There's much more than that. Just a few of the others. 11. JD Gordon lied about meeting with Russians, but also met with Russians 12. JD Gordon and Paul Manafort also lied about Trump's campaign being behind the change in GOP platform to make it not critical of Russia's military aggression and invasion of Ukraine. 13. Carter Paige lied about meeting with the Russian ambassador, but later it was found that he did indeed meet with him, and has since admitted it. 14. Mike Pence lied about being notified that Flynn was being paid by a foreign govt. while he worked for the Trump campaign. There's more than that, but those are just some of the other important ones. That's a lot of lies and covering up for people who supposedly didn't do anything wrong. Nobody has been able to really answer the question why all of these different people are lying. Despite all of this evidence and more, people are saying those that want answers are grasping at straws and have gone overboard.
Can people please stop assuming Anti-Trump is Pro-Hillary? I didn't want that corporate shill either, but she still would be an upgrade over Trump.
Russians Got Flynn To Take A Pay Cut For Moscow Speech LOL... my favorite part: Flynn’s rep responds, “Great news! He has accepted (followed by a smiley face emoticon) … I can get a contract over to you stat.” http://www.nbcnews.com/card/russians-got-flynn-take-pay-cut-moscow-speech-n734466
Love this Salon writer's reaction to Sean Spicer trying to suggest that Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort “played a very limited role for a very limited amount of time.” Sean Spicer’s laughable effort to distance President Trump from Paul Manafort https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...mp-from-paul-manafort/?utm_term=.49d70bd2e5bb
No wonder Trump and Spicer are trying to disown former campaign manager (er, I mean limited role for limited time) Manafort... New documents show Trump aide laundered payments from party with Moscow ties, lawmaker alleges https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...83e627dc120_story.html?utm_term=.07903a5d53b4
Someone will take the fall for this but it won't be Trump. They will have no problem throwing Paul Manafort under the bus for example.
So if an investigation into playing fast and loose with email security protocols gets you "LOCKED UP" then an investigation into collusion with a hostile foreign government to influence our Presidential election should get you shot out of a cannon into an active volcano.
They are already trying to distance themselves from Manafort. They claimed he only had a limited role in the campaign. They claimed that even though he was the campaign manager which is hardly a limited role.
That's the problem, you cannot prove Trump did anything wrong, the best you can do is get a couple of advisers, because I do not believe Trump had contacts with the Russians directly if there is any collusion at all.
At this point, I don't know that any Trump advisors contact with the Russians was illicit in any way. But there are reasons to look into it.
Yes, they should look of course, but the worst case for the administration is a couple advisers colluded with the Russian "on their own".
I definitely wouldn't say that's "worst case", but it is one of the more likely scenarios that come of this- Scenarios- A. Comey comes out (ALA Hillary investigation) and says that there is nothing prosecutable, but exercises caution to the Trump campaign to be more careful in the future with perceptions & vetting of personnel (like Flynn for example). B. The case becomes entangled in politics too much & Comey & the DOJ recommend handing case over to Special Prosecutor. C. Comey & FBI have enough evidence to start getting warrants and charging Trump officials guilty of crimes (Trump would seem unlikely to be included if this happens. No way they will want this on their hands). D. After going to Special Prosecutor, a commission is reported which finds multiple offenses by the Trump campaign (Trump would certainly be in hot water & be taken to house for impeachment) E. After going through Special Prosecutor, a commission is reported which finds no crimes committed and connects the dots ala Warren Commission & 911 Commission to explain their findings. Certainly A. is best case scenario here, but I think there are several possibilities beyond just going Scott Free. I think C is very likely too (especially with Flynn being pretty red handed w/ Emoluments clause), and this ultimately being something Trump can survive but not without throwing a wet blanket on the rest of his term & possibly creating enough of a black eye to where the GOP throw someone out to contest him in the primaries in 2020. C. would be unlikely IMO if Trump is being charged with anything, and D. certainly is unlikely. I'd be surprised if Trump is impeached/charged with a crime, & I'd also be surprised if something came out of this that follows his presidency and solidifies his place in history as one of the worst Presidents in history based on the overwhelming amount of scandals & corruption. I just don't see how a president can move on from this (unless Comey does him a solid and comes out ASAP to blow down), but he is Donald Trump who got elected despite bragging about sexual assault & being accused by more than 10 women, running an openly racist campaign, and having the worst debate performances ever in political history. If he can win the presidency despite that who knows, but no other President in the History of the US could survive this Russia thing either way it goes.
People probably thought this about Nixon early on in the investigation. Things just work their way up over time. It's hard for me to believe that anyone would do anything that severe without telling Trump since he's such an authoritative figure. I can see McCain or W. Bush not being aware of anything. There might be some deliberations about if crimes committed before someone is in elected office is eligible for impeachment. It's not clear in the constitution. Another question is if Trump's lawyers could appeal a guilty conviction by the senate in an impeachment to the Supreme Court and if he could keep his job pending appeal. The US has only impeached a president twice but neither president was found guilty of the accused crimes and convicted by the Senate. I think most people believe Nixon would have been impeached if he hadn't resigned. I'm assuming he would have been removed by the senate but who knows. One thing I don't believe I've seen are a list of possible crimes that he could have committed if any of the allegations are found to be true. Treason might be a stretch as it has been defined over the years in laws and rulings. I think this might lead to new legislation about cyber terrorism in addition to physical but Trump and his team would not be subject to any new laws. There might be a question as to what kind of computer crime this would be. Email hacking could be a misdemeanor. I don't think the felony hacking laws apply to this situation directly but I'm only versed through google searches and a couple articles. The exact intention behind the hacking isn't really similar to anything that has been tried (I don't believe). The yahoo hackers were charged with hacking, wire fraud, trade secret theft and economic espionage. I'm guessing a huge factor will be if money exchanged hands. What if policy promises were made like the US's stance against Russian aggression in Asia? Are we just talking about if the president is guilty of the Logan Act? Would that be enough for 19 House Reps to impeach him especially when it'll likely be close to primaries or midterms? Would 17 GOP senators vote to convict him?
If I had my guess based only on what we know and what we don't know yet plus reading articles on it, it's this. Trump's folks were all tied to Russia in some business dealings they thought would fly under the radar. The business dealings may have been on the edge or over the edge of legality, but they made a pretty penny on it. This may or may not have included Trump. The Russians assured these folks that their dealings would at least appear legal or not raise any red flags. While dealing with the Russians Trump's folks were benefitting financially while not selling secrets or anything that they thought was treasonous. They probably liked and got along well with the the Russians with which they dealt. These weren't demons out to overthrow their old enemy the United States. The contacts probably talked about how much money and business opportunities would be increased if they could just get rid of those pesky sanctions. Trump's people obviously agreed with that sentiment. Over time the Russians probably hinted about how useless NATO was, and that was part of the problem. So meanwhile Trump's people started as business only and weren't really paying attention when the policy issues were brought up with them. They never thought of this as political dealing or anything untoward. Manafort certainly got in deeper, and was probably more knowledgeable about what was happening. It's probably also likely that Roger Stone was given knowledge of the hacks flowing between wikileaks and the Russians, but he felt it was just part of the fortunes of war and was happy to use it to help his campaign. Of course legally and ethically there are problems with all of that. Most of it was just business relations but there were cases with certain folks that went over the boundary. This is purely my guess, but we'll see.
The story on Trump's former campaign chairman gets worse... Paul Manafort’s plan to ‘greatly benefit Putin government’ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...an-greatly-benefit-putin-government/99483224/
"Russia if you are listening ..." Technically maybe not collusion ... not secret ... no conspiracy ... but publicly asking a foreign state to interfere in a Presidential election ... on face value that would be treason. For those keeping score at home the punishment for treason is ... "shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States". A great time to be alive.
