(08-05-2018 01:02 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Somebody needs to explain to me why Trump, Jr. actions were a crime and the Clinton Campaign's actions were not.

Trump Jr’s actions that we know of (meeting with a representative of the Russian government offering information on Clinton) were not a crime - and I don’t think I’ve seen a lot of people say that the meeting itself was. The claim I see most frequently is that it’s evidence as to why the ongoing investigation into potential collusion is warranted. Because we know that Trump and Trump Jr. have been willing to lie about the meeting and it’s purposes, so it would behoove our intelligence agencies to dig deeper and see if there is a reason they lied, and if there was more to the meeting, and potential crimes were committed.

To me, the big difference between the two situations is who each person represented. Steele did not represent a foreign government - he was a hired hand who only had his client’s interests (eventually, the DNC) in mind when researching Trump. There’s no evidence of ulterior motive. For Trump Jr, the Russian lawyer was representing the interests of Russia, and there was definitely an ulterior motive. Furthermore, we eventually found out that the material Russia ended up having (and using through Wikileaks) was stolen material - which means a crime was committed to get the information, and it was not provided to Russian hackers willfully. That aspect is pretty much just like Watergate, when information about the DNC was stolen during a break in.