No Trump defenders left ...?

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

So, in early 2016, Erickson was in contact with a senior official on the Trump campaign, Rick Dearborn...

Wait. Who the “F” is Rick Dearborn?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Dearborn

Rick Allen Dearborn (born July 19, 1965[3]) was the White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Legislative, Intergovernmental Affairs and Implementation in the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. Prior to this role, he was the executive director of Donald Trump's presidential transition team.

Before working on the Trump campaign as a policy aide, Dearborn served as chief of staff to former Alabama senator turned U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. While there is no evidence Dearborn did anything nefarious, CNN’s report also states that investigators hope to establish whether Dearborn helped to arrange the two meetings Sessions had with former Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak; meetings that Sessions did not at first disclose during his Senate confirmation hearing for the Department of Justice’s top job and that led to his recusal from the Trump-Russia investigation.

Who the “F” is Sergey Kislyak?

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/16/kislyak ... -long.html



https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-rus ... -the-crime

The conspiracy case--the heart of Mueller’s efforts-- almost certainly boils down to an old-fashioned quid pro quo. Flynn’s “quid”—the substance of his recorded conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak— was lifting the sanctions that President Obama imposed on Russia in late 2016 and the earlier sanctions related to Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine. The “quo” was collusion (“conspiracy” in legal terms) with Russians to harm Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, which Flynn effectively admitted was “material” to his lies after the election. Anyone associated with this deal is in deep legal trouble.

The conspiracy started with Russians violating the federal computer crime statute, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, by hacking into the computers at the Democratic National Committee and stealing emails that were then distributed publicly by Guccifer 2.0 and Wikileaks—both linked to Russians— in ways that hurt Clinton. According to the Department of Homeland Security, Russia also tried to penetrate the voting systems of 21 states.

So, we see here a direct relationship with Trump and Trump's people resulting in Trump's favorable actions as liaised through Kislyak. Dearborn was a facilitator.

And he was just one of many. I could keep going, and I may. But I have to tell you this is the point. You have overlapping Russian intel agencies, you have dozens of actors, and you have the Trump family who seem to be caught in a desire to use their connections to further their business interests, but at the same time are hedged in by US law which they violated through their associates, aided by their facilitators, or just brazenly did whatever they wanted to do because 'Screw you'.

When someone like Markk bee bops along and states something so absurdly and overtly ignorant like, "Hurr hurr, show me the durr durr. Ah! You can't, so Trump is good to go! HUUUUURR. I win.", it's so defeating because you realize how thoroughly corrupt people can get away with things like money laundering, murdering people, invading the Crimea and parts of Ukraine, getting us out of Afghanistan & Syria, corrupting our alliances in Europe, and causing us to question our own institutions because they can put some money into a hotelier's pocket.

“F”.

- Doc

[_Maksutov]

[_Maksutov]

When the Republicans had the goods on the evil Democrats...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizzagate ... #Responses

Michael T. Flynn and Michael Flynn Jr.

In November 2016, Michael T. Flynn, then on President-Elect Donald Trump's transition team and Trump's designate for National Security Advisor, posted multiple tweets on Twitter containing conspiratorial material regarding Hillary Clinton alleging that Clinton's campaign manager, John Podesta, drank the blood and bodily fluids of other humans in Satanic rituals, which Politico says "soon morphed into the '#pizzagate' conspiracy theory involving Comet Ping Pong".[85] On November 2, 2016, Flynn tweeted a link to a story with unfounded accusations and wrote, "U decide - NYPD Blows Whistle on New Hillary Emails: Money Laundering, Sex Crimes w Children, etc ... MUST READ!" The tweet was shared by over 9,000 people, but was deleted from Flynn's account sometime between December 12–13, 2016.[82]

After the shooting incident at Comet Ping Pong, Michael Flynn Jr., Michael T. Flynn's son and also a member of Trump's transition team, tweeted; "Until #Pizzagate proven to be false, it'll remain a story. The left seems to forget #PodestaEmails and the many 'coincidences' tied to it."[86][87][88] On December 6, 2016, Flynn Jr. was forced out of Trump's transition team.[89] Spokesman Jason Miller did not identify the reason for Flynn Jr.'s dismissal; however, The New York Times reported that other officials had confirmed it was related to the tweet.[90]

..................

Oh yeah, here's a wonderful source that Trump still swears by.

..................

Alex Jones and InfoWars

After the Comet Ping Pong shooting, Alex Jones backed off from the idea that the D.C. pizzeria was the center of the conspiracy.[51] On December 4, Infowars.com uploaded a YouTube video that linked Pizzagate to the November 13 death of a sex-worker-rights activist. The video falsely claimed that she had been investigating a link between the Clinton Foundation and human trafficking in Haiti and it speculated that she had been murdered in connection with her investigation. According to the activist's former employer, her family and her friends, her death was in fact a suicide and she was not investigating the Clinton Foundation.[81] By December 14, Infowars had removed two out of three of its Pizzagate-related videos.[82]

In February 2017, Alefantis' lawyers sent Jones a letter demanding an apology and retraction. Under Texas law, Jones was given a month to comply or be subject to a libel suit.[83] In March 2017, Alex Jones apologized to Alefantis for promulgating the conspiracy theory, saying "To my knowledge today, neither Mr. Alefantis, nor his restaurant Comet Ping Pong, were involved in any human trafficking as was part of the theories about Pizzagate that were being written about in many media outlets and which we commented upon."[84]

.....................

But let's remember that Mueller is not credible but the Trump club is.

[_canpakes]

I wish there was an r/bestof type feature for docs posts here. Great summary but I’m guessing it’s going to fall on deaf ears. I’m expecting a response along the lines of “but show me, specifically, in the affidavit where it says that Trump colluded with ‘putina’“.

Your patience is saintly.

You could have the most damning event recorded by half a dozen folks and posted for review, and upon viewing it, folks like subs would say, “... but, deepfakes!”, and then go prattling on about some inane conspiratorial whataboutism regarding Hillary Clinton or Obama, for which no actual evidence of any kind exists.

Similarly, Doc lays out details about Butina, and Markk starts in on “What about Obama?”, as if Obama was colluding with Russians while apparently running a secret third term Presidential bid.

[_Maksutov]

I wish there was an r/bestof type feature for docs posts here. Great summary but I’m guessing it’s going to fall on deaf ears. I’m expecting a response along the lines of “but show me, specifically, in the affidavit where it says that Trump colluded with ‘putina’“.

Your patience is saintly.

You could have the most damning event recorded by half a dozen folks and posted for review, and upon viewing it, folks like subs would say, “... but, deepfakes!”, and then go prattling on about some inane conspiratorial whataboutism regarding Hillary Clinton or Obama, for which no actual evidence of any kind exists.

Similarly, Doc lays out details about Butina, and Markk starts in on “What about Obama?”, as if Obama was colluding with Russians while apparently running a secret third term Presidential bid.

Next we'll hear, "I'm not really a Republican" or "I'm not really a Trump supporter" followed by a fresh "but whatabout..."

It's like a Kabuki dance. An intellectual flea circus.

[_Xenophon]

Trump endorsed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan today. I swear, he's scientifically designed to show how much so many conservatives will put partisanship over their supposed political principles.

I missed your mention of this on my first read-through but it deserves a bump. This is one of those things that slipped by on a full news cycle but really shouldn't have. In some alternate reality, where the president is sane, it would have been a huge friggin' deal that President not only endorsed this action but used the Russian talking points about it to do so.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

...and Markk starts in on “What about Obama?”, as if Obama was colluding with Russians while apparently running a secret third term Presidential bid.

That's funny, because that was the GOP's angle waaaaay back in December 2016, even going as far as trying to lay the blame for failure to investigate at Obama's feet, when in reality it was Mitch McConnell shutting down any attempt to investigate the Russians.

And then when Russia-gate started to gain steam, because how could it not? damned GOP intelligence chairman Devin Nunes states in Feb 2017, “There’s no evidence of anything” regarding Russia-Trump campaign contacts.

https://www.salon.com/2017/02/27/gop-in ... -contacts/

During a press conference with reporters on Monday, Rep. Nunes downplayed claims that the White House had asked members of the CIA and FBI to squelch reports of contact between Russia and members of Trump's presidential campaign

A month later House Democrats are shut down by the GOP once again, when they attempt to open an investigation into Russian interference. GEE. I WONDER WHY AFTER RUSSIANS SPENT ~$40M FUNNELED THROUGH THE NRA TO GET THEM ELECTED.

Just on and on with these damned traitors, and then you have herpy derps like subs and Markk waltz into a forum like this just spouting the stupidest crap I've ever seen posted on the Internet because they don't read. It's just damned awful.

- Doc

[_Markk]

Butina was a Russian agent who worked to infiltrate the NRA and helped funnel large sums of money to the NRA from a Russian actor with close associations to Russian intelligence, Putin, and organized crime. The NRA in turn spent a fortune on helping Donald Trump get elected. Saying that money came from another pot, which is something I anticipate, ignores the fact that funds from one source provides the spending cushion to use funds from another source.

The connection here between this and collusion with the campaign on matters related to espionage isn't there, but I can tell Markk is just throwing up whatever he can against the wall because he responded to the the Butina story by surmising she was trying to influence whomever would win the election, which, after all, was probably Clinton. You can't eyeroll hard enough at that. She was working to infiltrate the Republican party and we know enough at this point to know that she was somewhat successful in that mission.

What I am doing is trying to have a objective conversation. Are you saying it did not matter that she met with Obama folks pre Trump...and that the affidavit read that her goal in getting here foot into the process was not candidate specific? Do we just ignore that?

Does it matter that in 2015 she and Torshin, then the Russian Central Bank deputy governor, met the Treasury undersecretary for international affairs, under Obama...according to a wiki article...and also under Obama she met with a "Federal Reserve vice chairman, Stanley Fischer and with a State Department official."

You guys have your mind made up, I get that, but to say that the affidavit is a smoking gun, as far as I can see is irresponsible.

EA wrote...The connection here between this and collusion with the campaign on matters related to espionage isn't there

I agree...if anything it shows that she was going to try to influence anyone she could, and in most peoples minds, 2 months before the election, it would have been Hillary.

[_Markk]

I just want it noted that Markk can NOT explain why Butina was arrested, but he continues to misspell her name, which demonstrates an utter lack of understanding about her and her arrest. I really don't know how to have a discussion with someone who can't even get to the starting line of a factual discussion. He shows virtually no situational awareness, has demonstrated that he won't read anything that's served up to him, and he focuses on a flake of crescent dough on one pig-in-a-blanket, and then states triumphantly that the platter of pigs-in-a-blanket don't exist and the buffet table in front of him doesn't exist.

It's bizarre, frankly.

That said, because I can, I'll do my best to start building the picture for him because why not?

- Doc

The starting line is the very affidavit that you stated was a smoking gun. There is nothing in the affidavit that ties her to Trump. E.A. even agrees with me that there is nothing there that ties Trump to Putina, especially for espionage .

We can move on to your next plate, and maybe there is something more substantial, but you have to be honest with yourself first.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Markk,

When you read the entire affidavit and my subsequent seven posts we can continue the conversation, otherwise your predictable blithe dismissal and whataboutism is noted.

- Doc