monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Citing WaPo as a source is ridiculous.

This is not about you or other A2K members, this is about the Washington Elite.....they had a choice to make, either try to govern through Trump which in part means to try to help him out because do the best they count for America given the situation was the most important thing, or they could "RESIST!" and get Trump out of town ASAP. They had made their choice by the first of Feb. But they have been unable to get the job done.

Don't call me Shirley.

I dismiss them all, and some more than others.

Is that really so hard to understand?

Nicholas Kristof: The Trumps Embraced a Russian Plot

The astonishing email just released by Donald Trump Jr., setting up the meeting last year with a Russian lawyer, is devastating for the White House. Above all, it underscores that the Trump family knew of a secret Russian campaign to interfere in the American election — and embraced it.

Read the whole email exchange, but here’s the key paragraph: “The Crown prosecutor of Russia … offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father. This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”

This passage undermines the Trump and White House position in three crucial ways — not attributed to vague “sources” but in black and white documentary form. Here’s what the email does:

1. It shows that the Russian government was behind the effort. This is the Kremlin, not random Russians.

2. The Russian government is offering “sensitive” information and “official documents” that would incriminate Hillary Clinton. The clear implication is that this material is stolen by spies, probably hacked, for how else would the Russian government have it?

3. The offer is part of a pattern of the Russian “government’s support for Mr. Trump.

Put these three points together, and it’s clear from the email that the Russian government has picked sides and is trying to secretly affect the outcome of the American presidential race by providing stolen information about a former secretary of state. For months, the Trumps have been publicly doubting that the Russian government interfered in the U.S. election, when Donald Trump Jr. had email evidence of this effort in June 2016.

The moment he got this email, Donald Trump Jr. should have called the F.B.I. That’s what the Al Gore campaign did in 2000 when it received a Bush campaign briefing booklet. It’s one thing to do opposition research; everybody does that. It’s another thing to use stolen information secretly provided by a rival nation where journalists and dissidents end up dead.

Instead of calling the F.B.I., Donald Trump Jr. responded “I love it.”

He then summoned Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort to join the meeting. In other words, informed of a covert Russian effort to use espionage to interfere with the U.S. election, he embraced it.

I don’t know whether this is criminal. I do know that it’s disgraceful.

This is also arguably “soft collusion,” acceptance of a foreign power’s interference in an election for one’s own benefit. Whether there was a quid pro quo and “hard collusion,” we’ll have to see. We do have the outlines of a quid pro quo, in which each side was signalling what it wanted: The Trump campaign wanted dirt on the Clintons, and Russia wanted an easing of sanctions if Trump was elected.

After this meeting, the Trumps or the White House denied at least eight times that such a meeting had taken place. That is duplicity on top of collusion.

Nobody should be heartened by this. It’s a sad day for the country.

The ‘Did Trump’s Campaign Collude’ Debate Is Over. The Only Question Now Is How Much.

Not long ago, it was fashionable for pundits to assert there was no evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. That line was shaky at the time, and has been quickly blown to smithereens. We have gone from evidence of collusion to proof, with emails establishing the campaign’s clear interest in accepting Moscow’s help to win the election.

This is a very simple test of the common English understanding of the term “collusion.” Your campaign is told that Russia wants to help you win the election. (“This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”) If you refuse to take the meeting, or perhaps take it only to angrily tell your interlocutor you want no part of the project, then it isn’t collusion. If you take the meeting on the proposed terms, you are colluding. If somehow the information on offer turned out to have no value, and the contacts went no farther, then the meeting was ineffectual collusion. But Donald Trump Jr.’s response clearly indicates that he accepted the meeting in order to collude. (“If it’s what you say I love it.”)

This is the scope of the unresolved question now. How much collusion happened?

[...]

Philip Bump at the Post just flagged this Trump speech from June 7th, four days after Rob Goldstone’s first contact with Don Jr and two days before the meeting at Trump Tower on June 9th.

Trump promises big news about Hillary Clinton’s crimes in a speech on “probably” June 13th.”

Not long ago, it was fashionable for pundits to assert there was no evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. That line was shaky at the time, and has been quickly blown to smithereens. We have gone from evidence of collusion to proof, with emails establishing the campaign’s clear interest in accepting Moscow’s help to win the election.

glitterbag wrote:

georgeob1 wrote:

Hardly a rational response. Enjoy your pouting.

Tut, tut, tut, harrumph, (clears throat loudly). tut tut sputter (adjusts monocle), tut tut tut checks pocket watch, puffs on prized Calabash, chortles dryly, heaves amused sigh, takes a deep draw from the Calabash, leans back and attempts to blow smoke rings into the rarified air.

Tres amusant, merci mon bon ami

And a titter ran thru the crowd

I warned you george!

It turns out there is a crime to go to a meeting with a foreign national accepting a thing of value.

The fact that he failed to get that thing of value because the foreign national might play a factor in it, I don't know. But Trump Jr (and Kushner and Monafort) attempted to break federal election law.

Quote:

11 CFR 110.20 - Prohibition on contributions, donations, expenditures, independent expenditures, and disbursements by foreign nationals (52 U.S.C. 30121, 36 U.S.C. 510).

(b)Contributions and donations by foreign nationals in connection with elections. A foreign national shall not, directly or indirectly, make a contribution or a donation of money or other thing of value, or expressly or impliedly promise to make a contribution or a donation, in connection with any Federal, State, or local election.

Cornel Law School

From what I read of it, the act Trump Jr attempted is against federal election law written up as statutes. (I think, in any case, pretty sure it illegal)

I have the suspicion you are attempting to throw another red herring into the debate in a dishonest attempt to discredit me. It works.

Well, I think I have been giving you more of my time than you deserve, your only purpose is to try and find some small meaningless mistake I may have made and get me tangled in knots (without disproving the main point), which is not hard to do. I am finished with you, please do not respond to any of my post because I will not be responding to you.

Michael Gerhardt, a law professor who testified in President Bill Clinton’s impeachment hearings, said Trump’s most likely offense could have been violating a federal election law against soliciting something “of value” from foreign nationals.

So, if Veselnitskaya actually had what she said she had and Trump took it and used it by revealing it to the press, then he would have broke federal election law. As it is, not sure.