Summations Only

Does "false US personas" mean something more than logging onto Quora or Facebook with a fake name and details?

I have some difficulty with the reasoning here. I hope my remarks are not taking as trivializing the illegal activity described here. But let's assume that some unnamed person in Trump's campaign was working with the Russians. Would they be involved in this particular conspiracy, or even need to know that the Russians were going to commit any of those acts? Weren't those unnamed other folks probably conspiring to swing the election rather making money off the internet? Would they even know or care about those details.Yes, I do have a tendency to look at things through a strict legal lens, but that's because I would like the charges to stick. Along those lines, I point to the vacating of the bribery charges against the former governor of Virginia, by Supreme Court justices who all acknowledged that former governor McDonnell was crooked as hell.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Without going too deeply into this, in my opinion, the details are important and are unlikely to be covered in the indictment. Stolen IDs and fake IDs are distinguishable. And for me, it would matter whether which of those activities in the list (banking vs logging in to social media) were done with fake IDs. Such distinctions don't get the perpetrators off the hook, but convicting folks on that basis is not something that easily translates to indicting others who wanted help with steering public opinion.Anonymity is not a crime, nor is spreading false rumors about presidential candidates a crime. Maybe it is possible to wrap up all of that stuff into a criminal enterprise with the stuff that is illegal and to charge folks associated with any part of that as participants in the enterprise, but I'm very skeptical that a prosecution on that basis is constitutional even if it is facially viable under the law.Here is something from an editorial I found on the Huffington Post. I don't swear to its accuracy, but until I get some time to read the statutes, or hear another argument this at least seems to be correct.Foreigners Can Tweet About U.S. Politics. They Just Can't Buy Ads To Promote A Candidate. | HuffPost Latest News

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WASHINGTON ― The 13 Russian nationals indicted by a federal grand jury Friday were not charged simply because they are foreigners suspected of interfering in a U.S. presidential campaign. They were charged because they, and the companies employing them, paid for propaganda to interfere in the election.

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It is not illegal for a foreign national to voice an opinion on U.S. politics or candidates. If you aren’t a U.S. citizen and you want to tell your Twitter fam ― whether that’s 342 followers or 10,000 ― that people shouldn’t vote for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, that’s cool. You can even volunteer in real life if you want. It is, however, not cool if you spend money to promote that message through advertising on a digital platform.

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I had thought that our laws were more strict than that, but according to this, it is the paid advertisements, and not the posts, that are the problem.

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In the indictment, special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating whether the Trump campaign conspired with the Russian government to influence the 2016 election, presented only paid digital advertisements that could be read as explicitly for or against a candidate. Many other advertisements, tweets and posts by the fake social media accounts, even those that may positively or negatively portray a candidate, would not implicate campaign finance laws.

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In short, this is all about the money and who was involved with the use of Russian money to influence the election. This part of the indictment is not about the dirt on Hilary or its source.If this were all that Mueller had, then Trump would have something to celebrate, if it were not for his ego. Trump is not going to admit any possibility that his win last November was potential a favor for Russia. That might mean that he is unlikely to be onboard with tightening up the administration of elections until he is absolutely forced to do so.But there is the possibility that there is more to things than this. If there is more, then releasing this part of things would be a masterful way of handling the investigation. Let's see what happens.

However popular this view might be, even if it is correct, it is completely Americ-centric. We should not expect this view to be what other countries, including the ones friendly to the US, hold as true. It certainly is not the view that our adversaries and competitors would logically hold.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Admittedly this is a detractor's post, and I imagine it can be attacked on that basis. I am sure that Trump's fans would let something like this go, but the optics are terrible.Trump visits Florida after the latest school shooting. That was the right thing to do, but will Trump once again be photographed throwing paper towels to flood victims across the room. Of course!!How does Trump show solidarity with shooting survivors? With a big "Thumbs UP mission accomplished" photo. Because that's how the most presidential man since Abraham Lincoln rolls. Edited by Admin, : Fix image.

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Failing to register as foreign agents, and then with the Attorney General, but engaged in political activity anyway, i.e., seeking to defraud the US by interfering in the 2016 election.
Filing visa applications using false information so as to enter the US to collect intelligence for their election interference efforts.
Engaging in aggravated identity theft.
Engaging in wire fraud.
Engaging in fraud and deceit to hide their illegal activities.

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I did not focus on those charges for reasons I already have given but will repeat here. I am trying to focus on the activities that would are likely to include Americans, and in particular Americans close to Trump.I suppose it is possible that Americans helped the Russians enter the country illegally or helped them money launder, but a huge amount of the actual activity appears to have been performed remotely.But hey, maybe some Trump folks other than the folks currently named were involved with money laundering and identity fraud, illegally sneaking into the country. I see no reason to believe that yet.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

So far, the Whitehouse has offered no credible reason why the retained, and even considered promoting Rob Porter despite Porter being unable to obtain a security for a year. The White House has responded to the FBIs claim that they sent interim and complete reports to the White House starting early last year, by indicating that there was some process wherein some staff career people were required to review the reports before Kelly and the other members of the administration could take action.Of course, those claims indicate a tremendous lack of judgment on the part of at least Porter's bosses, but apparently, the administration is going to stick with that excuse. They are now making noises about reforming what would have been a criminally deficient policy if it were actually the real policy.http://thehill.com/...white-house-security-clearance-process

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The changes include calling on the FBI to specifically brief the White House counsel on any potential concerns flagged in a background check; aiming for the FBI to bring any problematic findings to the White House within two days from discovery; limiting new interim clearances to a maximum of 270 days; and cutting off certain clearances for employees whose clearance investigations have been pending since before June 1, 2017.

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Let's recognize that the FBI's detailed report had been in the White House for months and that none of the updates that the FBI provided made things more rosy for Porter. Let's also note that the length of time Porter stayed at the office after the initial report was completely in the hands of the White House.

If it came to this, an unimpeached Trump would be an extremely weak, and probably, extremely unpopular leader. So weak, in fact, that Republican's might find that supporting him creates liabilities for their own position. That liability and only that liability is what would lead to Trump or any other president being convicted in the Senate by his own party. Impeachment proceedings are always just as much about politics as they are about high crimes and misdemeanors.

In a series of tweets, Trump tells anyone who will listen that Mueller has proven that the Russian interference did not affect the outcome of the election.

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In a string of tweets Saturday, President Donald Trump said that, despite the newly announced charges, the Russian meddling had no effect on the outcome of the election.

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" 'Charges Deal Don A Big Win,' written by Michael Goodwin of the @nypost, succinctly states that 'the Russians had no impact on the election results."

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Of course, the problem with these assertions is that an investigation into criminal activities can never establish this. In fact, just as it is impossible for Clinton to claim she would have won, it is equally impossible to establish that the Russians had zero impact on the election results. And that is all any has said about the charges.We are not talking about a subtle point here. We are simply talking about what is possible to find out from an indictment of Russians for spending millions of dollars per week on negative advertisements and twitter campaigns. Noone will ever be able to do more than make intelligent or not so intelligent assessments and guesses about what occurred.Trump's apparent loss of ability to reason has a simple origin. He simply cannot accept any possibility that his win is not exactly what it appears. And now that it is impossible to continue to deny interference from Russia, and not from 400-pound American operating from his couch, Trump is reduced to posting irrational and unsupported claims.Trump is still president. There is no mechanism under which there will be a do-over, nor should there be any such thing. But we cannot allow this kind of interference to happen again. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

I suppose that if the success rate is as high as you say, then Trump perhaps continuing distributing the garbage is the right plan if the facts are uncomfortable.Otherwise, the only viable interpretation of the contents Trump's twittering is that the man has lost his marbles.Edited by NoNukes, : add second option.

I do not expect that. Trump has been lambasting the FBI from almost the beginning of his presidency. Trump cannot, and will not let this go. And the FBI is a convenient target right now. A good chunk of the population is ready to blame them for the latest school shooting and for Republicans, well, they need some cover so that they don't appear to be NRA lackeys, so they may be willing to go with the idea that killing the investigation on Trump can be pushed as a gun violence solution.

I would not judge all conservative thought by what I read in a National Review editorial. It is not that the National Review is never a source of mainstream conservative news. However, it is the case that the editorials can run off into some pretty extreme thinking. We will learn more in this editorial about Andrew McCarthy than we will learn about the subject matter.Try reading some of his editorials on Hilary Clinton, who by now is the most investigated person on earth, and see if you can find any balance whatsoever in his comments.Or maybe his book The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America might be a better testimony to the crap this mind writes. Or perhaps Faithless Execution: Building the Political Case for Obama's Impeachment is a better indication...I know we want to provide a complete picture of political opinion, but it is possible to be a very committed and rabid wingnut, and still be on the left side of this dude.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

I've got a couple of guesses. Mueller is making no assumptions about where things will go, so he is following the money. Unlike the assumptions that Republicans might make, and Democrats might wish for, Muller isn't out to indict Trump's associates. He is following the evidence just as he should be. My guess is that this is the low hanging fruit. Things will get a little more heated when he indicts folks he can actually grab and get to talk, and surely that is coming.Secondly, these indictments might get Trump and others off of his case. Mueller is definitely onto something really big and he is getting results that even staunch Trump supporters would have trouble dismissing. Mueller's results are helping to save his job.From a political standpoint, it is also getting harder and harder for Trump to ignore the sanctions passed by Congress and at some point perhaps Congress will do something about that.I am not going to speculate on who is "riding dirty" and what Americans will be caught up in this. But I'm pretty well pleased with what I see Mueller doing so far. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Actually, absent a bit more, this looks like a plot[1] to collude because apparently there was no actual dirt or a furthering of a plot to get dirt, at least that is according to what we've been told about that meeting.Apparently, though, some pretty substantial Russian interests were discussed at the meeting. This was certainly the opportunity for some line crossing if the attendees had any actual way to get the administration to do what the Russians asked. Right now we don't know if an actual plan or agreement was made at that meeting. What we can say is that no patriotic American had any business being in that room unless they were wearing a wire for the FBI. On the other hand, it appears that there were some very patriotic Russians in the room.[1] deliberately using some other word that conspiracy, because there is enough confusion caused by the mixing of legal and colloquial usages of the word.

Where is the illegality? Releasing dirt is not illegal. If the dirt was illegally obtained, then you'd have something... on the Russians. But where is the American participation in an illegal activity? Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.