Quote:
Originally Posted by Deuces McKracken
I am asking that someone who did listen to it tell me where the evidence is that Russia colluded with the Trump campaign to "hack" the election. Actually, I would settle for an explanation of what is meant by "hack the election".
So, I didn't listen to the hearings, but asking about "hacking the election" is so off-base that I think we need to take a step back here and start with the basics.
I'm not following the Russia stuff super closely beyond general news reading, so for those of you who are, feel free to correct me if any of these details are wrong.
So, super basic setup:
- Russia engaged in a campaign to try to influence the US election
- this involved things like spreading fake news on the more innocent end and hacking Democratic organizations to obtain and release damaging info on the more illegal end
- all on their own, this doesn't necessarily amount to much beyond "Putin's a dick and wanted Trump to win", but...
- multiple members of the Trump campaign had improper contact with Russian officials during the campaign which they hid
- these officials include Jeff Sessions (who lied about that contact during his confirmation hearings and was later forced into recusing himself from Russia matters), Paul Manafort (Trump's former campaign chief), and maybe Jared Kushner, also there's this weird guy named Carter Page whose name keeps popping up but I don't really know who he is
- ...and of course there's also Michael Flynn, who lied about his contact (or maybe he told the Trump team who then lied to the public about his contact, it's hard to keep all this straight) and eventually was forced to resign over it, which he's now under investigation for
- on top of that, Flynn failed to disclose that he was working as a paid lobbyist/agent of Turkey
at the same time he was making foreign policy decisions involving Turkey, which is possibly the most ****ed up part of all this
- Donald Trump pressured the director of the FBI to drop the investigation into Michael Flynn, and when he didn't, he fired him
There are probably a crapton of details I'm missing that someone in the main P forum would be furious about omitting but that's the general idea. The initial purpose of the investigation was to try to figure out if the improper contact w/ Russia ever involved coordination on the Russian influence campaign, which would be
very illegal. But, certainly investigations can evolve over time, and Trump pressuring Comey to drop the investigation into Flynn is a huge red flag.
Like, Bitchi might not know this part of history (I'd assume everyone does, but this is P7 so who knows - Sushy not knowing this is weird, he's definitely old enough to have been around for this stuff) but like, Nixon didn't order the Watergate break-in, it wasn't Nixon's illegal activity being investigated at first. The now-famous "smoking gun" tape that brought down his presidency is the one where Nixon tries to...hm, this is kinda awkward...well, I'll let
Wikipedia explain:
Quote:
In that tape, Nixon agrees that administration officials should approach Richard Helms, Director of the CIA, and Vernon A. Walters, Deputy Director, and ask them to request L. Patrick Gray, Acting Director of the FBI, to halt the Bureau's investigation into the Watergate break-in on the grounds that it was a national security matter. The special prosecutor felt that Nixon, in so agreeing, had entered into a criminal conspiracy whose goal was the obstruction of justice.
Sound familiar?
He resigned three days after its release.