Here is some of the evidence suggesting “Individual 1” could be a Russian “asset”:
— Trump has a long financial history with Russia. As summarized by Jonathan Chait in an invaluable New York magazine article: “From 2003 to 2017, people from the former USSR made 86 all-cash purchases — a red flag of potential money laundering.
— of Trump properties, totaling $109 million. In 2010, the private-wealth division of Deutsche Bank also loaned him hundreds of millions of dollars during the same period it was laundering billions in Russian money. ‘Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,’ said Donald Jr. in 2008. ‘We don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia,’ boasted Eric Trump in 2014.” According to Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s guilty plea of lying to Congress, Trump was even pursuing his dream of building a Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign with the help of a Vladimir Putin aide. These are the kind of financial entanglements that intelligence services such as the FSB typically use to ensnare foreigners, and they could leave Trump vulnerable to blackmail.
— The Russians interfered in the 2016 U.S. election to help elect Trump president.
— Trump encouraged the Russians to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails on July 27, 2016 (“Russia, if you’re listening”), on the very day that Russian intelligence hackers tried to attack Clinton’s personal and campaign servers.
— There were, according to the Moscow Project, “101 contacts between Trump’s team and Russia linked operatives,” and “the Trump team tried to cover up every single one of them.” The most infamous of these contacts was the June 9, 2016, meeting at Trump Tower between the Trump campaign high command and a Kremlin emissary promising dirt on Clinton. Donald Trump Jr.’s reaction to the offer of Russian assistance? “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.”
— The Trump campaign was full of individuals, such as Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates and Michael Flynn, with suspiciously close links to Moscow.
— Manafort, who ran the Trump campaign for free and was heavily in debt to a Russian oligarch, now admits to offering his Russian business partner, who is suspected of links to Russian intelligence, polling data that could have been used to target the Russian social media campaign on behalf of Trump.
— Trump associate Roger Stone, who was in contact with Russian conduit WikiLeaks, reportedly knew in advance that the Russians had hacked Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails. (Stone has denied it .)
— Once in office, Trump fired Comey to stop the investigation of the “Russia thing”
— and then bragged about having done so to the Russian ambassador and foreign minister while also sharing with them top-secret information. Later, Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions because he would not end the special counsel investigation that resulted after the firing of Comey. As Lawfare editor Benjamin Wittes argues, “the obstruction was the collusion”
— Trump has been effectively protecting the Russians by trying to impede the investigation of their attack on the United States.
— Trump has refused to consistently acknowledge that Russia interfered in the U.S. election or mobilize a government-wide effort to stop future interference. He has accepted Putin’s protestations that the Russians did not meddle in the election over the “high confidence” assessment of the U.S. intelligence community that they did.
— Like no previous president, Trump attacks and undermines the Justice Department and the FBI (“a cancer in our country”) — two institutions that stand on the front lines of combatting Russian espionage and influence operations in the United States.
— Again, like no previous president, Trump attacks and undermines the European Union and NATO
— he has suggested that France should leave the E.U. and that the United States should leave NATO, reportedly saying, “NATO is as bad as NAFTA.” The E.U. and NATO are the two major obstacles to Russian designs in Europe.
— Trump supports populist, pro-Russian leaders in Europe, such as Viktor Orban in Hungary and Marine Le Pen in France, just as the Russians do.
— Trump has praised Putin (“a strong leader”) while trashing just about everyone else from grade-B Hollywood celebrities to leaders of allied nations. Trump even praised Putin for expelling U.S. diplomats and, notwithstanding instruction from his aides (“DO NOT CONGRATULATE”), congratulated Putin on winning a rigged reelection.
— Trump was utterly supine in his meetings with Putin, principally in Hamburg and Helsinki. Even more suspicious, according to a Post article on Saturday, Trump “has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with . . . Putin, including on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials . . . Several officials said they were never able to get a reliable readout of the president’s two-hour meeting in Helsinki.”
— Trump defends the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and repeats other pro-Russian talking points.
— Trump is pulling U.S. troops out of Syria, handing that country to Russia and its ally Iran.
— Trump has effectively done nothing in response to the Russian attack on Ukrainian ships in international waters, thereby encouraging greater Russian aggression.
— Trump is sowing chaos in the government, most recently with a record-breaking partial government shutdown and “acting” appointees in key posts such as the Defense Department and Justice Department, thus furthering a Russian objective of undermining its chief adversary.
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after the election.
How ? A brief non comprehensive analysis.
Domestically, undermining the rule of law by attacking the Justice Department, US Court
system, the FBI, CIA and any other enforcement avenues of our laws.
With foreign policy, undermining NATO
Canada Mexico and Europe and also
targetingChina, supporting MBS and
adopting the Russian playbook in Syria.
Lot of innocent men in prison because the evidence all seemed to point to their guilt. But none of us have any idea until Mueller's report comes out.
If a Washington insider hired a bunch of partisan Republican lawyers to investigate President Hillary, and they were documented contributors to her opponent, and if several of them were caught making antiTrump comments, and if some of them had direct ties to people being investigated who were suspected of setting up Hillary, and if not one person on your entire 17 man roster of investigators was on the other side of the political aisle, and if on top of this, they leaked info to the media in a political fashion in order to hurt Hillary at various key times.......and if the lead investigator was an old personal and professional friend of the FBI Director that Hillary fired bu didn’t recuse himself.........
......................if all of that were the case, then the Left wouldn’t believe the results of the investigation. They would call it a witch hunt.
Mueller has no credibility, and it is of his own choosing.
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We will know plenty more by Spring.
Mueller chose a hyperpartisan team of Democrats. Texts of his team members show bias. He’s close friends with one of the principles in the investigation (Comey) yet chose not to recuse himself (that is highly unprofessional btw). Multiple politically timed leaks. Dirty investigation tactics - going after targets lawyer and blackmailing him into giving him what he wants with the threat of jail time.
Mueller has no credibility other than on the Left. We all knew what Mueller was going to find even before the investigation.
He will have to find that there was no actual collusion because he can’t make up evidence, but he will word it such that you libs can pursue you grassy knoll for years to come.
Mueller never wants this to go to trial or other investigation, or his work will be double checked. Thus he will smear and imply, but not actually find anything.
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This is General Pen Dehuai, the commander in chief of China & North Korea side in Korea war. He is generally viewed as the best military general in communist China. After criticising Mao 's some economic policies, he was accused by Mao of being Khrushchev's asset and working with USSR to replace Mao.
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short for them to get anything out of this investment, and there is nothing to this point indicating Trump is doing anything they want.
All these years? Go Fish?
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Link: https://themoscowproject.org/collusion-chapter/chapter-5/
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They don’t charge until they vet and scrutinize all potential trial evidence.
Unlike state prosecutors who often charge and ask questions later, Bobby Muellers think like a defense attorney, and consider every possible trial defense that might be raised at trial. Once Mueller is confident he can present admissible evidence to overcome any potential trial defenses, then an indictment is sought.
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I know, follow the money.
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Took actual tapes of Nixon’s criminality in his own words to get him. And that was in a much more bipartisan era.
We should ignore the bootlickers since they mostly cancel each other out.
If it’s the other way, no affirmative action will be taken, so it doesn’t matter how the non believers feel. He stays.
Seriously, Nixon serves out his term even with a mountain of evidence against him if he burns those tapes.
Math ain't your strong suit, eh?
Civics not yer strong suit, I see.
Again without the tapes, there would not have been that super majority to remove Nixon despite a mountain of evidence.
I was going to mention that the 1/3rd minority of trump bot electorate (more like 1/5th) wouldn't have a say, but you were already so exposed that I took mercy.
Again, look at Nixon. The mountain didn’t matter. The only thing that got him were his own words on tape. Before that, he survives.
Unfortunately, unless they have this guy on tape, he stays.
How ‘bout write an OpEd and assume the Trump sub alums will ask for his head?
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Maybe it’s the most overused phrase because it turns out to be true so many times. But I am sure it’s all a coincidence. I probably should not post conjecture on a board like this when there are so many informed experts lurking. Let us know your position
My "position?" Trump is not an intelligent man and he's never been held accountable for much. I wouldn't be surprised if he has been explicitly doing the bidding of Putin.