Summations Only

Actually, I don't have a problem with this. If my campaign hires your investigative services to dig up dirt on Mike it shouldn't matter if you're Mexican. Reprehensible, for sure. Not illegal.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

I don't think Steele was retained by Fusion GPS until the Clinton campaign hired them after the Beacon ceased employing their services.--Percy

About a month later. Why is that important?

Yes, as you said, she paid for the Steele dossier. You put it like this;

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Hillary's campaign paid (in part) for the Steele dossier. A normal commercial transaction that all campaigns do. Some or all of it coming from foreign entities is no problem.

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So then to answer the Stephanopoulos question properly, Trump should have said, (when asked if he would accept dirt on a political opponent from a foreign entity) "hey, I'd PAY for dirt on a political opponent from a foreign entity", and that would have made all the Democrats happy? No negative reporting on him if he'd said that? Do you think that's why CNN's ratings have dropped 26% so far this year? And Fox's have risen at least 11%?

You have defeated me!! I'm not going to play your dishonest little bait games.

You got it. That would be no problem.ABE: Some liberals might not understand, burt those whose jobs it is to understand (the media) would. Ratings aren't an appropriate measure. Polls are the best we have. President Trump daily job approval for June 11, 2019: ABE 2: Edited by JonF, : No reason given.Edited by JonF, : No reason given.

Maybe I should have quoted the exact portion of your Message 2910 that I was replying to:' Steele wasn't employed by Fusion GPS until after the Beacon ceased engaging their services. The Beacon didn't fund any of the Steele dossier.--Percy

If a foreign entity called Trump and offered him dirt on a political opponent (which was Stephanopoulos's question), and he accepted (which was Trump's answer), then that's unethical and illegal. If in addition Trump also offered to pay them for it, that's even worse.Trump also has this confusion that the nature of the information is a factor. He later modified his answer and said he'd look at the information and if it was bad then he might call the FBI. It doesn't matter if the information was good or bad (what does that even mean?). Accepting information from a foreign entity is illegal.Certainly there are many nuances. If a political candidate runs into a Russian embassy official at a state dinner and the official says, "You might want to look into the finances of so-and-so," the candidate should probably steer the conversation to other topics and the FBI should probably be notified, though one could probably argue whether this is serious enough to notify the FBI.But if Russians contact you and offer you dirt on a political opponent and you replied, "I love it!" and took the meeting and didn't notify the FBI then you're behaving unethically and possibly criminally. If you meet with a Russian with ties to Russian intelligence and provide them polling data so that they could potentially use (and likely did use) to inform their social media misinformation efforts, then you're again behaving unethically and possibly criminally.For you what seems to matter most is who did it rather than what was done. Unethical and criminal behavior should be condemned no matter who does it. I was one of the first to insist that Al Franken should resign after information about his sexually questionable conduct became public, so I'm on record as not letting my like/dislike for a person influence me. You're on record as defending those you like no matter what they've done. In fact, you seem incapable of seeing any wrongdoing by someone you like. You could use a little objectivity. You're judging truth/falsity based upon TV channel ratings? Shouldn't you be judging the evidence on its merits?I expect Fox News ratings to continue strong as long as they continue selling tall tales, conspiracy theories and white supremacy. Compared to all that drama, straight news is boring.--Percy

I'm again going to suggest that you should focus on facts. If you have factual information about "foreign dealings" of the Clinton campaign then you should describe it. Factual information generally comes from news stories and programs. On Fox News that would be Shepard Smith (3 PM), not entertainment programs like Fox & Friends, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Jeanine Pirro.--Percy

Marc's gonna rightly jump on that.A campaign accepting a donation of information of value from a foreign entity is illegal.A campaign paying for information of value from a foreign entity is not prima facie illegal and is usually legal. If a foreign agent offered information of value, a campaign accepted it, and later paid the agent that might well be illegal. Contracting a foreign agent to provide information of value in the future for agreed-upon market value compensation is definitely legal. Even if (as in Hillary's case) there's a third party who holds the contract and decides to hire a foreign agent to collect the information.See the second part of Message 2910.

You've pulled out the last sentence of a couple paragraphs clearly about Trump's answer to Stephanopoulos's question about whether he'd accept offers of foreign help in his campaign. The first paragraph setting of the context begins, "If a foreign entity called Trump and offered him dirt on a political opponent (which was Stephanopoulos's question)..." The context seems pretty clear.So if Marc does jump on that sentence then I think he's jumping out of context. If even in context I wasn't sufficiently clear then I'll rephrase: "Accepting donations of information from a foreign entity is illegal." Agreed, and I've made a parallel argument, that it's impossible to investigate a candidate's dealings with foreign entities without involving foreigners, so of course it's legitimate. The Clinton campaign didn't end up using anything from the Steele dossier, but had Steele uncovered clear evidence that Trump representatives were working on a Trump Tower deal in Moscow while Trump was denying any Russia dealings at home, the Clinton campaign would undoubtedly have used it.--Percy

Yeah, no creationist would think of quote-mining that. ;-) Edited by JonF, : No reason given.

Trump didn't say "he'd accept", he only said he'd listen, and I think there's a difference. It's a new day in America when a president says he'd respond to something by "listening" to it, and gets wildly attacked by the press. In addition to losing freedom of speech, it looks like freedom to listen could also be coming under attack. He's still learning, understandably, about the intensity of the hate against him, and how he needs to be on his guard more in quickly answering loaded questions. Agreed, but it makes one wonder how many dinners Hillary attended when she was Secretary of State, and how many suggestions she had to look into things from heads of socialist and communist nations, who agree with her on many things. How many times she called the FBI about it, and how diligently the news media focused on it. It seems to be taken as a given that Russia preferred Trump to be president over Hillary. I've never seen it made very clear, just why a socialist / communist nation like Russia would favor a free market capitalist like Trump over a socialist, big government advocate like Hillary. Unless they have a "D" behind their name. All the sensationalism, all the wasted time, all the confusion created by the phony Steele dossier wasn't condemned by the mainstream media to anywhere near the frenzy that two words from Trump; "I'd listen" did. "On record"? What record is that? I voted against Mitch McConnel in his last election. I supported the Obama administration action that took out Osama Bin-Laden. Have you ever had anything good to say about Trump at all? I'm not using ratings to judge what the truth is or is not, I'm using them to gauge how the general public is likely to vote in the next election. Straight news from CNN, white supremacy from Fox News? Okay, not much to discuss there.

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Later, in April 2016, Marc Elias ” a top Democratic campaign lawyer ” retained Fusion GPS through his firm of Perkins Coie on behalf of both Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign...

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(bolded mine)Christopher Steele’s dossier on Trump and Russia, explained - Vox

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But the overwhelming response from top Republican lackeys has been to, what else, point the finger at Hillary Clinton.

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Republicans Defend Trump’s Election Interference Comments by … Blaming Hillary Clinton – Rolling StoneBut the political masters at Rolling Stone magazine don't say much about our news media full of Democrat lackeys that have always done their best to cover up Hillary's games with foreign entities.

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It has been determined since the 2016 election that the Clinton campaign and the DNC funded the infamous Steele dossier that relied on intelligence from the Russian government.

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CNN's Chris Cuomo denies Clinton campaign accepted foreign dirt on Trump, says there isn't 'any proof' | Fox Newsagain; I don't understand the purpose of statements like this, and not interested in learning.