Earl (01-11-2019)
I've carved the answer on your fucking forehead.......not sure what else I can do to satisfy you.......the answer is 1) there has been no collusion under the definition you claim to use......2) even if there was, collusion is not a crime for which the president can be impeached and 3) every other lib'rul has given up hope on "collusion" and has moved on the money laundering, another loser fantasy........
Earl (01-11-2019)
Darth Omar (01-10-2019), Earl (01-11-2019)
Earl (01-11-2019)
Earl (01-11-2019)
Earl (01-11-2019)
You really believe that? Wow. It was never adoption unless Putin adopted Trump. That makes sense.
You do know that Trump's people, Manafort for one, provided Ukraine with polling data . That allows them to zero in on those most likely to buy right wing/Russian propaganda like you did. Yep, they were colluding with Russians. Call it conspiring if it allows you to sleep better. But they may be in deep orange shit.
Earl (01-11-2019)
I think it was Dershowitz who coined the phrase ‘collusion may be a sin but it’s not a crime’ lol.
Assuming, that actually happened, Ukrainians aren’t Russians. Even if it involved Russians, it’s an instance of Manafort sharing intellectual property [in the form of polling data] with foreigners. Unless Manafort came by it dishonestly, I can’t imagine what the crime would be.
Here’s the News Flash: countries meddling in other country’s elections has been going on as long as there have been elections. And your own country is one of the worst offenders.
Also, from a practical standpoint what use would it be anyway? Trying to affect an electoral outcome from Ukraine or Russia would be The Mother of Fool’s Errands. Social media is a veritable sea of misinformation—*without the Russians*.
The Russians aren’t stupid—they know this as well as anyone. You might note they didn’t exactly put a lot of money into it.
The Trump Tower meeting is more fertile ground for potential collusion but none of the facts help your case. Had Junior paid money for *illegally acquired* information on Hillary [and I’m pretty sure Junior would have to know it was illegally acquired] they could nail him for possession of stolen [intellectual] property. Or if Junior knowingly bought classified information from Russians, that would be a crime.
But merely showing up to hear what a Russian has to say about Hillary Clinton is not a crime. It just isn’t.
Coup has started. First of many steps. Impeachment will follow ultimately~WB attorney Mark Zaid, January 2017
Earl (01-11-2019)
Earl (01-11-2019)
Obviously not. The idea that information has value is an age-old one that is firmly established in the law. It is, for example, the basis for claiming damages in any number of contractual arrangements. The slippery slope here is the one you're headed down when, for the sake of defending the Trump administration, you want to assert the existence of an invisible clause in campaign finance law that says that a thing of value cannot include valuable information. If we go down that slope then, as I've explained, you may as well not have such laws, since anyone can then spend any amount on any campaign, so long as the services provided are confined to information services.
That depends entirely on the context, obviously. If it's an ordinary exchange of information where the campaign is just asking questions to gather information as ordinarily happens, then it would not be a violation, since it then isn't a donation to the campaign. But picture if, instead, Mexican agents were to contact a Democratic campaign and offer to meet with the Clinton campaign in order to provide valuable information from cyber-espionage, damaging to Donald Trump, expressly as part of the Mexican government's efforts to get Clinton elected. What if the Clinton people were so lacking in patriotism that rather than report that to the FBI, they agreed to the meeting, so they could solicit that valuable donation. Would that be a campaign finance violation? Of course it would.Say a Dreamer shares ‘valuable information’ about the border with a democrat during a campaign. Are you prepared to prosecute the democrat for a campaign violation? Somehow, I think not.
Yes, and information has value, too. Companies spend billions of dollars on R&D for example, where the only product is information. Often the investment dwarfs the cost of buying a whole fleet of planes. But you want to assign the value of $0 to that information.... not because it is remotely sane to do so, but because you think that's the path to excusing the Trump campaign's conduct.And your private plane analogy is amiss: planes have an obvious value as transportation
EXACTLY! In the same way, being offered stolen goods is not a crime, but conspiring to receive stolen goods is. If someone offers to sell you something you know they have no legal right to sell you, and you go to the cops about it, you're simply doing your civic duty. If, instead, you agree to meet with them to arrange for the transfer of the goods, you're committing a felony. What Trump Jr. (and Kushner and Manafort) did was equivalent to arranging to meet with a fence to take possession of stolen goods.In fact, had Junior gone straight to the FBI with it—they would have thanked him and not charged him with anything.
As you know, you will say every single criminal act by Trump in his campaign is a "nothing burger," no matter what, because that's the exact point handed down by the conservative apparatchiks. Let me guess: Trump's conspiracy to pay off Stephanie Clifford and the other sex worker, to protect his campaign, without disclosure (in contravention of campaign finance law) was also a "nothing burger," right?The Trump Tower meeting is a Nothing Burger.
Earl (01-11-2019)
CharacterAssassin (01-11-2019)
No. As you're aware (and as everyone who has read the exchange is aware), you've dodged the question every single time and continue to do so.
So, what definition of collusion are you using to say there wasn't collusion? Maybe this time you'll find your courage. Somehow, I doubt it.
Earl (01-11-2019)
CharacterAssassin (01-11-2019)
Earl (01-11-2019)
I knew you’d make an excuse for the Dreamer lol.
Just like you’ll make excuses for the DNC *actually paying for Russian info and actually using it* against Trump. I’ve heard them all so I won’t bother with it.
Junior obtained no information so you’re trying to assign value to something that doesn’t even exist. Also, even granting merit to your *specious* information argument, no one, but Junior Trump, knew what he was going to do with the information assuming he acquired any.
And you just conceded everything would have been fine had he gone to the authorities with it. Your task would be to convince a jury you could read the future and/Junior’s mind.
Good luck with that.
Coup has started. First of many steps. Impeachment will follow ultimately~WB attorney Mark Zaid, January 2017
Earl (01-11-2019)
It wasn't an excuse -- I was pointing out the ways that your hypothetical varied from what we're discussing.
What's funny about conservatives is how they so often build the defeat of their arguments right into those arguments. OBVIOUSLY, the problem would by if they DIDN'T pay for the valuable information. Then the information would be a campaign donation.Just like you’ll make excuses for the DNC *actually paying for Russian info and actually using it*
Think it through. Let's say there's a law limiting individual contributions to a campaign to $2000 and you're running for office. And say I sell buttons and you pay me $5000 for $5000 worth of campaign buttons. Did I violate the campaign law? Of course not. I was compensated at fair market value for what I sold to the campaign, therefore it wasn't a donation and isn't covered by laws dealing with campaign donations. But say, instead, I handed you $5000 of campaign buttons for free, and even expressly said it was as part of my effort to get you elected. Now, have I violated campaign finance law? Of course I have. It's a donation in kind that exceeds the dollar amount.
And, no, the analysis is no different if it's information. If you offer to pay me $5000 for a report on the social media haunts of undecided voters, so you can target your ads better, and that's a reasonable market rate for that kind of work, then my giving you that information in exchange for the money is not a campaign finance violation, because I've donated nothing. But if I give you a report that would have cost you about $5000 to develop on your own, and I've expressly told you that it's part of my effort to get you elected, and I charge you nothing, then of course it's a campaign finance violation.
Under campaign finance law, he didn't need to. He merely needed to solicit it. As soon as he agreed to a meeting to get that valuable donation of information, he committed a crime.Junior obtained no information
It doesn't need to exist for soliciting it to be against the law. If I'm a campaign manager and I reach out to the Ayatollah and ask for him to organize a massive social media campaign against the opponent, to help my guy get elected, I've broken the law, by soliciting a thing of value from a foreign national for a campaign. It doesn't matter that the social media campaign doesn't exist at the time I solicit it.so you’re trying to assign value to something that doesn’t even exist
He can try to offer the defense that he was just trying to conduct a private sting operation and was going to turn the information over to authorities. In the same sense, someone who is arrested soliciting illegal drugs can claim he was just trying to help out authorities and would have turned the drugs in if he'd gotten them. Or a John can claim that when he picked up a hooker he was planning to take her back to his hotel room to try to explain to her the error of her ways. A jury is welcome to consider that and decide if it's plausible. But step one is indictment, and it should be the same with Trump Jr., Kushner, and Manafort. Considering soliciting the information, itself, was a crime, with no need to prove what the person intended to do with it, you'd be hard pressed to convince a jury to nullify the law in that case.Also, even granting merit to your *specious* information argument, no one, but Junior Trump, knew what he was going to do with the information assuming he acquired any.
Earl (01-11-2019)
domer76 (01-11-2019)
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