US Politics Mega-thread - Page 9062

On October 26 2017 10:30 Tachion wrote:
That doesn't even make any sense. How would that flip the Russia/Trump collusion narrative when they're not even related? Did Hillary sell uranium ore to Russia to help fund the hacks and ads against her campaign?

On October 26 2017 10:36 Plansix wrote:
Yeah, I'm not seeing it either. I want to know why this guy was under a gag order for public testimony, but it isn't like the FBI can keep that from ranking members of congress. People in congress knew about this evidence, whatever it is. But there is no script flipping beyond that deal was likely pretty stupid and the Clinton foundation is a garbage pile that shouldn't exist.

Edit: Also, how is this bad for the DNC exactly?

On October 26 2017 10:43 Plansix wrote:
Paul Manafort and Mike Flynn exists and are two of the dumbest humans alive. I'm not sure this theory that the collusion narrative is made up can cover for all the smoke surrounding those two.

On October 26 2017 10:47 Mohdoo wrote:


Yeah, I bet the Clintons framed Flynn and Manaford, right? lmao, I can't even believe the idea of this all being manufactured is even being thrown around. They have been shown to be so insanely guilty.

On October 26 2017 10:43 Introvert wrote:

I thought part of the story was that then FBI director Mueller didn't tell Congress at the time.

On October 26 2017 10:53 xDaunt wrote:

I'm not sure that this is strictly an "either/or" proposition.

On October 26 2017 10:53 xDaunt wrote:

I'm not sure that this is strictly an "either/or" proposition.

On October 26 2017 10:55 Nevuk wrote:
If both Clinton and Trump go down for conspiring with Russians I'm not sure anything would be lost

On October 26 2017 11:05 xDaunt wrote:
When I talked about flipping the script, I was referring to the Trump/Russia collusion narrative -- ie that Trump did something wrong. I think that Manafort and Flynn can go down without Trump being affected. Manafort looks particularly dirty, but, again, we'll have to wait and see what the actual evidence is and whether charges are brought.

On October 26 2017 10:41 xDaunt wrote:

The working theory is that the Russia/Trump collusion narrative was manufactured out of whole cloth to cover for some actual impropriety that the Clintons and others engaged in with the Uranium One deal (and potentially others).

On October 26 2017 11:11 Mohdoo wrote:


Gotcha. I thought when you said



that you meant that accusations against the Trump campaign/administration are made up in some way.

As we explained in our story at the time, Clinton was one of nine government officials to make up the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States, which is required by law to investigate all U.S. transactions that involve a company owned or controlled by a foreign government. Committee members include the secretaries of the Treasury, Defense, Homeland Security, Commerce and Energy, the attorney general, and representatives from two White House offices — the United States Trade Representative and the Office of Science and Technology Policy.
The committee can’t actually stop a sale from going through — it can only approve a sale. The president is the only one who can stop a sale, if the committee or any one member “recommends suspension or prohibition of the transaction,” according to guidelines issued by the Treasury Department in December 2008 after the department adopted its final rule a month earlier.
So, Clinton could have objected — as could the eight other voting members — but that objection alone wouldn’t have stopped the sale of the stake of Uranium One to Rosatom. “Only the President has the authority to suspend or prohibit a covered transaction,” the federal guidelines say.
And the president would need to have “credible evidence,” the guidelines say, that the “foreign interest exercising control might take action that threatens to impair the national security.” In 2010, when the deal was finalized, “the geopolitical backdrop was far different from today’s,” the Times notes, as the U.S. wanted to “reset” relations with Russia.
We don’t know much about the approval of the deal from the Committee on Foreign Investments, which goes by the acronym CFIUS. There are “strong confidentiality requirements” prohibiting disclosure of information filed with the committee, and it doesn’t disclose the results of its review, the Treasury Department says on its website. But we should have known if even one of the voting members objected to the Uranium One deal. “When a transaction is referred to the President, however, the decision of the President is announced publicly,” Treasury says.
It’s unclear whether Clinton herself was involved in the CFIUS approval. According to the Times, Jose Fernandez, a former assistant secretary of state, represented the department on the committee. He told the Times: “Mrs. Clinton never intervened with me on any C.F.I.U.S. matter.”
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission also had to approve — and did — the transfer of two uranium recovery licenses in Wyoming from Uranium One to the Russian company.
As the Times wrote, there are certainly ethical considerations when a former president is accepting foundation donations from people who have a stake in a business deal and his spouse sits on a committee that approves such deals. But Hillary Clinton wasn’t responsible for “hand[ing] over American uranium rights to the Russians,” as the Trump ad claims. The Uranium One deal passed muster with nine members of the foreign investments committee, the president and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The author of a book alleging some Clinton Foundation donors received favorable treatment while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state said Sunday that he did not have "direct evidence" of any impropriety, but argued the "pattern of behavior" required an investigation into Clinton's record.

The undercover witness, who has not been publicly identified, spent nearly five years helping agents build a case that resulted in one of Russia's top nuclear industry officials in the United States, a Russian financier and an American trucking executive to plead guilty in 2015 to charges related to a racketeering scheme that prosecutors said involved bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering.

On October 26 2017 11:36 Plansix wrote:
So they bribe one of the 9 members to recommend the deal? A deal that can only be killed by credible evidence? Seem like a pretty bad plan.