The Totalitarian Leftist Tactics against the Right

So many people have already said there isn't one iota of evidence for this supposed collusion to make it only too clear that the whole thing is fake and its whole purpose is to keep negative attention on Trump.

And il Donald once again shows that he is simply a Boor, a HUGE Boor, with his latest case of Twitter diarrhea.Il Donald is simply unfit to be in polite company or sit at the Big Kids Table.Edited by jar, : fix link

Yeah, some random guy at CNN with nothing to do with hard news, a serial liar and right - wing felon, and your soul mate in hate and conspiracy theories are trustworthy.Sorry, Faith, calling real news fake is not a magic wand that makes reality go away. The many Russian contacts under suspicious circumstances that Trump associates have tried to conceal by lying, sometimes under oath, demand explanation.

You've bought the fake news about all that. Besides I wasn't talking about the Veritas video, I was talking about the many people who have already admitted there is no evidence of collusion with Russia. And as usual it's someone calling me a hater who says it with hate just oozing from every pore.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Paul Manafort is the second person associated with Trump (the first was Michael Flynn) who has had to retroactively register as a foreign agent. See for example:

• Former Trump campaign chairman registers as a foreign agent (CNN)
  
• Russia investigation suspect Paul Manafort just followed Michael Flynn and registered as a foreign agent. What does that mean? (Newsweek)

--Percy

It's still not a magic incantation that makes reality go away. As I have pointed out twice in this thread, nobody who could possibly know has said there is no evidence of collusion with Russia. The right wing media has taken carefully crafted statements that do not say there is no evidence and misrepresented them. You have not replied.Let's see some quotes of what people have really said. When we were discussing Alex Jones a few days ago you admitted you are a hater, both you and he hating those who deserve (in your mind) to be hated.I don't hate you. I am appalled by your abysmal ignorance and determination to remain that way, I am astonished at your many inabilities, and I pity you for living inside a tight right-wing YEC box without ever appraciating all there is to enjoy in the real world.

I'll start. james Comey:

quote:

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In that context, prior to the January 6 meeting, I discussed with the FBI's leadership team whether I should be prepared to assure President-Elect Trump that we were not investigating him personally. That was true; we did not have an open counter-intelligence case on him. We agreed I should do so if circumstances warranted. During our one-on-one meeting at Trump Tower, based on President Elect Trump's reaction to the briefing and without him directly asking the question, I offered that assurance.

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Note that he said "counter-intelligence investigation", not just "investigation". that leaves the possibility of a criminal investigation. Also since he made that statement a lot more relevant information has come to light and thre is now an investigation.From "Meet the Press":

quote:

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Todd: "Does intelligence exist that can definitively answer the following question, whether there were improper contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials?"

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Clapper: "We did not include any evidence in our report, and I say, ‘our,’ that's NSA, FBI and CIA, with my office, the Director of National Intelligence, that had anything, that had any reflection of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. There was no evidence of that included in our report."

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Todd: "I understand that. But does it exist?"

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Clapper: "Not to my knowledge."

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Note that he did not say no evidence exists. He did say he wasn't aware of any at that time. He later clarified that he was not aware of the existing investigation:

quote:

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Asked about Trump’s tweet in a May 12 interview on MSNBC, Clapper explained that the director of national intelligence position would not necessarily offer a vantage point into FBI evidence.

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Clapper said that in his more than six years as DNI, he regularly deferred to the FBI when a counterintelligence investigation could possibly morph into a criminal investigation.

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"That was certainly the practice I followed here," he said of the FBI’s ongoing Russia investigation. "So it’s not surprising or abnormal that I would not have known about the investigation, or even more importantly, the content of that investigation.

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"So I don’t know if there was collusion or not," added Clapper, who resigned at the end of President Barack Obama’s term.

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Later in the interview, Clapper was asked if he agrees with Trump that the Russian investigation is a "witch hunt," to which he replied, "I don’t believe it is."

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Instead, Clapper compared it to a "dark cloud" that would continue to linger until the investigation is complete.

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"What needs to happen here is to clear this cloud that’s hanging over the administration, over the president, the White House," he said. "It would be in everyone’s best interest to get to the bottom of this."

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quote:

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And as a effect, I was not aware of the counterintelligence investigation Director Comey first referred to during his testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee for Intelligence on the 20th of March, and that comports with my public statements

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Your turn, Faith.

What they said is as good as saying there is no evidence of collusion. Using weasel words is just a screen.

There never is evidence until they find it. They're still looking, so it's premature to claim that they won't find any.

How funny. If there was anything to find they'd have found something after all this time, they've found NOTHING.

That's just an unwarranted assertion. They're still looking. Let them look. THEY will decide when it isn't worth looking any more.

Nope. What they said is not equivalent to saying there is no evidence. E.g. "I don't know of any" is not "None exists". They're not weasel words. They're carefully considered and accurate expressions of the speaker's knowledge of the affair. They mean exactly what they said, no more and no less.

You have no means of knowing that, nor do I. Investigations continue, and so do new revelations. Just yesterday GOP Operative Sought Clinton Emails From Hackers, Implied a Connection to Flynn. What is the significance of that, if any? I don't know and neither do you. But new information is constantly being revealed.Edited by JonF, : No reason given.

Just out of curiosity, were you saying the same thing 20 years ago during the Whitewater investigations against the Clintons? 'Cause it took several years before Starr's investigation produced any indictments.Oh, and the perjury and obstruction of justice charges against Clinton himself only resulted after the investigation moved well beyond the initial investigation of real estate fraud. (I only mention this part in case this investigation turns up something unrelated to the Russians and looks into that, and the Republicans then scream "foul!")