Summations Only

anglagard writes:

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Instead of whining and blaming any electoral losses on third parties, perhaps the Democrats just might consider upping their game.

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They fielded one of the most qualified candidates in history who was in step with the majority of the country on most every policy and that candidate proceeded to actually win the election with the second largest number of votes in history.Exactly what "game" is there that needed to be "upped"? And exactly how would that be achieved?By this logic, the Supreme Court shouldn't be looking at gerrymandering in Wisconsin because the Democrats should "up their game," right? I mean when Republicans win less than 50% of the vote but take more than 60% of the seats in the legislature, that simply means *Democrats* need to change their tactics, right?Exactly what part of "she won" are you having trouble with?

xongsmith writes:

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See, this was the main problem with Hillary - she was so virulently HATED by so many.

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And yet she still managed to earn the second largest vote total in history. Indeed, Clinton Derangement Syndrome exists. But she still beat Trump's ass in the election.How do you reconcile the two? She was LIKED by so many. If it weren't for the rigging of elections that the Electoral College produces, she would have been installed as President and then where would your argument go?

Modulous responds to me:

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And yet she still managed to earn the second largest vote total in history.

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Not all that meaningful though.

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Incorrect. That she managed to get the second largest vote total in history does not mean that the Democratic message "wasn't resonating." It clearly was. Save for one election, more people voted for her and her message than ever.That she didn't carry the electoral college means something else is at play.

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After all, Mitt Romney got more votes than any winner from 2000 going back. Her margin was comparable to Bush 2004.

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That simply means more people are voting.You still need to account for the fact that she won the election. Suppose the Electoral College followed the popular vote...would we still be having this discussion? Because all it took was fewer than 100,000 votes for that to have happened.I'm hardly saying that there is nothing to be learned by examining the Democratic message and how it is being broadcast. But the idea that it "isn't resonating" is false by simple inspection. As we have known for decades: Most people agree with the Democratic message and in order to get a Democrat elected requires more votes than a Republican needs for structural reasons.

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But she still beat Trump's ass in the election.

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No, that's not what happened.

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Yes, it is. She beat him by 3M votes.

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Trump got 57% of the vote necessary to win the Presidency.

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No, he got the Electoral College which is not the vote. Do not confuse the two.

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How do you reconcile the two? She was LIKED by so many.

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And disliked by too many.

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By what do you make this claim? She won the vote. The only reason she didn't win the Electoral College is quite literally a handful of votes. To claim that she was "disliked by too many" is plainly false by simple inspection.

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But that doesn't change the fact that this is not the electoral system and instead the system is who is the most popular according to the States, not the people.

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Indeed. But you are confusing the Electoral College with the voters. You keep blaming her for not connecting with the voters as the reason she lost, but that simply isn't true. She connected with the voters which is why she won the vote. The only reason she is not president right now is because of a *structural* cause, not an *electoral* or *message* cause.If you want to discuss campaign strategy with regards to gaming the Electoral College, then have at it. But to campaign on the concept of "My policies and plans are better" is hardly a stupid plan.

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The argument wouldn't be necessary in that case to explain how she lost, since she wouldn't have.

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But it's not much of an argument if it vanishes when a *structural* cause is removed. The claim is that there was something wrong with the "message." That somehow people "didn't like" her. That because they couldn't connect with the "message" and "didn't like" her, they didn't vote for her.But how does that go away if she took the Electoral College? Increasing her vote take by less than two-tenths of one percent doesn't have any significant bearing on what the "message" is and whether or not voters "liked her." So if we wouldn't be having this conversation if just a few hundred people per district in a couple states had voted for her instead of Trump or had bothered to vote at all, then the claim that the problem is *electoral* is trivially proven false.She is not president because of the message or her "likability." She is not president *in*spite* of those factors. Most people like her message. Most people like her.

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She lost Republican voters who voted for Obama. She lost left wing voters for being too right. She lost 'change' voters for being too 'status quo', she lost pacifists for her government actions, she lost social justice folks for paying lip service without the history to back it up. And so on and so forth.

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And you act like she didn't pick anybody up. After all, in a contest based solely upon that target demographic, she smoked the competition: She beat Sanders by more raw votes than she beat Trump.And some of your criteria are nonsensical: "Change" voters for being too "status quo"? If Obama is the example of "change" and she was continuing the Obama train, how is that "status quo"? Unless "change" voters are feckless at which point they become unreliable for everyone and can't be accounted for."Paying lip service without the history to back it up"? BWAHAHAHAHAHA! I bet you really believe that, don't you? See, Clinton Derangement Syndrome is real and I don't say that just because I was in Little Rock last weekend and was faced with the Clinton legacy. I've known about her history for a long time and so would anybody else who paid the slightest attention to reality rather than the lies put forward by Republicans in order to feed CDS. But since you're bringing up these traits of Clinton that cause voters to not vote for her, I notice you aren't including one of the bigger ones:She's a woman. If she were a man, many of those negatives would never be considered. But because she's a woman....But again, you seem to forget that she won the vote. The second largest vote total in history.Again, the only reason we are having his conversation is that less than two-tenths of one percent of the vote. To pretend like that's the most significant reason she isn't President is to ignore reality.

Modulous responds to me:

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And her margin, in the popular vote, was comparable to Bush 2004 or Carter 1976. Not traditionally considered resounding victories.

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She still won. I realize that you don't like that fact, but she still won. And you still haven't explained how your argument has any semblance of sanity if it vanishes if you change less than two-tenths of one percent of the vote.

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She lost the election. You can (theoretically) get over 70% of the popular vote and still lose the election.

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Incorrect. She won the election. It seems you have confused the Electoral College for the election. Shall we spin the merry-go-round again?

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So you are saying that 100,000 or so people not voting for her was too many to secure her the win? Seems to support the 'too many' people disliked her hypothesis.

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Once again, you seem to have abandoned any semblance of sanity with regard to this argument: 100,000 people is not "too many." It is microscopic. In more technical terms, it is the logical error of equivocation. When someone says that "too many people disliked her," it indicates that there was a large population when in reality, it was tiny. Yes, there is a naive sense that "too many" people voted in such a way that she did not carry the Electoral College (there's that confusion of the election for the Electoral College again), but that doesn't change it from being naive.Her message resonated with the voters. That's why she won the election.

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I can't see anyone in this thread saying anything about resonance.

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Logical error. Let us not play dumb.

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I've never seen so much animosity towards a Democrat nominee from progressive as with Clinton.

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Clinton Derangement Syndrome is real.

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The reasons why people disliked her are not terribly important to the point that too many of them did.

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And thus, you show that you aren't in any position to discuss the matter. That is, after all, the point of this part of the discussion. Remember, *you* brought it up: So if it isn't important, why did you mention it? Oh, that's right...because those things aren't true. You ignore the external factors that distorted her positions and policies. Take a look at RAZD's comments about the minimum wage. He still hasn't managed to answer the direct question I put to him: What was Clinton's policy statement regarding the minimum wage? Question: How many policy speeches did Clinton give during the campaign? And how many were covered by the press? There' s a reason that the people who saw Clinton speak had a very different opinion about her than those who only got their information from the news. Compare this to the media's literal covering of an empty podium simply because Trump was going to say something of no substance.That's a *structural* issue, not a *policy* issue. In another thread, there are people complaining that the "Democrats need to broadcast thus-and-so message." The thing is, they do. But it isn't covered. During the debate regarding healthcare in 2010, the Sunday shows didn't have a single speaker on who was an advocate of single-payer or universal coverage. Not one. And Sanders wasn't the only one speaking of it. People seem to forget that *Clinton* tried to get universal coverage done back in the 90s. There are 120 cosponsors of the Medicare for All bill currently in Congress but does anybody talk about it? Democrats *do* talk about these things, but nobody wants to listen.That's a *structural* issue.

Trump says: His spokesperson then says: So which is it? Are we "doing just fine" or is the "threat real"?Of course, if the threat is real, why are all the examples of this threat fake?

I generally like the WaPo, but they do have some issues.They give the following justification for Sanders' quote: But the thing is, we already had this calculation back when the ACA was being debated.Harvard Medical School produced a study in 2009 that indicated that 45,000 deaths each year due to lack of insurance. If we were to repeal the ACA and not replace it, we would go back to that situation we had before and there's no reason that people without health insurance would suddenly not die.Regarding Harris' comments, the Post again seems to be confusing speculation with lying. If the ACA is repealed and insurance companies can start denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions, then there's no reason to think that they wouldn't start doing so. Especially since the Republican plans for healthcare is to allow insurance companies to do so (they were already engaging in recission to try and kick people off insurance once they got sick and tried to make a claim), there's no reason to think they wouldn't.

caffeine writes:

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To be fair, Nielsen's response is not as ridiculous as you make it sound. Bear in mind that speaking to the leader of the free world is not, for her, a unique and special experience that would stick in her memory. She's a Cabinet Secretary - she speaks to him on a regular basis.

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So what she actually said was 'I cannot remember what my boss said at a meeting at which I was present." I am often present at meetings at which I pay little attention to what my boss is saying.

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Strange how she seemed to remember Graham's quoting of Trump but not Trump's original statement that Graham was quoting.To me, it seems that she is so inured to Trump's statements (both the vulgarity and the blatant racism) that she no longer notices it. It's how you can not be phased by hearing your racist relative talk about the and yet be flabbergasted when you see a clip of Florence Henderson swearing when she messes up a line for a commercial ("Mrs. Brady swea-ears!"...and I can't find a clip of it, alas.)Either that, or she's just flat-out lying.Then, of course, there's the doctor who just came out and said that Trump is in "excellent health" despite being (at best) borderline obese and with LDL and calcium numbers that clearly indicate heart disease. Now, I'm not going to say that he's deathly ill...after all, the risk of a major coronary event for someone with calcium levels of his (which indicate plaques have already formed) is for within the next 3-5 years. But why not just say that? Why the hyperbole and evasion? Would it really have been problematic to say, "Mr. Trump is showing some signs of heart disease which are common for people of his sex, age, and race, but they can be easily managed through diet, exercise, and certain medications. His tests show that he is in good general health at the present moment and we hope to continue that trend through some changes in his lifestyle"?And worse, the doc admitted that Trump pushed him on what to say. I would hope that a doctor (and a Rear Admiral in the Navy at that) would have more integrity.

Percy writes:

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Then why is Trump working so hard, and so naively openly and overtly, to obstruct the Mueller investigation?

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Because there is some conspiracy between the Russians and Trump: The sanctions.The sanctions that were imposed upon Russia because of their invasion of Crimea which were imposed by Obama have been devastating to the Russian economy: The ruble is down significantly (at one point down 57%) as well as the GDP. Then there is the freeze on assets for many of the Russian oligarchs...of which Putin is the biggest (he is rumored to be worth about $200B...that's right, two hundred billion.)Kushner was trying to set up back-channel communications with Russia after the election. Trump told the Russians that they wouldn't have to worry about the sanctions. And despite the Congress near unanimously approving the imposing of even more sanctions, Trump has decided he isn't going to do it despite having signed the bill that requires him to do so. He does not have the option to say no, only to choose at least eight from the list of sanctions approved by Congress, at least five from one section and at least three from a previous law.There now appears to be a question of the Russians laundering money through the NRA to benefit Trump's election.Carter Page was a known Kremlin operative (by his own admission).George Papadopoulos tried to set up connections with Russians (by his own statements).Paul Manafort was a foreign agent who was involved in the Russian invasion of Crimea.So yes, there has been conspiracy with the Russians to get Trump elected. And remember, conspiracy doesn't have to involve the two ends directly talking to each other. Remember when Trump made his campaign statement to Russia regarding "finding the emails"? Well, they had, indeed, hacked the DNC, which is a crime. Under US law, Trump doesn't have to know who did it. Trump's acceptance of it is grounds for conspiracy.He's engaging in obstruction for quite a number of reasons. Does he honestly believe that he landed in the White House (for he didn't win the election...he only won the Electoral College) all on his own? Perhaps. He's enough of an egotist and narcissist that it wouldn't surprise me if he did truly believe that and thinks that all of his actions with Russia had nothing to do with it. But then again, the man lies about absolutely everything so all of his protestations may simply be his natural reaction to getting caught: Lie first, lie second, lie some more, and keep on lying.But there's also the fact that he's been in debt to Russians for many, many years and is worried that investigations into his connections with Russia will lead to information regarding his financial dealings with Russia. Given that there are significant signs that he was involved in money laundering for various Russian oligarchs (more than 1300 cash transactions for Trump condos through shell companies worth more than $1.5B), he may very well be worried about that more than any concern he has regarding the election. Paul Manafort was indicted for money laundering, so there is certainly a question regarding Trump.

RAZD writes:

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I expect that the results of the investigation will show ... Treason

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Only in a civilian context. Legally, treason requires us to be at war.We are not at war with Russia, so no treason charges can be filed as such. They are hostile to our interests, certainly, but we have not declared war against them, so actions that aid them cannot be legally considered "treason."

Percy responds to me:

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Isn't whether anything Trump does or did regarding Russian sanctions only a conspiracy if there was a quid pro quo?

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"Help me get elected and I will ease if not eliminate the sanctions."That's what Trump was doing with the Russians as evidenced by his own statements regarding the sanctions, the meeting Kushner had with the Russians, and his recent actions not to impose the sanctions he is legally obligated to carry out. The Russians then proceeded to meddle in the election to help Trump win.This is a direct violation of the FEC regulations.

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This Washington Post article says Even if Trump is blatantly ignoring the Russia sanctions law, there’s not a lot Congress can do about it.

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They could impeach him. But, Trump is the GOP. The GOP is Trump. There's no way in hell they'll turn against him. Even the Republicans who are complaining about him don't actually do anything that would stand in his way. McCain and Flake are all talk, no action.

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Does it matter when Mueller releases his report? If he issues it while the Republicans still control Congress, say he releases it this summer, then can't the Republican Congress just ignore it?

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Since he's a prosecutor, it wouldn't be up to Congress but the DOJ to do something about it. That is, Mueller will release a report that may recommend charges being filed against Trump, but it is up to the Department of Justice to follow through on it.The DOJ that Trump is claiming is rigged against him despite being populated with conservatives and headed by his appointees who would never turn on him.

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And if they do and the Democrats take over Congress in the fall, can they take up the report's findings then?

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Congress can impeach on a whim. They don't need any report from anybody.

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But if true, did Trump or the Trump campaign know about this?

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Again, US conspiracy law does not require the parties know about each other. That's why you buying stolen goods puts you on the hook, even if you don't know that the goods were stolen.

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He only worked with the Trump campaign for a month, the connection dissolving as news about his Russian connections became public.

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We only conspired for a moment?Considering that he had been under investigation since 2013, why did Trump engage with him at all? Since he bragged about being a Kremlin operative, why did Trump engage with him at all?

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Isn't the information we have now that he succeeded in setting up only one meeting with the Russians, and that nothing came out of that meeting? Is a failed attempt at conspiracy still a conspiracy?

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Since they have lied about every aspect of this meeting, do you honestly think that "nothing came out of it"? Especially since Trump then immediately started crowing about the sanctions? And has now refused to carry out his mandated duty to impose sanctions? On the surface, it would appear that something did, indeed, come out of it.

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But that came before Manafort's association with the Trump campaign

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And thus why did Trump engage in the first place? We only conspired a little?

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I think his off-the-cuff request to the Russians to find the missing Clinton emails was just something he made up off the top of his head, and in the end it turned out not to be true, anyway. The Russians had hacked into DNC emails, not Clinton emails.

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Right...so it can easily be seen as a request for the Russians to then release anything related to any attempts to hack Clinton's server: "You hacked the DNC...did you hack Clinton, too? If so, show us what you got!" You don't really think the Russians didn't try to spy on the Secretary of State, do you? Especially one that they considered hostile? Ignoring any suspicion that Trump had information from Russia regarding their attempts to hack Clinton, it was a transparent attempt to tell Russia to go after Clinton.And that's a violation of FEC regulations and seems like an obvious attempt at conspiracy.

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But there's also the fact that he's been in debt to Russians for many, many years...

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Isn't this speculation, not fact?

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Nope. It's how Trump managed to come back from his previous bankruptcies. Nobody would do business with him (how does one lose money running a casino?) Trump, Jr. even admitted so in an interview: Eric Trump is quoted as saying: Eric denies having made this quote, but he is hardly a trustworthy source.The specifics of it haven't been revealed (thus the subpoena of Deutsche Bank...which has a history of money laundering. Trump was involved in a lawsuit they filed against him due to his failure to repay a loan on his Chicago property and he settled it...by getting Deutsche Banks private wealth division to loan him money which he then used to pay the real estate division as well as another $25-50M in credit. At the time Trump was elected, he owed about $300M to DB. And at time Trump was doing his shenanigans with DB, they were busted for money laundering from Russia) but Trump's claim that "I have nothing to do with Russia--no deals, no loans, no nothing," is clearly a lie.Now, it's conceivable that Trump's financial dealings with Russia were nothing more than big-money tomfooolery since this was long before he was trying to run for president. But it was not resolved before he got elected (again, he was in the hole to DB for about $300M when he was elected and his June 2017 financial disclosure claims he only owes them $130M.)And then add into it Kushner meeting with Kislyak given Kushner's disastrous 666 5th Avenue project, and there is still more connections to the Trump empire and Russian oligarchs.

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But is there's anything illegal about financial dealings with Russia?

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When it's money laundering? Yes. It certainly hasn't gone to trial and yeah, it is technically "speculation" at this point, but I'm going to call this one equivocation. When people try to use "speculation" as a way to deny a charge, it's because they're trying to characterize the evidence that leads to the speculation as flimsy at best.Instead, there is a mountain of circumstantial evidence that Trump is involved in money laundering with Russian oligarchs. His bank got caught doing it. His real estate transactions scream of it. He admits that Russia has financed him. He refuses to release his financials. This is more than "speculation." It's the direction that all the evidence points to. It hasn't risen to the level of "theory," yet, for we don't have the direct evidence. But it is more than a creationist-definition of "theory."

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but this is certainly something within Mueller's mandate.

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Agreed.

Percy responds to me:

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Again, US conspiracy law does not require the parties know about each other. That's why you buying stolen goods puts you on the hook, even if you don't know that the goods were stolen.

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Again, not a legal expert here, but just Googling this says they have to show you knew the goods were stolen in order to support a charge of conspiracy.

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But you're still responsible for the goods and have to return them. Plus, there is a reasonable standard involved. If you buy something out of the trunk of someone's car, a claim of "I didn't know it was stolen" is much more suspect. So when the Russians come to Trump specifically saying they have information about the Democrats and his representative in Trump, Jr. says that this is wonderful, how is that not illegal since it would be a violation of FEC regulations to take anything of value from them? And thus, conspiracy.

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We only conspired for a moment?

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I was only making the point that Carter Page didn't have much time to get a conspiracy going, but if did manage to engage in a conspiracy with Russia in the short time he was with the Trump campaign then you're of course right that this is more trouble for Trump.

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Again, we only conspired for a moment? And no, he was with the Trump campaign for more than a month. Trump named him as a member of his national advisory council in March of 2016. In July of 2016, he went to Moscow under the approval of the campaign. Page only left the campaign in September after his contacts with Russians became known.And since he was under investigation by the FBI since 2013, it wouldn't have taken much time to set up any conspiracy since he admits that he was a Kremlin advisor. If the FBI's concerns were valid, all it would take is for Page to merely talk to his Russian contacts. And let's not forget, the FISA warrant against Page was reauthorized three times. That means they kept on getting more actionable information: You need to provide justification for such a warrant during the first application which is only valid for a limited time. If you wish to keep up the surveillance, you need to have it re-authorized, but you can't use anything from the original justification nor can you use any new information you acquired from other sources. In order to continue the surveillance, you need to provide information that you acquired as a direct result of the surveillance you were authorized to do.For example, suppose I want to tap your phones. I need to provide justification to the FISA court to allow that and it will only last for a limited time. If I want to extend that, I can't use the original justification but must instead provide new information that I got from tapping the phones. Suppose you figured out that I was tapping your phones and you switched to communicating via written notes. If I acquired those notes by going through your garbage, that isn't justification for me to continue tapping your phones as the information I got didn't come from the phone tap.Page was not just passing through.

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Of course this brings us back to the question of why Trump is so favorably biased toward Russia. We need some hard evidence there.

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Because the Russians bailed him out. Both Eric and Trump, Jr. have admitted it. We have plenty of hard evidence of his real estate transactions with Russian oligarchs that scream of money laundering. Even if we can't directly prove the money laundering aspect, the fact that he was selling real estate to Russian oligarchs is well known and documented.As just a single example, in 2008, mere months after Trump filed for bankruptcy, he sold a Florida property to Dmitry Rybolvlev $100M for which he bought for only $40M. It was then sold off in separate lots by Rybolovlev through shell companies. This smacks of money laundering, but the fact is that Trump was doing business with the Russians despite his claims that he never has (and in another ironic moment, Trump *admits* that he did this deal as proof that he's never had any dealings with Russia.)There are another 63 people with Russian passports/addresses who bought Trump property in South Florida.And let's not forget that Trump was in negotiations to open up a Trump hotel across the way from the Kremlin back in 1987 (as was reported in _Art of the Deal_). He gave an interview in 2013 where he said, "The Russian market is attracted to me." Well, of course since he started in on Russian buyers in 1996 when he became involved with the Vector Group which owns Douglas Elliman Realty, a brokerage for Russian oligarchs wanting US property. The CEO of the Vector Group, Howard Lorber, made an appearance on _The Apprentice_ in 2005.So Trump was once again trying to build a hotel in Moscow and claims he was in negotiations with the mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov. But as the US ambassador to Russia, John Beryle, describes him, "Corruption in Moscow remains pervasive with Mayor Luzhkov at the top of the pyramid. Luzhkov oversees a system in which it appears that almost everyone at every level is involved in some form of corruption or criminal behavior."But once again, it fell through.Trump is biased toward Russia because they bailed him out. He has massive business ties to Russian oligarchs. This is not speculation.

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I was unable to verify that Trump "started crowing about the sanctions" immediately after the Kushner meeting, but Trump of course started working on reducing the Russia sanctions after taking office.

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You don't recall Trump talking about being friendly with the Russians? How that was distinguishing him from Clinton? How he can make a deal and she can't? The sanctions against Russia for invading Urkaine were damaging the Russian economy. When he hired Manafort, he started making statements to recognize Russian's annexation of Crimea (July 2016)...whereas he had previously stated that Obama was "not strong" in not doing more.With regard to the additional sanctions for the election interference, Conway made a statement that the reason Obama imposed the sanctions was to "box in" Trump: And let's not forget Trump's signing statement regarding the new sanctions where he called them "unconstitutional" and tried to claim that they were about the invasion of Ukraine, not the election.

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I agree that Trump's favorable treatment of Russia and Putin is highly suspicious, but it seems very weak evidence. It feels like more direct evidence is needed.

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Why? What is it you need? A videotape of Trump and Putin directly saying they will work together to get Trump elected?Remember, we have direct evidence that Putin ordered the attack on our elections. And in US law, conspiracy does not require the right hand to know what the left hand is doing. Thus, Trump doesn't have to be in direct communications with the Kremlin in order for there to be conspiracy. They told the hackers who then provided the goods to Trump who should have known that it was illegal to transact with. That's conspiracy.You don't even need to successfully carry it out. If I'm looking for the goods from the middleman who was ordered by the boss to commit the crime to get the goods and they can't get them, that's still conspiracy. We're trying to do something that is illegal.

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Still, Manafort is only charged with money laundering so far. Speculation isn't evidence, so we'll have to wait for the Mueller report to see if there's evidence of conspiracy concerning Manafort.

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As we know, Trump changed his mind regarding the Russian sanctions in reference to the Ukraine after Manafort came on board. He then conflated the new sanctions regarding the election tampering with the invasion of the Ukraine. What did Manafort do to bring Trump around?

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I don't doubt the existence of Russian spying efforts on all facets of our government, especially the significant ones like State, but as far as we know Russian efforts to hack into Clinton emails were not successful.

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You don't have to be successful in order to engage in conspiracy.

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Of course, the Russians didn't have to hack Clinton's emails, we made them available on-line, though redacted, of course.

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And who did that? Who insisted that they should be made public?

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Ignoring any suspicion that Trump had information from Russia regarding their attempts to hack Clinton, it was a transparent attempt to tell Russia to go after Clinton.

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He was playing to a crowd.

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"Your honor, my client is too stupid to have committed the crime"?And you're trying to take this in isolation, ignoring all the other connections with the Russians.

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I can see Mueller using things said during campaign speeches as supporting evidence for other charges, but not as crimes themselves.

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The things said are part of the conspiracy which is part of the crime. You're trying to have it both ways, saying you need evidence that they said something while disallowing things that were said. Again, it seems that the only thing that will satisfy you is a videotape of Putin and Trump charting out every step of the way.

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When you said Trump's been in debt to Russians for many, many years I thought you meant that in the sense of debt he can't repay, thus giving Russians leverage over him.

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He owes $130M to DB which is involved in Russian money laundering.And that's just what we know of for just that interaction.And even if he owed nothing materially, he's still "in debt" to them given how they rescued him from bankruptcy. And now he's in a position to return the favor. And we haven't even gotten into the dossier which lists other means of leverage over Trump (which is why all the complaints from Nunes and the Republicans about how the dossier is the reason for investigating the Trump campaign and how it's all tainted is so disingenuous...there's plenty of evidence indicating a significant need to investigate without the details from the dossier.)

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What we know so far mostly involves Deutsche Bank, not Russian banks or oligarchs.

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What more do you need? Again, you seem to be only willing to consider it if we had a videotape of Trump taking a briefcase stuffed with cash from Anton Vayno.DB laundered money for the Russians. They got caught and were fined $670M+ for it......and Trump has called off the US investigation into it.And none of this has anything to do with the question of obstruction.

NoNukes writes:

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As I read it, these folks had some very sinister goals, but apparently spreading lies, discord in an attempt to affect democracy isn't a crime. Heck, there is nothing about their campaign that would not be legal for any US citizen to do.

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But if you look at the indictment, it's formatted pretty much in the same way as what Manafort is being charged with, so it is a crime. And it's also written up so that more co-conspirators can be easily plugged into the indictment as they are found and linked. This is not a light-weight indictment. Contrary to the Trump administrations claims that this somehow lets them off the hook, it actually is very threatening to anybody who may be involved.And on top of that, one of the 13 is a close buddy to Putin. And we have direct evidence that Putin ordered the interference in our election.Remember, Trump said he looked into Putin's eyes (what is it with Republicans and staring deeply into Putin's eyes?) and said he believes Putin when he says he didn't do it.

Percy writes:

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I'm not thinking about what it would take to convince me but what it would take to convince the DOJ or the House.

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Well, the DNC is now suing the Trump campaign, Wikileaks, and Russia regarding this.Considering that the last time they did this was regarding Nixon/Watergate...and that they were right...and they won a settlement from the RNC, I think the idea that there is "nothing there" is a bit disingenuous. The Russians started their attack in 2015. We know they were getting documents on April 22, 2016. Papadapoulos was told on April 26 that the Russians had documents. He then told the campaign.Assuming this is true, how is this not conspiracy? Especially since three months later, Trump is going on national television to tell Russia to hack the Democrats?

That's how long it took for Trump's agitated interview on Fox and Friends this morning to be used against him.With regard to the documents seized from Cohen's office, Cohen is putting up a claim of attorney-client privilege, but all of his work doesn't seem to be that of an attorney as all of his clients keep saying he didn't do legal work for them: You don't get to have it both ways. Either he was your lawyer and this is work product or he wasn't and this isn't.