I've been busy lately and haven't had time to check in regularly, so I'm just wondering if there have been any breaking stories that show collusion between Russia and Donald Trump? Since I'm a taxpayer and therefore partially funding the Mueller investigation, I just want to know if my money is being well-spent. So.....is there ANY evidence whatsoever of collusion?
So far, no direct evidence. Just a lot of hearsay and tenuous allegations. There is some digital evidence (which is over my head because I'm not in IT) that Russia tried to influence American voters with shill social media pages, but no evidence that anyone in the Trump campaign was involved. Most of the stories that have come out have been along the lines of "Source Claims Unspecified Evidence Will Be Found of Unspecified Actions of Collusion Between Unspecified Parties" and "Collusion Not Yet Ruled Out, Still Under Investigation." In the meantime, Trump just made Russia extremely angry by going after Syria. Trouble in paradise?
You have been a forum moderator long enough to know that the answer to this class of questions is "try Google". You ask about things widely available online "breaking stories", and no one knows how you define "collusion" and "evidence". This is only done to initiate a flame war; it's a bit unusual to see a Moderator doing that. To be fair, "Politics" is a sand box for flame wars, so it's somewhat justified. It is the work of the criminal justice system to determine if a crime can be proven to the legal standard. Mueller is doing that. It is quite possible that no prosecutable accusation will be found against specifically Donald J. Trump (which is, incidentally, the outcome of every investigation of Hillary Clinton. Of course, Bill was credibly accused of a crime - lie under oath. Just like Sessions.). A few of his associated were indicted already. Another question entirely is whether Trump campaign had improper contacts with Russia. And the answer is yes, yes it had. To be clear, Ambassador Kisliak, Agalarov family, Natalia Veselnitskaya, Russia Today, Oleg Deripaska, WikiLeaks, and Paul Manafort are all agents of Russia. Of Russian intelligence agencies, to be exact. Just off the top of my head, we've seen a willingness of Trump campaign principals to receive illegally obtained help ("dirt on Clinton") from Russia; a long time Russian asset in debt of major Russian business/crime magnate (Manafort/Deripaska) given major Trump campaign position (without compensation), the same magnate taped secretly talking foreign policy (specifically US/Russia relations) with a powerful Russian cabinet official, and Russia-aligned WikiLeaks directly feeding a line to Trump Jr. for Trump Sr. later use on the stump. Also we see a lot of minor favours from Trump to Putin, from propaganda wins to watered down sanctions and suspiciously inconsequential military action. In short, what we see is intense, and reciprocated, interest of Russian "competent authorities" towards Trump. Is any of this "evidence of collusion"? I'd say yes, you may disagree. None is definite (yet). But optics of this is already 1000x worse than Uranium One and Benghazi put together.
First Kizmet went missing, then you. We were about ready to file a missing persons report on you! No, nothing's changed in that regard. Nothing that I can see. What worries me is that there isn't really any visible evidence that a crime ever occurred that would justify such a broad and open-ended criminal investigation in the first place. In a well-functioning democracy, prosecutors loyal to one political party can't just open broad investigations of political rivals, bringing all of the law-enforcement resources of the state to bear, based simply on political hostility and the a-priori conviction that the opponent must have done something illegal (and by God we'll find it). "Show me the man, I'll find you the crime." Attributed to Stalin's secret-police chief Lavrentiy Beria.
What in criminal terms would be "improper contacts." "Willingness to receive" would get you laughed out of court.
It’s possible that the campaign finance-money laundering issues could, at some point, converge with collusion issues but that’s speculation (although not really far fetched). But even if there in never any evidence of collusion it really doesn’t matter at this point. There are so many points of investigation occurring at this point and any of them could lead to criminal/impeachment charges. The fact that some disapprove of all this changes nothing. The investigation will continue until its conclusion whether you like it or not.
I won't be even let into your court, with my one lousy year of law studies at Northumbria. Look, when Trump ratted out Israeli-originated intel to Kislyak in the Oval Office, he was firmly within his rights: as President, he has all the nation's secrets for himself to do as he pleases - even reveal to enemies like he actually did. This fact didn't make it any easier on Mossad, who had to evacuate a valuable undercover agents, nor on CIA to try and re-establish trust with key allies. One does not necessarily have to break a law to cause grievous harm. Trump does it every day using his pulpit and perfectly First Amendment-protected loghorrea. P. S. I personally believe that laws were broken at that Trump Tower meeting. Most likely, no one will be punished for it; the one matter that likely would see some traction is Trump's attempts to cover it up. I, for one, will stay tuned.
The above reads like computer gibberish: http://thinkzone.wlonk.com/Gibber/Gibber.htm President Donald J. Trump did not collude with Russians to win the United States election. Trump fairly won the popular electoral vote. DNC crimes have not had a commensurate level of investigation i.e. Uranium One, HRC's destruction of evidence, etc. President Donald J. Trump will win a second election and will be in office for a full eight (8) years.
There is no "popular electoral vote". There's the popular vote, in which Trump was second overall, and the electoral vote, in which he prevailed despite not having gained the support of a plurality of voters. I actually agree with that. Although had she won I expect that would have been different. I don't suppose you'd care to make a predictions about the midterm elections?
I will! http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/384368-2018-elections-will-be-nationwide-referendum-on-president-trump
President Trump was extremely popular with the electoral voters who cast their ballots for him. The MSM is reporting that the midterm elections are essentially already won by "the blue wave." However, if the MSM is reporting it, then it's obviously disinformation. For those of you with short memories, please recollect that prior to the casting of the electoral ballots, the MSM reported that HRC had already won the presidential election by "the blue wave." But it's time to be fair because there is plenty of mud to sling. Many patriotic Republicans are totally, thoroughly and royally disgusted with "deep state RINOS" who are no different than their DNC-socialists counterparts. A true RINO loves socialism (or deep state communism, to be frank).
