(08-06-2018 10:52 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(08-06-2018 10:39 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  [quote='OptimisticOwl' pid='15417177' dateline='1533566927']
Russia and Steele were not in in parallel positions. Steele is analogous to Junior - the person hunting for dirt. Russia is the source in both cases.
Except that Steele bought and paid for the Russians' stuff, and Junior rejected it. Steele spent weeks - Junior wasted 15 minutes.

Sure, Russia was motivated to promote their own interests. But there is no evidence the lawyer was an agent of the Russian government. Much more evidence of Russian agents talking to Steele.

Yes, no evidence that the lawyer was an agent, besides, well, her own words:
"Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer who met with top members of the Trump campaign team in June of 2016, has admitted to funneling information to the Kremlin starting in 2013. She had denied any such connection since the discovery of the meeting in July of last year.

The admission came after emails surfaced showing Veselnitskaya working closely with Russian legal authorities. In an interview with NBC News that aired Friday, Veselnitskaya said “I am a lawyer and I am an informant,” and that she has been communicating with Russia’s prosecutor general, Yuri Y. Chaika, since 2013.

http://fortune.com/2018/04/28/veselnitsk...lin-agent/

Quote:The truth seems to be that Russia just wanted to , an objective they are meeting quite well with the aid of the Mueller investigation and its proponents, thank you very much.

Possible collusion? You have gone daft again. How many quid pro quos do you think were offered, negotiated, and exchanged in a surprise 15 minute meeting under false pretenses? If anybody was going to exchange quid pro quos, it would be Steele, who went to Russia as an emissary of Clinton, and had all the time and money in the world. In fact he did exchange quid pro quos, at least in the form of money. You must be a whiz at making deals. Want to buy a used car? We can get this done quickly. You don't even need to see the car.[\quote]

Your entire premise is built on the idea that the meeting was short and unproductive, which we are only hearing about through Trump Jr. As I've mentioned before, the Trump's have lied about this meeting multiple times - something you seem to be in disbelief about.

After the NYTimes broke the story on July 8, Trump Jr. release this statement on the same day: It was a short introductory meeting. I asked Jared (Kushner) and Paul (Manafort) to stop by. We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at the time and there was no follow up.

A day later, Trump Jr. changed his tune and released this statement: After pleasantries were exchanged the woman stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Mrs. Clinton. Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information. She then changed subjects and began discussing the adoption of Russian children and mentioned the Magnitsky Act. It became clear to me that this was the true agenda all along and that the claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting.

A day later the tune changed, and Trump Jr.s attorney said that Jr. was email ahead of time about information on Hillary.

A day later Trump Jr. then released his email exchanges, where it shows that he was excited by the prospect of receiving opposition research on Clinton.

A few days later, Jay Sekulow told CNN that Trump was not involved with drafting Jr's statement on July 8.

About 2 weeks later, the WH admits that Trump had helped draft the initial statement.

So in this time frame we have Trump Jr lying about what the initial meeting was about and the WH lying about their involvement with that initial attempted coverup. The WH is still saying Trump didn't know about the meeting, but that facade will certainly come down still, especially since Trump was bragging about having information about Hillary that would change the election, a day or two before the meeting was to happen (but after the emails setting up the meeting had been sent).

Quote:Instead of yapping about vague "ulterior" motives, tell us what you think they were. I think Junior's motive was to help his dad by getting some dirt on Hillary. who knows? Maybe he thought the lawyer had knowledge of the Benghazi cover up. That would be explosive in the campaign. But it turned out to be crap, he dismissed her, and it was over in a quarter hour. You are making up crap like a jealous husband. "You spent 15 MINUTES alone with that man. How many times did you have sex? When are you meeting him again?" It is disappointing to see you reaching so far for so little.

Russia may, or may not, have wanted Trump to win, or they may, or may not have, wanted Clinton to lose. They damn sure have gotten precious little from Trump, and probably would have done better with Hillary "reset button" Clinton. But if the motivation was to sow distrust in our system, the Mueller investigation is the gift that just keeps on giving.

The TT meeting was nothing. The solicitation and compilation of the Steele dossier was something. Your insistence that those roles are reversed says nothing good about you, Lad.

I haven't been vague about the ulterior motives. Russia was motivated to help Trump in order to get what they wanted - I listed three very ulterior motives earlier. The Trump campaign had no ulterior motives - they just wanted to help Trump win and were willing to (based on what is public) at least entertain assistance by a hostile, foreign power.

I'm not reaching very far, over so little - I'm providing you with reasons as to why I believe the Mueller probe into the campaign is warranted. You just refuse to accept the rationale I provide and delusionally dismiss it as nothing.

And to the bold, are you serious? Our intelligence community and ol' Putin himself have said Russia wanted Trump to win. It makes way more sense for them to have wanted him to win than Clinton - why even try and suggest otherwise? By what logic would Russia have wanted Clinton (not Sanders, not the Dems, Clinton specifically) to win?

And OO, you're insistence that there is absolutely no evidence to support the Mueller probe, or that there was absolutely nothing wrong with willingly accepting a meeting with Russian officials offering dirt on an opponent, or that there's no reasonable rationale for potential collusion between the campaign and Russia, says nothing good about you.

It says I have common sense.

Your scenario is that Junior willingly accepted a meeting with Russian officials is based on one thing - that she represented herself as a Russian "official" to get the meeting(she did not), and then she walked in and Said, hello, I am __________ and I represent Putin, and here is what he is offering (no dirt) in exchange for him to publish some stolen emails that contain nothing incriminating, and Junior said Wow and jumped at the chance, because he is stupid, and made the deal on the spot for his Dad, who considered it binding.

None of that happened.

But poor Steele, who just happened to be vacationing in russia on the clinton dime, with no particular agenda, just had stuff thrust upon him.

any news on the space invaders?

I say the bolded, because it is entirely possible that Putin was more AGAINST Clinton than he was FOR Trump. How would you tell the difference? There is evidence that some of the meddling was for/agasinst both sides.

all that supports the Mueller investigation is conspiracy theories like this.

You're acting as if I'm suggesting we indict Trump Jr based on this - I am not.

I am suggesting that the Mueller investigation is warranted because a Russian agent found a willing target that high up the chain of command inside the Trump campaign.

It is NOT a conspiracy that a Russian operative made inroads with the Trump campaign using potentially damaging information. I personally find an investigation into whether or not there was a meeting where information was exchanged, or a quid pro quo established, based off of that fact alone, appropriate.

That doesn't consider the softening of the Ukraine position by the RNC, at the behest of the Trump campaign. Nor how other campaign officials, like Papadopoulus, were being fed information about the stolen emails and kept attempting to set up a meeting between Trump and Russian officials.

My question for you is, why do you not want an investigation into these Russian actions and whether any campaign officials attempted to conspire with the Russian government to influence the election or public policy? Why do you feel comfortable taking the Trump campaign's word for it, that nothing happened?