US Politics Mega-thread - Page 8064

If he got no info, how could that have changed the election? Does anyone think that wikileaks, as an example, was going to sit on what they had unless Trump gave them the ok?

Trump is indeed a narcissist and cares about image, but I don't see him as a control freak, at least not the kind that micromanages everything. I thought that statement by itself was uncontroversial.

On July 12 2017 12:06 m4ini wrote:


Since when are we taking the statement of someone who literally JUST outed himself as blatant liar for more than a year as a fact? It's the guy who just got caught lying (and make no mistake, we all know why he released this now - "coming clean" has nothing to do with it) telling you that obviously nothing came from it. Like, seriously?


http://dictionary.cambridge.org/de/worterbuch/englisch/control-freak

That's what i had in mind with control freak. Btw, i don't mean to come off as aggressive.

Sidenote, this has another complication too. It condones foreign governments meddling in your election. This is literally a foreign government fucking with your general election, and the winner knew of it plus didn't give a shit. That's a rather dangerous precedent and quite the hit to actual independent democratic processes.

On July 12 2017 12:30 m4ini wrote:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/11/us/politics/russia-trump.html

Wouldn't call it confirmed yet, at least i didn't see a source mentioned (didn't read it all).

Certainly would believe it though.

The emails were discovered in recent weeks by Mr. Kushner’s legal team as it reviewed documents, and the team amended his clearance forms to disclose it, according to people briefed on the developments, who like others declined to be identified because of the sensitive political and legal issues involved.

On July 12 2017 12:31 Introvert wrote:


I used the word "if" right in the first line you quoted.

And that definition doesn't strike me as being exactly the same, but to avoid being obnoxious I will reiterate that I don't think Trump cares about details. It will be impossible to tell whether or not Trump knows anyways, unless he's started emailing. Not like Don Jr. is gonna give it up.

And I said what they did was wrong, I don't condone meddling in our elections.

On July 12 2017 12:38 m4ini wrote:


Mhm.. Guess i misunderstood then.

But humour me.

What "if" he did get info?

In regards to Trump knowing, if the pressure rises, i'm pretty sure we'll read some retarded tweets in the lines of "Hillary lost anyway, so who cares if i knew or not #fakenews". It's not like that didn't happen before.

On July 12 2017 12:52 Plansix wrote:
Jr. said tonight that he didn't know getting help from the Russians was wrong.

“Frequently, people who go along a treasonous path do not know they are on a treasonous path until it is too late.” -John Brennan on 5/23/17

I think that we all knew that eventually we would reach "I didn't know I wasn't allowed to conspire with a foreign power to help me win the election".

On July 12 2017 12:57 m4ini wrote:


Ignorance is no excuse in law (the german meaning is slightly different, along the lines "stupidity doesn't protect from punishment")



As a normal person, i can't be the only one being blown away by this reasoning.

On July 12 2017 10:36 ChristianS wrote:
I think it's too early to know what this story means for something like impeachment. But the significance is already potentially huge. The immediate significance is historical: our understanding of what happened in the 2016 election is still evolving. The faults of the Democrats in 2016 are many and have been amply chronicled here and elsewhere. A historically disliked candidate, a lack of a coherent positive message, repeated fumbling of political fiascos that shouldn't have happened in the first place, etc. etc. Of course the liberals are quick to point out there were other factors beyond the Dems' control, such as Wikileaks, Comey, the popular vote, etc. But if someone asked how Donald Trump became president, the short answer would likely be something like "An extremely mismanaged opposition, plus some very good luck for Trump." At least, that would have been the answer a week ago.

Think just how much it changes that story if even with all that going for him, he still had to cheat to win. And to be clear, if that's what happened that was cheating. Again, I'm not talking in terms of what he might or might not get convicted for. It's not really about the specific text of criminal statutes or whether the burden of proof has been met. Prior to this story dropping there seemed to be a prevailing understanding among Americans that it would be wrong for an American candidate for president to accept the illegally obtained aid of a foreign power in order to win the election. And prior to this story dropping, it seemed like that hadn't happened – Russia had intervened, sure, but there wasn't evidence that Trump's campaign had worked with the Russians to obtain the information, strategize about when/how to release it for maximum impact, etc. This time last week if someone answered "how did Trump get elected" with "A mismanaged campaign from the Dems, plus Trump worked with a rival power to swing the election," you would figure you were in a crazy left conspiracy corner of the internet. Now that seems like the most likely interpretation of the facts (albeit not yet totally proven).

The implications of this are potentially wide-reaching, too. If the collusion becomes very clear and explicit in the coming weeks, it could exonerate Hillary somewhat in 2020 (sorry GH sorry America), considering her main crime in most people's minds is losing to Donald Trump. If he cheated to win, she comes out looking a lot less bad. In terms of its impact on Trump, even if we take impeachment off the table it deeply undermines the legitimacy of his administration. Every time someone said "he won fair and square, let's give him a chance" or "like it or not, he's our President and we should stand by him" or "the Dems are just mad they lost an election they should have won" that argument was based on a certain sense of legitimacy from a free and fair election. Trump can avoid impeachment and pardon every underling implicated, but losing the perceived virtue associated with winning an election would still be a huge blow.

If the story stops with just this set of emails from Donald Trump Jr, I think it'll make Trump take a hit in popularity for a bit, Democrats will have more ammo to push the Russia narrative which will hurt him in a more prolonged way, but otherwise it will mostly be a historical footnote – it'll change the way historians answer the question "how did Trump get elected" but it won't have a massive impact on Trump's term. That said, it seems likely there will be more after this, if only because members of the Trump team would have had to leak this and an obvious motivation would be to get out ahead of something bigger. Another way to think of it: we've seen here that the Russians were eager to make contact with the Trump campaign, and we've also seen evidence that the Trump campaign was happy enough to do so as well. There's also been no evidence that the Trump campaign later had a change of heart and didn't want to work with the Russians (and if that evidence existed, they would likely have offered it to exonerate themselves). So even if we believe Don Jr. that this particular meeting didn't lead to actual collusion, why on earth would we think this was the last attempt?

I guess if there was one question I would have for xDaunt, it would be this: forget the legal question of whether a crime was committed, or whether there's enough evidence for a conviction. If the Trump campaign worked with Russia to disperse illegally obtained information in order to swing the election, do you think that's wrong? Do you think that's something American political candidates should do?

On July 12 2017 09:32 Nevuk wrote:
Not entirely. Reagan's Iran Contra deal where he negotiated to have the hostages held until after the election was similar in some ways

On July 12 2017 11:54 Nevuk wrote:

That narrative is literally Donald Jr.s excuse as to why it was no big deal