Quote:
Originally Posted by goofyballer
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
I am paying attention to the nitty gritty as usual, which is, ironically, why I have so many basic questions. The phrase "hacking the election" is a phrase I have read, not one I came up with. I'll just set that to the side, maybe indefinitely. What I am wanting to know is how team Trump actually helped the Russians in the alleged hacking into the emails. I've gone over some possible scenarios in other threads. Those had to be attempts at comedy because I couldn't think of how it would actually go down, as in what role could team Trump possibly play that seems reasonable. Apparently I'm not the only one drawing blanks on that topic. Strangely, that doesn't seem to slow most people down. Actual evidence would be nice, but do we even have a realistic notional scenario?
It seems like you're not focusing on the Russia conspiracy. I think that is wise. Having looked into several conspiracy theories and believing in several that most don't, from the 2004 Ohio national election being stolen for Bush to the government killing MLK (please someone come at me on that one) to my 9/11 agnosticism, if I am telling you there is no "there" there...well...then there probably isn't.
Quote:
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.
It seemed to me that rigor is a turn-off in alpha.
Quote:
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.
I'm not so sure it is a red flag. It is probably obstruction, which is a crime itself, but I don't think it is highly indicative of Trump's guilt on the underlying issue. Tump would want Comey to back off whether Flynn (or Trump) was truly guilty or not.