No Trump defenders left ...?

[_EAllusion]

[Clinton was out of the government at that point, but Clinton was eventually aware of Russian interference in a broad sense, yes. She tried to sound the alarms repeatedly on it. Her statements during the debates on this subject turned out to be incredibly prescient.

Not that what she was saying was some big secret, but what she said about Trump on this subject was so dead-on and later confirmed in greater detail that it should give you a sinking stomach feeling. You know, as an American.

[_EAllusion]

[

Butina would have done the same things if Hillary, Bush, Sanders, or any other candidate other than Trump would have won. Her attempts in penetrating the NRA started under Obama, as was her getting into Libertarian circles and associating with Obama officials. Do you think Russian spying would have ceased if Hillary would have won?

Would Butina have continued efforts to infiltrate the Republican party to establish connections between cut-outs for the Russian government and Republican funding arms? Yeah, probably. Would she have been caught as quickly? Hard to say. There was going to be a post-election reckoning and investigation with Russian interference if a Democrat won too.

What does that claim have to do with the specific problem of what Butina did and how that ties into the Trump GOP's politics?

[_Markk]

I'm saying there is a reasonable chance that part of Obama's risk/benefit analysis of deciding against more aggressive action on Russian interference with Republicans actively attempting to kneecap his administrative response was that Clinton was likely to win, thus extending the timeline to take actions. Yes. You seem to have reduced this into, "Obama didn't do anything because Clinton was gonna win," which is a rather obtuse version of what I actually said. It's that this changed the benefit calculus in an environment of real risks. This was obviously a bad call in retrospect. It should've been a bad call without the benefit of hindsight in my opinion, but it isn't in any way comparable to, for example, actively aiding Russian attempts to harm our electoral process by running interference for them which we know without a doubt Donald Trump did.

To the former argument, your false equivalence attempt is so vague that's it's hard to address. Butina, on behalf of Russian operations against the United States, established a pipeline to launder money through the NRA to Republicans to help secure a Trumpist victory in the US, which Russia perceived (accurately) to be in its interest. This is like Butina's involvement in the Obama admin how again?

He either knew about Russian interference, or didn't. He either acted to stop it, or he didn't. He was commander and chief and by your own pen you write he chose to do nothing. In one breath you are saying he knew, and yet we know elsewhere he stated it wasn't or couldn't happen.

He didn't deal with Russians spying on the election process because he did not want to look like a partisan? Are you kidding me, he was maybe the most vocal sitting president ( that has termed out) against a opposing party candidate in our history, at least that I can remember. And your saying he did not want to seem like a partisan so he chose not to stop direct interference with a foreign goverment interfering with a presidential election?



This is what you wrote..."ETA: Obama deserves criticism for failing to adequately respond to Russian aggression in our election process. We know his weakness on this was in part driven by fears of being seen as partisan during an election year as Republicans deliberately tried to stop him from addressing the problem in a bipartisan fashion (!!!). It probably also was in part driven by a widely shared, but mistaken belief that Republicans were imploding on their own leaving time to address it after the election. Criticizing Obama for this isn't on the same planet as, you know, knowingly benefiting from it and (at the very least) running interference for it."

You are saying because Trump had no chance (they were imploding)...he had time to deal with it later. You wrote it not me. In other words you are stating Obama thought Hillary would win so he ignored Russia infiltrating the election process. I see no other way to read that .

Butina, on behalf of Russian operations against the United States, established a pipeline to launder money through the NRA to Republicans to help secure a Trumpist victory in the US, which Russia perceived (accurately) to be in its interest.

Not according to the affidavit, which read that her attempts were not "Candidate Specific." At any rate their is no evidence that Trump colluded with Putina in 2015. If you have further evidence Trump colluded, fine, that can be discussed but Doc's smoking gun is just not there and your making it direct collusion between the two is just not there.

[Guest]

Butina, on behalf of Russian operations against the United States, established a pipeline to launder money through the NRA to Republicans to help secure a Trumpist victory in the US, which Russia perceived (accurately) to be in its interest.

Not according to the affidavit, which read that her attempts were not "Candidate Specific." .

For those at home following along, do you know what the split between parties on donations for the NRA was in 2016? 5.9 million vs 106,000 dollars to Republicans over Democrats in Congress. It is pretty disingenuous to suggest that funneling funds through the NRA isn't propping up Republicans and Trump generally, even if you don't have audio of Butina (still with the "P", huh?) stating she explicitly loves Trump and wants him to win. It would be like me claiming that me funneling funds through any of the major union organizations wasn't at the benefit of Democrats.

ETA: added clarification on the donation allocation.

[_Markk]

Would Butina have continued efforts to infiltrate the Republican party to establish connections between cut-outs for the Russian government and Republican funding arms? Yeah, probably. Would she have been caught as quickly? Hard to say. There was going to be a post-election reckoning and investigation with Russian interference if a Democrat won too.

What does that claim have to do with the specific problem of what Butina did and how that ties into the Trump GOP's politics?

Butina doesn't tie to Trump. you are making it about her and Trump, it is not.

She made attempts to tie into the NRA, the Libertarian party, the Democratic party, and the GOP. She is a alleged spy. That is what spy's do. Y

Feinstein had a spy on her staff for a few decades, it does not mean she was colluding with him, at least intentionally. There are spy's all over Washington in just about every embassy. They are there to gain power and knowledge for their respective governments, anyway they can.

It is irresponsible, in my view, to some how pin Butina to Trump...it is just not there, and from what you wrote, if true...Obama is the irresponsible one by knowingly letting a spy disturb our election process, and not stop it.

[_EAllusion]

He either knew about Russian interference, or didn't. He either acted to stop it, or he didn't.

This is reductionist to the point of stupefyingly wrong. The public knew about Russian interference before the election. Obama knew about it in much more detail and sooner. The Obama admin took multiple actions to stop it. It's not an all or nothing thing. There was a range of options the Obama admin could take ranging from doing nothing to engaging in nuclear war. I criticized the Obama admin for not taking more aggressive steps, starting with more detailed public notification. That's why I talked about being "more aggressive."

He was commander and chief and by your own pen you write he chose to do nothing.

Quote me saying that. I can find a quote of me telling you that I didn't say that, but I just can't seem to find an example of me saying that. Note: I am not saying that.

In one breath you are saying he knew, and yet we know elsewhere he stated it wasn't or couldn't happen.

The heck?

He didn't deal with Russians spying on the election process because he did not want to look like a partisan? Are you kidding me, he was maybe the most vocal sitting president ( that has termed out) against a opposing party candidate in our history, at least that I can remember. And your saying he did not want to seem like a partisan so he chose not to stop direct interference with a foreign goverment interfering with a presidential election?

Yeah, Obama's hyperpartisanship is one of those right-wing media creations that is so far afield of reality that it's difficult to interact with someone so captured by propaganda. Happily, it can be ignored in this case. I'm saying that Obama appears to have calculated that one of the risks of being more aggressive in response to Russian interference by doing things that either directly notify the public or involve actions that the public can infer that the US is taking countermeasures against Russia, is that this make have looked like a partisan act on behalf of Clinton. This could warp voting choices. It could harm Clinton and inadvertently assist Russia in its mission to harm Clinton's election chances. Yeah. That's a risk Obama took seriously. Too seriously in my estimation. That's what I'm saying. Because you can't tell the difference between "do nothing" and "be more aggressive" you start out with a confusion then multiply more confusion on top of it.

For example, after the election, the Obama admin ratcheted up sanctions and removed a large number of Russian diplomats from the United States. When doing so, he also made a public announcement of covert measures against Russia that we still don't know about. He could have done that before the election. He didn't.

You are saying because Trump had no chance (they were imploding)...he had time to deal with it later. You wrote it not me. In other words you are stating Obama thought Hillary would win so he ignored Russia infiltrating the election process. I see no other way to read that .

Lol, yep. No other way.

Not according to the affidavit, which read that her attempts were not "Candidate Specific."

Her job was to set up connections between conservative leadership and Russian interests to hopefully warp conservative politics around Russian interests. Within this broad goal, when those connections had been set up, they then were used to funnel millions of dollars to an organization that in turn spent a fortune backing Donald Trump and Republican allies in Congress. This matched Russia's goals in US election inference.

At any rate their is no evidence that Trump colluded with Putina in 2015. If you have further evidence Trump colluded, fine, that can be discussed but Doc's smoking gun is just not there and your making it direct collusion between the two is just not there.

You spent several pages in this thread demanding a "best piece of evidence" while multiple posters, including Doc, tried to explain to you that the case is made up of a variety of mutually reinforcing evidence lines and that it would be a disservice to the totality of the evidence to try and isolate one example. After badgering Doc for an example repeatedly, you dismiss it and go "so much for your smoking gun." The idea that there should be a single piece of smoking gun evidence is a fiction of your own creation. There's almost never a smoking gun, even when a crime has been committed by a literal smoking gun.

[_Markk]

For those at home following along, do you know what the split between parties on donations for the NRA was in 2016? 5.9 million vs 106,000 dollars to Republicans over Democrats. It is pretty disingenuous to suggest that funneling funds through the NRA isn't propping up Republicans and Trump generally, even if you don't have audio of Butina (still with the "P", huh?) stating she explicitly loves Trump and wants him to win. It would be like me claiming that me funneling funds through any of the major union organizations wasn't at the benefit of Democrats.

I read that it was about 30 million to Trump. Of either the 106 million or the 30 million...what percentage was from Russian money funneled in? I looked but could not find it.

[_Jersey Girl]

Cam I've been in and out of here over the past couple of days reading your series of comprehensive posts as time permits, still working my way through them. Thank you for what you've done here. I needed to see it laid out like this.

[_EAllusion]

For those at home following along, do you know what the split between parties on donations for the NRA was in 2016? 5.9 million vs 106,000 dollars to Republicans over Democrats. It is pretty disingenuous to suggest that funneling funds through the NRA isn't propping up Republicans and Trump generally, even if you don't have audio of Butina (still with the "P", huh?) stating she explicitly loves Trump and wants him to win. It would be like me claiming that me funneling funds through any of the major union organizations wasn't at the benefit of Democrats.

An equivalent would be a Russian spy being caught setting up connections between high-level people at MoveOn.org and various Democratic leaders, then a Russian oligarch with close ties to Putin and Russian organized crime funneling millions to MoveOn.org. Then MoveOn.org spending millions of dollars trying to elect a presidential candidate Russia is engaged in multi-pronged espionage effort to get elected in the United States along with a friendly Congress.

Then looking at this and saying, if Butina wasn't involved in a process that supported candidate X, then it could've just as easily been Ted Cruz.

Uh, no it couldn't have been. The Russians do back leftwing people in the United States. Jill Stein is the leftwing equivalent of Donald Trump in terms of their interference efforts. It's not a 1:1 comparison to what has happened with Trump, but close enough. Russia doesn't want Trump and Trumpist Republicans to be in charge of the United States because they want to Make America Great Again. They want the opposite.

[Guest]

I read that it was about 30 million to Trump. Of either the 106 million or the 30 million...what percentage was from Russian money funneled in? I looked but could not find it.

I based my numbers on OpenSecrets.org's tallies (you can see that here), this was for Congress only and was meant to just illustrate the drastic difference between party donations, apologies for the confusion. The question about "what percentage was Russian dollars" is rather simplistic approach to money in politics. If I give an organization a fat stack of cash and they reserve all that money for administrative costs but then move other monies from admin costs to donations for candidates in that election year, did I contribute to candidate donations?