicitly. You claim it does, so prove it. "The Office considered in particular whether contacts between Trump Campaign officials and Russia-linked individuals could trigger liability for the crime of conspiracy—either under statutes that have their own conspiracy language (e.g., 18 U.S.C. §§ 1349, 1951(a)), or under the general conspiracy statute (18 U.S.C. § 371). The investigation did not establish that the contacts described in Volume I, Section IV, supra, amounted to an agreement to commit any substantive violation of federal criminal law—including foreign-influence and campaign-finance laws, both of which are discussed further below. The Office therefore did not charge any individual associated with the Trump Campaign with conspiracy to commit a federal offense arising from Russia contacts, either under a specific statute or under Section 371’s offenses clause. The Office also did not charge any campaign official or associate with a conspiracy under Section 371’s defraud clause. That clause criminalizes participating in an agreement to obstruct a lawful function of the U.S. government or its agencies through deceitful or dishonest means. See Dennis v. United States , 384 U.S. 855, 861 (1966); Hammerschmidt v. United States , 265 U.S. 182, 188 (1924); see also United States v. Concord Mgmt. & Consulting LLC, 347 F. Supp. 3d 38, 46 (D.D.C. 2018). The investigation did not establish any agreement among Campaign officials— or between such officials and Russia-linked individuals—to interfere with or obstruct a lawful function of a government agency during the campaign or transition period. And, as discussed in Volume I, Section V.A, supra, the investigation did not identify evidence that any Campaign official or associate knowingly and intentionally participated in the conspiracy to defraud that the Office charged, namely, the active-measures conspiracy described in Volume I, Section II, supra. Accordingly, the Office did not charge any Campaign associate or other U.S. person with conspiracy to defraud the United States based on the Russia-related contacts described in Section IV above." It _also_ contains weasel wording to the effect that not finding evidence does not mean none exists, and talking about reasonable doubt when considering charging, but that's pretty meaningless because any circumstantial evidence falls under that category. There'd probably be more circumstantial evidence that Obama colluded with Putin to "hack the election" than Trump did, so making these bold *not exonerated* statements is ridiculous. Adam Schiff, despite years lying and disseminating false information and conspiracy theories in an effort to overturn a democratic election from his privileged position in an intelligence committee, never elaborated on any of that alleged "ample evidence" that he repeatedly lied about seeing. Wouldn't he have tried to save some face if anything remotely compelling was actually there? There never was. > 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. That's not evidence Trump colluded with Putin to hack the election. Obama actually was not concerned about it, after secretly promising Putin he would be "more flexible", he ordered US cyber security agency to stand down and cease countering Russia's cyber attacks in the lead up to the election. https://news.yahoo.com/obama-cyber-chief-confirms-stand-order-russian-cyberattacks-summer-2016-204935758.html https://news.yahoo.com/obama-cyber-chief-confirms-stand-orde... While that was happening he was also lying to the American people about the election being absolutely secure and under no threats. There's far more circumstantial evidence he colluded with Putin to hack the election than Trump did, if that's the standard of "evidence" we're going by. > 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_between_Trump_associates...). Claims by some person that some other person claimed that they somehow knew about Russia having damaging information isn't evidence to open an investigation of treason on a political campaign. > 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. That isn't direct evidence that Trump or his campaign did anything criminal, but it's plenty of reason for an investigation. This is just more handwaving about "all these connections". There's no actual evidence. Probable cause is more than just "oh a friend of a friend told me", or "oh he knew all these people". Imagine thinking that justified wiretapping and investigating a political campaign -- you could spy on anybody. Look at all Biden's connections and allegations about his links with foreign countries. Or Clinton's. > I'm glad they did their job and investigated. They never had solid probable cause for such a wide ranging investigation and it really looks like a politically motivated muck raking exercise, and a baseless conspiracy theory peddled by the DNC and their lackeys in the media and bureaucracy. > For what it's worth, I'm 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. There isn't even good evidence that it was Russia that exfiltrated the emails.

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
> It does not say that explicitly. You claim it does, so prove it. "The Office considered in particular whether contacts between Trump Campaign officials and Russia-linked individuals could trigger liability for the crime of conspiracy—either under statutes that have their own conspiracy language (e.g., 18 U.S.C. §§ 1349, 1951(a)), or under the general conspiracy statute (18 U.S.C. § 371). The investigation did not establish that the contacts described in Volume I, Section IV, supra, amounted to an agreement to commit any substantive violation of federal criminal law—including foreign-influence and campaign-finance laws, both of which are discussed further below. The Office therefore did not charge any individual associated with the Trump Campaign with conspiracy to commit a federal offense arising from Russia contacts, either under a specific statute or under Section 371’s offenses clause. The Office also did not charge any campaign official or associate with a conspiracy under Section 371’s defraud clause. That clause criminalizes participating in an agreement to obstruct a lawful function of the U.S. government or its agencies through deceitful or dishonest means. See Dennis v. United States , 384 U.S. 855, 861 (1966); Hammerschmidt v. United States , 265 U.S. 182, 188 (1924); see also United States v. Concord Mgmt. & Consulting LLC, 347 F. Supp. 3d 38, 46 (D.D.C. 2018). The investigation did not establish any agreement among Campaign officials— or between such officials and Russia-linked individuals—to interfere with or obstruct a lawful function of a government agency during the campaign or transition period. And, as discussed in Volume I, Section V.A, supra, the investigation did not identify evidence that any Campaign official or associate knowingly and intentionally participated in the conspiracy to defraud that the Office charged, namely, the active-measures conspiracy described in Volume I, Section II, supra. Accordingly, the Office did not charge any Campaign associate or other U.S. person with conspiracy to defraud the United States based on the Russia-related contacts described in Section IV above." It _also_ contains weasel wording to the effect that not finding evidence does not mean none exists, and talking about reasonable doubt when considering charging, but that's pretty meaningless because any circumstantial evidence falls under that category. There'd probably be more circumstantial evidence that Obama colluded with Putin to "hack the election" than Trump did, so making these bold *not exonerated* statements is ridiculous. Adam Schiff, despite years lying and disseminating false information and conspiracy theories in an effort to overturn a democratic election from his privileged position in an intelligence committee, never elaborated on any of that alleged "ample evidence" that he repeatedly lied about seeing. Wouldn't he have tried to save some face if anything remotely compelling was actually there? There never was. > 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. That's not evidence Trump colluded with Putin to hack the election. Obama actually was not concerned about it, after secretly promising Putin he would be "more flexible", he ordered US cyber security agency to stand down and cease countering Russia's cyber attacks in the lead up to the election. https://news.yahoo.com/obama-cyber-chief-confirms-stand-order-russian-cyberattacks-summer-2016-204935758.html https://news.yahoo.com/obama-cyber-chief-confirms-stand-orde... While that was happening he was also lying to the American people about the election being absolutely secure and under no threats. There's far more circumstantial evidence he colluded with Putin to hack the election than Trump did, if that's the standard of "evidence" we're going by. > 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_between_Trump_associates...). Claims by some person that some other person claimed that they somehow knew about Russia having damaging information isn't evidence to open an investigation of treason on a political campaign. > 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. That isn't direct evidence that Trump or his campaign did anything criminal, but it's plenty of reason for an investigation. This is just more handwaving about "all these connections". There's no actual evidence. Probable cause is more than just "oh a friend of a friend told me", or "oh he knew all these people". Imagine thinking that justified wiretapping and investigating a political campaign -- you could spy on anybody. Look at all Biden's connections and allegations about his links with foreign countries. Or Clinton's. > I'm glad they did their job and investigated. They never had solid probable cause for such a wide ranging investigation and it really looks like a politically motivated muck raking exercise, and a baseless conspiracy theory peddled by the DNC and their lackeys in the media and bureaucracy. > For what it's worth, I'm 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. There isn't even good evidence that it was Russia that exfiltrated the emails.